With some experience now, I think that school provided more than I thought:
* socialisation
* authority outside of bfamily
* development of personality
* habit-forming for later school
.. aside from the fact that even if you're a good parent and have already exposed your kids to letters and numbers, you will likely not have ensure a complete coverage.
Example of importantance of school choice: my first son went to a regular public kindergarten and lost some of the autonomy he had built-up with us. Going to the bathroom was done together with an aide at school, so why not at home?
My youngest ended going to a Montessori kindergarten by accident. They focus a lot on autonomy and as a result he is very much 'his own boy', even at the age of 6.
And beyond kindergarten, even just in primary, the 'skills' part of school is difficult to do 'in-house' unless you spend a lot of time on it. There's a reason we applied Taylorism to education.
It goes much further. In 90% of human societies up to 60 years ago, it was normal for children to spend a lot of time interacting with neighbors and others outside of the home and schools environments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_takes_a_village
Furthermore, the extreme forms of helicopter parenting where children are not even allowed to walk to school by themselves is very US-centric and very modern.
Semi-related, I know I'm responsible for deciding to have kids, but the ongoing functioning of society relies on a continuous supply of people to keep it running. I sure hope some people are still working after I retire! It would be nice if the U.S. could support parents more than we currently do.
First, that's untrue:
https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/covid-19/
Of course it's not even close to the death rate in adults, especially older ones, thankfully, but it isn't "no risk".
Second, the main reason for school closures was that the kids, even if there's very little risk for them, can transmit the disease to family and friends.
Nonetheless, some countries, like France, made the choice to keep the schools open to maintain some level of schooling for most kids. It wasn't without issues and massive criticism from teachers ( who were risking their lives to keep other people's kids occupied), parents ( because classes were closed when a kid got Covid to prevent further transmission, so you could suddenly have to deal with your kid), etc.
There's also a significant risk of Long Covid, although the details are still being debated.
Covid attacks the immune system and also hugely increases the risk of complications from micro-clotting. It's certainly not a disease to be casual about, in either kids or adults.