Were you homeschooled? Because I was, and all though I don't want to go into extensive detail on why I despise it, I will just say that parents HS because they think they know what's best for their children, but they often don't.
I lived in an area with a horrible school district, so I understand why parents in school districts like that think they can do better, but in reality HS parents should be putting their energy into making public schools better.
K12/CAVA is "public school". It's the normal, California public school system -- it's just a charter school.
But no, I wasn't home-schooled. I doubt it would have been a good choice pre-Internet, to be honest.
Today, I firmly believe that CAVA is the best choice for kids in California if the goal of school is to actually educate them, especially pre-HS, vs. just be state-provided day care. The K12 curriculum and materials are amazingly good. And they're free -- like I said, it's public school. :)
I was responding to the "Really, the negative comments here on homeschooling are staggeringly out of date." part of your post. I find that a lot of the criticism of homeschooling still rings true.
I lived in an area with a horrible school district, so I understand why parents in school districts like that think they can do better, but in reality HS parents should be putting their energy into making public schools better.