This is something I can speak about with some authority, because we have many home school families where I live. Home schooling is anything but crushed here. I offer orientation to library systems and databases specifically for home school families.

In short:
When they are good, they are very very good. When they are bad, they are horrid.

I meet the very very good families much more often, because they spend a lot of time working on curriculum support, which involves library time. I meet the other type once a year or so, who only come in that often in order to satisfy state minimum standards. Home school works for the children of the very very good, regardless of whether they are of the pedagogical, religious, or medical type, because they're truly devoted to education. (Contrary to popular belief, parents who home school for religious reasons aren't usually all that motivated by avoidance of evolution, but rather are interested in integrating religious ethics into the curriculum.) The horrid ones are interested in restricting the information that reaches their children, and sometimes -- only a handful of times in my experience, thankfully -- in putting them to work in whatever business the family is in as their primary educational activity. I'm grateful for the state standards and case workers who evaluate home school students. They do no harm to those who do the job well, and provide minimal accountability to those who don't, on behalf of the children.

Regarding vouchers: Do you remember the rise of the Christian schools? I'm not talking about the long-standing church schools, but all those schools that popped up out of nowhere when public schools were integrated by court order. The object was not better education, but to keep children from being polluted by contact with Those People. I don't mind my tax dollars underwriting children's educations in non-public institutions, but I do mind underwriting that. After all, once upon a time, my people were Those People, and in the future, there will be other groups of Those People, for as long as people remain forcibly separated by bigotry. If everybody's money goes to an institution, then everybody's children ought to be admitted. That is my only condition.

I say this as a graduate of Catholic schools, which admitted children of all nationalities, made the institutions available to handicapped children years before it was required by law, and also admitted those of any religion. (Non-Catholics were given study hall when we had our required religion classes, which had such an efficacious effect upon my religious beliefs.) So I know it can be done.

"No Child Left Behind"? Heh. The public school teachers I know, including the ones who attend the very conservative Brethren in Christ Church, call it "No Child's Behind Left". They would like to teach to life again, rather than continuing to teach to tests. Nobody cares about the tests once the kids graduate, but the graduates will always need to know how to think critically and how to relate to other people.