I prefer to think of myelf as a PARENT rather than an "extemist". I'm sure the school administrators for my DDs schools have had uncomfortable moments with me, but they've also learned what they can and cannot get away with. It's too bad more parents aren't holding them accountable.
I was delighted to be taken out of school as a child for vacations (and I 'valued' my education, as well). Because my parents weren't hung up on "perfect attendance", I was able to spend a month in Italy, a month in Great Britain, a month touring the North Sea countries, a month in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, several weeks around western Europe, and a few weeks in Jordan and Israel. All told, in 7 years, 13 months of that were spent travelling, frequently *during* school b/c that was the only time my dad could take 30 days leave (his subordinates who wanted to visit the States tried to do it in the summer to correlate with US public schools, so they got summers first) I still did well in school, I still learned to "play the school game" (I did become an English teacher, after all).
There was not a single thing going on in that building that I missed out on by going on vacations with my family. There were PLENTY of things I would have missed by sitting in a classroom. Going to "East Germany" (btw, my parents have pieces of the wall from the first night it was put up and the last night when it fell), driving across Yugoslavia and throwing candy out the windows to children, riding in a gondola in Venice and going to our tour guide's daughter's wedding reception (*fresh* calamari), getting a private tour of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul b/c it was closed to the public, but our guide was friends with the curator, buying flokati rugs in Greece at some little dive off the main drag, bartering with children in Israel who are selling some little thing they've made "2 for a dolla", seeing Great Britain during the year of our bicentennial (our "revolution", their "rebellion") and talking with school children about what THEY learn about it (it's not what kids sitting in American school chairs are learning!) So much about life and the world that would have been missed while I stood up to receive my perfect attendance certificate.
If that works for you, by all means, enjoy your school break vacations, but don't name call or bash those who choose to go during the school year because it costs less, is less crowded, or may be the only opportunity they have.