I worked with many Asian engineers and as far as I can tell, all professional Asian parents “homeschool” their children. As one colleague put it, “Everyone homeschools. Some people do it for a diploma, and some people do it for extra credit.”

This is a good point, because the time spent in instruction is not all the same. For example, in one post you mentioned that your son gets 2 hours of instruction at kindergarten, but you or your nanny spend an hour with him working on math in addition to that. I would say that the hour of one on one time working at his level is probably a more useful hour than the two hours when the teacher is teaching a group of kids, all of whom are at different levels. Not that there isn’t value in the group instruction, but that’s why homeschooling usually doesn’t take as long as group schooling. Rather than sitting around doing busy work waiting for other kids to catch on, my kids only do the work that is at their level. Instead of explaining a math concept five ways to try to reach 20 kids, I explain it until the one kid gets it, and then he practices. Having viewed the scope and sequence documents at lots of schools in our area (I’m always trying to keep options open), I’m satisfied that my kids doing school for 4 hours a day (plus free reading time and family reading time on the side) covers way more than full day schools do.

Anyway, I think you’re right–parents who do a couple of hours of enrichment in addition to a brick and mortar school probably ARE homeschooling in some hybrid fashion.

As for your next work: As a fellow writer and runner and a huge fan of your perspective, I can’t stop thinking about how much fun it would be to read your take on accountability. I realize this is might not be quite like the Beanie Babies, but, still…I had to tell you!

@Cloud- whole host of posts that could be written on school things that are not only inconvenient for working parents, they’re inconvenient for people who have more than one child. I’m thinking I won’t enroll my daughter in a preschool program next fall in part because I can’t deal with three schools and the logistics associated with that (there’s no 2-year-old option at my middle son’s preschool).

@Twin Mom- oddly, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Sowell, and I probably should.

@NicoleandMaggie- I’ll have to check out the school bus and A to z series — we will definitely need to start some new series (plural) soon, if only for my own sanity. But I know that I *devoured* the Babysitters Club and Nancy Drew Files, and Boxcar kids and so forth when I was an early reader so it’s kind of fun to see the same obsessiveness in my kid.

@ARC- I have heard it said that a lot more parents are in fact homeschooling their kids than think of themselves as doing so. If you’re doing an hour or two of instruction per night…that’s a lot. I liked the perspective shift that one of the people I interviewed gave — that all working parents have to figure out childcare, even if their kids are in school. Homeschooling parents have to figure it out a bit more, but it’s a difference of degree. A school year is 1080 hours (6 x 180). A work year is about 2000.

In my ideal world, I could send my kids to “regular school” part time and then homeschool part time. Totally possible with preschool and half day K, but not sure if/how that would work after that.

But I think it sort of depends on how you define “homeschool” as well. I went to traditional school (public and then Catholic) yet my parents had plenty of academic work we did together in the evenings, on weekends and in the summers.