Comparing homeschooling with school

There was a thread on a Yahoo group where a parent was wondering if their kids were "missing out" by not being in school. I thought this response was interesting, and I hope I'm not breaking any laws by copying it here.

This woman had several kids who had been in public school and a "top-notch" private school after being homeschooled.

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My middle child started private school as a 4th grader. Her life long
dream has been to be a teacher and somewhere through the years
homeschooling she had decided that it was inferior. One day she came
home from school and announced that homeschool had been a good thing
after all and that she wasn't behind and hadn't missed anything like
maybe she thought. I had known that was the case but glad to hear it
from her.

My second observation is that on the standardized tests the kids were
required to take each year at the private school my kids scored the
hightest the first year they were there. Their scores dropped steadily
each year.

I too thought my kids would benefit from professional teachers and
professional lesson plans. I definitely noticed that they lacked from
the one on one attention. If they didn't get a concept, too bad, class
moved on. If a concept was too easy, too bad they had to wait and
basically not learn anything until the curric. moved on.

This time we have only been homeschooling 2 weeks, but the girls are
much older. The other day my 2 oldest got into a conversation about
why the homeschool classes go so much faster. They started listing the
classes they had last year and how much time was actually spent on the
lessons. They both agreed that the longest any class was taught was
only 20 to 30 minutes, some classes maybe 10 minutes. This was on a
good day, with no interruptions etc. If you translate that into a
homeschool situation 6 high school subjects could be finished in about
3 hours. An elementary child much faster. They reported that the class
time was spent taking roll, settling everyone down, chasing rabbit
trails (off topic), grading homework etc. (I remember lots of teachers
grading homework in class. It was never your own paper, so you never
learned anything from it. According to my kids this practice is alive
and well.)

Finally the big S -- socialization. My kids had far fewer friends and
social opprotunities at the private school. They were well liked
there, there just weren't opportunities to meet more people. My
youngest who started Kindergarten at the private school is the one who
is least likely to want to be around a new group of people. I told her
she HAD to go to the homeschool co op that starts next week. My oldest
has always been a very quiet kid, she never has a lot to say. She
loves to meet new people and join new activities. She might not talk
much when she gets there, but she is confident, enjoys herself and has
a close circle of friends.

One last side note, since we have been homeschooling again, our family
is much less stressed and the girls are getting along much better.