For the parents who could not afford a tutor, there is always an option to help the child yourself, right? That's what you guys (who homeschool) do all the time, isn't it? Also, if it looks like the child needs a tutor in more than one/two classes and is struggling with other classes as well, then tutoring might not work and college might be a better choice for such a student. After all, universities in my home country build on the knowledge learned in school.
I do completely agree that self esteem of students who don't do well in schools is ruined.[/QUOTE]
If you have to tutor, afterschool, and enhance or add to your child's education constantly, why bother with school? My ds was very ahead of his class (even though we did no "enrichment" at home), but was refused any enrichment or advanced program due to his behavior problems. I was expected to continue to teach him at home, while punishing him and disciplining him for what he'd done at school, and he was to continue to go to school, in order to learn "how to behave". What's the point in that?
His behavior problems started and ended at school, the school admitted it was not going to teach him academics, and had gotten to the point of giving up trying to teach him how to write. A team of 12 professionals, $30,000/year public money expenditure on my ds alone, another team of professional outside the school to consult with the school on ds, and they didn't think they could teach him to write? I taught him to write well enough to be understood in about 6 months, not pretty but he can do it.
So, what's the point in school for him? The principal of his school admitted that they had caused more problems than they had solved and encouraged me to homeschool, saying "You'll do a better job than we ever could." So, again, why bother with school at all?
I'm in Canada, a slightly different system than the US, but more similar than it is to Europe. Colleges here are part of Universities, or they are very small universities. When you say college, you are probably refering to what we would call a community college, where students are taught strictly job skills.
I have absolutely no problem with ds attending a community college rather than university, and in fact I'd rather he did, at least at first, so he could have a good enough job to pay for university or any other training he would like. But what I could never agree to is the kind of system that exists in the UK, and, I'm guessing, other parts of Europe, where students are streamed in college or university at a very young age, where their future lives are determined by tests they take at 14, or, as in Britain, 11. If a British child does poorly on their tests at 11, that's it, their academic future is finishes. That's crazy, to my mind, both for individuals, and in a large-scale, economic sense.
Another thing about the difference between Europe and North America in education, is that in Europe, since WWII, public, state determined education is viewed as a large, bureaucratic doorstop to extremist thinking, while here in North America, individualism, captilalism and libertarianism have always been much more important values. It (was) taken as a given, here, that the family and community are more important than large-scale, state or corporate goals, but these values have been under assault by large commercial interests, and increasingly centralized governments for many years, and many hser's view government-run, state-dictated curriculum, compulsary schooling as an unwanted infringment on personal and community freedom, as well as unecessary corporatization and commercialation of childhood (schools here often have to sign deals with, or claim they have to sign deals with, pop companies, cable companies, etc, to provide money and goods for the school in exchange for a captive audience.)
For many parents here who choose to homeschool, it's not dropping out of a community, but in fact, choosing their families and community over impersonal state and corporate interests. Some of your confusion over hsing might be from the assumption (easy to make coming from Europe) that hser's are dropping out of society in order to isolate their cihldren and teach values not held by the community at large. But many parents are motivated by the fact that the schools no longer reflect the values of the community at large, or in fact, the values of any community.
For me, one of the most frustrating things about public school, and I know it's extremely frustrating to teachers, is that every presented in schools has to be as completely inoffensive as possible. Any materials in classrooms need to go through several vetting commitees to make sure nothing could possibly, ever, offend anyone, at any time. School books are written by commitee, materials developed completely away from any actual chlid, children are taught half-truths, because it's considered better than discussing anything that might possibly be controversial. Social interactions are contrived and controlled, based on risk assessment, and still bullying in schools is out of control.
I have no problem with sending my son to a community based school, taught by teachers who live in and have a stake in our community, and run by the parents who's children actually attend the school, as well as with imput from the whole community (the Small School concept begun in Cornwall is really attractive to me), with the children who actually attend the school being the focus of all instructional thought, but the only option I have here is to either send my son to a religious school (not an option for us), or one of the huge, money sucking, bureaucrat staffed, lumbering behemoth institutions that churn out student products.