No one is denying that students experiment with sex and drugs. Rather, the observation is that these things happen mostly outside of school, so avoiding school

No one is denying that students experiment with sex and drugs. Rather, the observation is that these things happen mostly outside of school, so avoiding schools isn't an effective way of avoiding this things. The link between school and these activities is, IMO, largely specious. Or at the very least completely unsubstantiated by evidence. Or are you seriously suggesting that kids are binge drinking and lighting up in between history and chemistry? Basically, vivek's argument is that by not sending your kids to school you avoid all of these behaviors. But these behaviors are far more common outside of school that within school. Home schooling doesn't replace effective parenting, and sending your kdis to a school doesn't preclude effective parenting. Finally, I think it's worth asking so what?! to a lot of your statistics. Particularly the "drank some alcohol" and "smoked pot in the last 30 days" statistics. These things aren't a priori bad, and drinking at that age isn't even illegal in a lot of developed countries (and even in some places in the US, under adult supervision).