With nearly 2 million students and even a Virginia college dedicated to their higher education, parents and kids who homeschool ought to be getting some respect in Washington.

Instead, President Obama's education chief is expressing concerns that the growing practice is robbing children of educational and life experiences.

"I worry that in a lot of cases students who are homeschooled are not getting the kind of the breadth of instruction experience they would get in school, they're also not getting the opportunity to build relationships with peers unless their parents are very intentional about it," said Education Secretary John B. King Jr.

"And they're often not getting those relationships with teachers and mentors other than their parents. I do worry whether home school students are getting the range of opportunities we hope for for all kids," he said slamming the system.

Yet, that's not to say it's all bad, he added. "There are examples of families that are doing it incredibly well with great intention," said King, who noted that some of his home schooled college classmates "experienced tremendous economic success."

Despite his concerns, King said during a media breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor that there isn't much research on homeschooling to prove if it works or not "I've not seen research evidence around homeschooling," he said.

The Purcellville, Va., based Home School Legal Defense Association expressed concern about the secretary's comments.

"While Secretary King had some good things to say about homeschooling, I'm disappointed that his comments imply that public schoolers have a wider range of options in education, which is simply not true," said HSLDA co-founder and Chairman Michael Farris. "Homeschoolers are far outperforming their public schooled peers, largely due to the fact that parents know what works best for their child instead of implementing an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach that Secretary King appears to favor."

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com