I sincerely hope that tougher standards are not imposed upon homeschoolers.
Hmmmm...I guess I still think it's good for society as a whole even if not necessary for most GTs who thrive with learning. If you saw the kids I see at some of our homeschool social groups whose parents aren't affiliated with any charter, you'd be worried too. I think there's a lot more "educational neglect" out there than we realize, and someday it will be to those childrens' disadvantage. I am willing to have DS plop off a couple of mindless exercises each year in social studies (which is where most of the difference is) if it means that someone is holding those other parents to a basic level of education.
The great thing about HS charters, too, is that they don't require a child to complete all of the "grade level work" just because that's where the standards lie. If your child is doing higher level math curriculum, for ex, you've automatically met the requirements of the math standards for their year. In science, we just cross out all of the standards for grades 1-4 as we study each of our immersion topics (life, earth, etc.). A 5 minute review of "community" and "pilgrims," and they leave us alone to go back to studying geography and the ancient world for social studies. I'm not sure how it works at the higher levels yet, but in early elementary, it's very easy.
I should also add...my family is full of teachers, and when they found out we were HSing, one of the common worries was that they see so many re-integrated HS kids who are well behind in one or more subjects. This probably isn't an issue if you don't plan to re-integrate. Since I don't know what our future holds, I don't want to put my children at a disadvantage by leaving areas out.
