I agree. Although I think that the right combination of parenting and schooling can take a child much further than good parenting and bad schooling only. After all, the children spend lots of time at school.
By the way, care to share a list of the books on parenting you found more useful or interesting?
A few to start with. To be honest, even one good book is a great start.
Raising Happy Children - Jan Parker, Jan Stimpson, Dorothy Rowe
Playful Parenting - Lawrence J. Cohen
The Well-Trained Mind - Jessie Wise, Susan Wise Wise Bauer
I don't agree with everything they say, but they are pointed in the right direction. I don't home school our kids, but we do homework with them and I go out of my way to talk to them about anything they're interested in and look things up with them.
It does help that my mother was head teacher of a primary school and did an Open University degree in child psychology when I was a teenager.
We're engineers, right? When you've got a new piece of equipment or software or a new language to get to grips with we read the manuals and find out about best practices. It's the same with kids.
By the way, care to share a list of the books on parenting you found more useful or interesting?