Picking up on Rod's point, I think what most critics of homeschooling fail to note is that these people themselves are forming communities. As I've mentioned before, we don't homeschool, but the people we know who do are not sticking their kids in the closet with McGuffy readers, telling them not to talk to the "evil strangers." Far from it. Homeschoolers congregate; they are always getting together for common classes, social outings and so on.
Which is why, while we send our kids to local parochial schools (we were lucky enough to find a good one) it seems to me that homeschooling communities are important to the revival of any decent common culture. They offer a means to break the bureaucracy's hold on schooling that other reforms (e.g. vouchers, which encourage consumerism and further break up neighborhood life) can't.
