Katherine Pfleger

About the author: Katherine Pfleger is a writer for the Associated Press news service.

The growth in home schooling also increases the possibility that well-intentioned parents will deprive their children of social and academic skills. While academic accomplishments have been documented for home-schooled children, there's little evidence to suggest that home schooling is universally successful. Studies purporting to find that home-schooled children succeed academically are flawed because only some home-schooling parents participate in them. There's also anecdotal evidence that some parents are unable to cope with schooling their children at home.

Carole Kennedy is a principal at one of the local schools in Columbia, Missouri. But one of the students she says worries her the most isn't even enrolled there. "This boy was in our school in the...