What is important to you as a homeschooling parent?

Oprah validated homeschooling this week. Excuse my failure to happy dance... (no disrespect to Oprah Winfry)

here is the article from www.hslda.org :


HSLDA
February 14, 2006
Oprah Winfrey Responds to HSLDA
In response to our open letter to the Oprah Winfrey Show, HSLDA President Mike Smith received a call from Tim Bennett, the President of Harpo Productions. Mr. Bennett conveyed that there had been an oversight when homeschoolers were excluded from "Oprah's National High School Essay Contest," but that it was too late to amend the rules to include homeschoolers.
Yesterday, HSLDA received a written reply from Harpo Productions, Inc. which recognized that "...homeschooling is an important contributor to the educational success of this country."
HSLDA congratulates Oprah Winfrey for acknowledging that homeschooling is a viable educational alternative and entitled to equal treatment.

I guess my question here is do we really need to be validated? Do we want to be validated? If we cared THAT much about what Oprah, or anyone else for that matter thought wouldn't we be in public schools? I would. So I don't really care about who validates homeschooling.

What I do care about is that they were expressly exluded from her essay contest in the first place? How was that an oopsie?

What I also care about is my child having the freedom to learn in the very best way that is comfortale and coducive to thier learning styles. That they learn free from interference from others. That they can learn in the comfort of thier own homes.

What is important to you as a homeschooling parent?