>but unfortunately for society as a whole it's a step in the wrong direction. It makes the quality of your education wholly dependent on your parents, which pretty much just accelerates the cycle.
I'm still trying to figure out why everyone is against homeschooling. Everyone is negative, and if any reason it is given it is of the "won't get socialized correctly" type. But you mention "cycle". What cycle?
The cycle I see (and have seen personally), is a troubled youth floats through the public school system. Ends up working a minimum wage job for the rest of their life. And in the process of that, has children which then go through the public school system with no involvement from the parent. Then rinse wash and repeat.
So what is the "cycle" with homeschooling? In most cases you are already dealing with someone that is middle class or above (after all, homeschooling books cost lots of money) and someone that is involved with their child's education (otherwise why would you be homeschooling?). And to be middle class, you have to have a good trade or career path. Certainly something worth showing your kids. Public school seems to teach very little of the local government and small business world. After all, if you were good at small business, why would you be a teacher? The point I make is that with homeschooling, there are many more opportunities to give your children a diverse learning experience. Overall it mostly seems healthier mentally to the child as well. The pressures of hanging with the right crowd mostly go away as well as the depression associated when one feels like they are going to a prison everyday (and the cutting and self harm that comes with that).
Of course that's the best case scenario. I can use my own mother-in-law as one of the bad cases. She home schooled her kids without any input from the father. He was rarely home anyway. The boys started hanging out with the wrong crowd once they were teenagers. But it wasn't some rogue group of socially misfit home schooled children they joined up with. It was a group of socially misfit public school children from the wrong side of town. This is where I don't follow the "homeschool causes social issues" argument as in this case, the boys would have had the same friends whether they were home schooled or in public school. They only way to change that would have been to move.
But back to the question. Where's the "cycle"? In my mother-in-law's case, she was public schooled, then home schooled her daughter and boys single handily. The boys, well they're not doing too well. I'm sure they'll have kids of their own and I highly doubt they'll home school them. And statistically, if a parent performs poorly in school, so will the children. So the only cycle I see is one of under performers in school (regardless of whether public or private), produce children that are under performers.
But there is one saving grace. That mother of the home schooled boys had a daughter that saw the folly in her brother's ways. And as she was home schooled, she was not pressured into acting any one certain way, and chose to act maturely in all her ways. I then married her at my age of 28, having spent nearly 10 years looking for the "right" one. I think that has some merit.