School Performance - Homeschooling

Homeschooling — by necessity the educational method of the pioneers and since the 1980s the choice of more and more concerned parents — is a fine example of what's old being new again. Homeschooling is often dismissed as the province of reactionaries and hippies. It's true that the most vocal and organized homeschoolers have tended to be religiously motivated, usually conservative Christians. But as the graphic above shows, there are other reasons for homeschooling.

In a 1999 National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) survey of homeschool parents, "religious reasons" and "character/morality" are mentioned, but today's homeschoolers also are motivated by concerns about poor academic quality in schools and by issues like violence and peer pressure.

The same survey describes the homeschooled child of the 1990s as most likely to be a white urbanite in grades K-5, from a two-parent household with three or more children, with only one parent in the labor force and a family income of $50,000 or less.

There are no long-term studies of homeschooling, only estimates. NCES estimated that 850,000 students were being homeschooled in the spring of 1999. Other analysts estimated 300,000 in 1990, 700,000 in 1995-96, and at least 1 million in 1999

Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Newsweek informs us that in 1998, 41 states had no minimum academic requirements for parents who wanted to homeschool their children. Nevertheless, says Newsweek, homeschooled children managed to average 23 of 36 on the ACT, compared to an average score of 21 for traditionally schooled students. A 23 qualified a student for a "selective" college. In 2000, home-schooled students scored an average of 1,100 on the SAT, 81 points above the national average.

According to Lawrence M. Rudner's 1998 study of 20,760 homeschooled students, half were born to Baptist or Independent Fundamentalist mothers. The table shows two other interesting characteristics of homeschooled children from the survey.

Characteristics of Fourth Graders: 1998

Characteristic	Homeschooled kids	Regular kids
% watching TV 1 hour or less daily	65.3	25.1
% using computer several times per week	21.6	62.5

Another of Rudner's findings: "Home school student achievement test scores are exceptionally high. The median scores … at every grade … are well above those of public and Catholic/Private school students."

Is homeschooling the answer to our educational woes? Consider these demographics. Rudner's study "clearly shows that home school students and their families are a select population. Family income and education levels are well above national averages. The family structure is traditional with married couples as parents, several children, father as breadwinner, and a stay-at-home mother. A large percent of home school students have a parent that has held a state-issued teaching certificate."

Evidence that homeschooling has entered the mainstream: Patrick Henry College of Purceville, Virginia, was established in 2000 as the nation's first devoted to homeschooled students. In 2002, three of its first 14 graduates were accepted into law schools before the college was even accredited. Harvard University, which once only considered applicants with high school diplomas, has assigned an admissions officer to review applications from homeschoolers.

Homeschoolers have their own lobbyist, too. The conservative Home School Legal Defense Association (which funded the Rudner study) is seeking to scale back the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP; see Chapter 7). Rewards are proposed for states that show improvement on NAEP scores ("accountability"), but homeschoolers complain that states are being encouraged to revise their testing programs to match NAEP. They fear this will result in a national curriculum, "a definitive step toward centralized control of education and abrogation of its local governance." Might it also put a damper on educational methods that seem to be working?

Source: Chart: Stacy Bielick et al.. "Homeschooling in the United States: 1999," Education Statistics Quarterly. Online. Available: http://nces.ed.gov April 23, 2002; National Center for Education Statistics. Parent Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program, 1999 (Parent-NHES: 1999). Kantrowitz, Margaret and Pat Wingert, "Learning at Home: Does It Pass the Test?" Newsweek, 5 October 1998, p. 64. "Home Schooling." Online. Available: http://www.edweek.org. April 23, 2002. Lawrence M. Rudner. "Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998." Online. Available: http://epaa.asu.edu April 23, 2002. Home School Legal Defense Association. "National Testing." Online. Available: http://www.hslda.org/ April 24, 2002.