It's not crazy, but it's inefficient. Go hang out in home schooler forums instead. People homeschool for many different reasons, but I think it's great that it's still allowed in the US. The result of a diversity of people with diverse needs meeting a private market that hasn't yet been eradicated by "progressive" teachers' unions and the politicians they employ, is a cornucopia of private resources available to parents and students who exercise some initiative.

These resources are under constant discussion on homeschooling forums.

Thank you - as a brit I had always assumed it was, well, nutjob territory. Will look into it.

Yes, the mainstream media and the educational establishments in both the US and UK are dominated by the same leftist statists who, in order to promote their social agenda, need to portray all those who don't surrender themselves to the state programs as obvious nutjobs.

Those who leave the herd do so for all sorts of reasons, religious, academic (my case--like many homeschoolers, I'm an atheist), political, special educational need, lifestyle (e.g., frequent travel), or whatever. That's the nature of independent individuals. That level of diversity means that you can find plenty of people you'll consider nutty, which makes it easy for the media to push the message that those who leave the state herd are mentally defective.

But look at the effectiveness of the state schools and ask yourself, if the state system were shrunk down to the size of the various small homeschooling alternatives, would the state program be one you would pick for your own kids, or would one of the alternatives seem much more sensible? If you suspect the latter, maybe the state system is the real nutjob territory.