I am a teacher, so my skills are not getting rusty sitting here at home! In fact my skills are being honed as each child calls for different teaching methods, and my google search skills are getting awesome as I hunt up free rescources!

See one more financial reason to home school . For non teachers I bet you use many skills teaching that you would in the workforce ...heh and if I expand on that, I have a 'how to topic'.....

And the other reason, isn't very financial, sorry. It came to me from my pastor as he was holding a class to help parents decide when communion should begin for their own children and how to teach just what it is (not that he or anyone I know had all the answers about that amazing gift) If you take out the 'faith like' words, and change them to education words you have why we home school, we live a life of learning, not outsourcing solely to professionals, though we do seek them out when needed)

I got permission to quote my Pastor here, though I can't recall his exact wording in class, so he kindly rewrote it:

For the last 50 years or so, we have been outsourcing large portions of our lives to “the professionals.” We have taken responsibility and expectation away parents and grandparents and put it in the hands of someone else. Scholastic tutors, tax preparers, oil change shops, coaches, pre-schools, after-school care programs, etc. Even matters of faith have, over time, become things that are handled by “the professionals” at the local church. Need to hear about Jesus? Go and listen to the pastor or Sunday School teacher (but not mom or dad). Want to know what “we” believe? Ask your Confirmation teacher or, again, the pastor (but not your parents or grandparents) and they’ll fill you in.
Our congregation and many others are working to swing the pendulum back the other direction, where families and congregations share a partnership that brings faith home where it can grow amongst the most important relationships in our life. Grace, love, compassion, faithfulness are all learned about and preached about on Sundays, but if they are not live about throughout the week, we’re all heading down a dead end street. Churches can and should empower parents to be faithful parents, passing along the faith to the next generations in the context of life. You shouldn’t have to step outside of your normal life to have a ‘faith experience.’ We know that when faith is a part of life within the home and family, it becomes a deeper and richer thing.

If you want faithful children, you have to have faithful adults to guide them. Since parents don’t have ‘the skills’ or the confidence to do ‘church stuff’ at home, we need to give them both permission and the education to do so well and faithfully. Faith in God is a matter of relationship – what better place to strengthen that faith than within the relationships of the family, supported and enriched by the relationships we share as the family of God?

I don't want to take away from my Pastors original message, I do believe that a strong faith is better supported when taught by family in family settings (with some church experts when needed) but I ALSO believe a strong life of education is better supported when taught by family in family settings (with some professional support as needed).