According to the U. S. Department of Education an estimated 2.9% or 1.5 million children in the United States are home-schooled. This number is up from 1.7% about a decade ago in 1999. The ratio of home-schooled boys to girls has changed from 49% boys and 51% girls in 1999 to 42% boys and 58% girls. Home-schooling is predominantly selected by higher-income families with 60% earning more than $50,000 per year. In Virginia, the number of home-schooled children jumped 9% statewide in one year. Notably the number of white families choosing to home school nationwide has doubled in the past decade and the number of college-educated parents home-schooling is up from 4.9% to 6.8%.
The reasons parents choose this course of action are varied: 36% say their decision was to provide “religious or moral” instruction; 21% cited school environment and culture; and only 17% cited “dissatisfaction with academic instruction.” Let’s explore these in more detail.
First, the religious basis for home-schooled choice: The religious foundation of our country that served as a basis for public instruction a century ago is well documented. The religious limits concerning contemporary public school education are also well documented. This basis has been clearly redefined by the judicial branch of the federal government. The Supreme Court of the United States established a “wall” of separation concerning church vs. state teachings in public schools dating back to the 1950’s and this guidance has served as the basis for the past sixty years of litigation and hence public school curricular development. Therefore, Parents who want their children to benefit from an education that favors a particular religious perspective have two choices: send their children to parochial/private schools or teach them at home. We cannot fulfill a religious function in the public arena to the extent that many parents would like for their children. Our ever-increasing diverse and forward-thinking society is required to tolerate extremes in lifestyles, freedom of expression and personal choices never thought imaginable just a few decades ago. These values often run contrary to specific religious beliefs.
Second: School environment and the culture of our schools is a direct reflection of societal attitudes in the community and strongly correlated to the norms of that community. The total investment in school facilities and the resources utilized in public schools is directly related to the the conditions in the locality supporting the schools. Two decades of litigation in a dozen states concerning school funding formulas involving “adequacy and equity” formulas have failed to change this over time. Therefore, the ability and willingness of a community to invest in its public schools connects to how the community values its core mission to provide a free and appropriate education for all. According to Fuller’s “Savage Inequalities” the disparities in capital investments in public education are extreme and much in need of attention nationwide. In resource-starved communities where schools are less than desirable places for children to be all day long, the home-schooled option seems obvious. This also may explain why so many charter schools have blossomed across the country. Finally, the heterogeneous clientele present in American schools is problematic for some families who prefer a much more homogeneous environment for their children, so the 21% who said environment was a factor in their decision is understandable.
Third: Academic instruction is the area that 17% of parents cited as reasons for home-schooling. While I can accept this rationale on the surface due to the fact that many parents want their child to be challenged and pushed to higher limits, many feel they can do it better and more effectively at home rather than the institutional model for schools and current standards established state-to-state. However, research does not support the fact that home-schooling produces any better results than public schools. While home-schooled children hold their own on standardized tests for intelligence, they are not socialized to the extent that children exposed to diverse learning styles are in public schools. The need for American children to compete internationally in many different arenas over the next century speaks volumes for the need to teach our young tolerance and respect for individual and cultural differences. The shelter of a home-schooled environment protects certain children from exposure to other children who may contribute varied perspectives in the learning environment and this may be detrimental in the long run to the home-schooled child.
Perhaps most compelling reason why public schools contribute to the well-rounded development of young people is the learning that is offered by specialists in public schools. By the time a child graduates from a public high school he/she will have had as many as sixty to seventy different teachers. These professionals will present children with positive models of effective teaching and learning that can only benefit children and young adults as they formulate opinions about their own education. How many parents are prepared to teach advanced subject matter such as Chemistry, Biology, AP Calculus or have the advanced equipment at their disposal to conduct scientific or mathematical research? Let us not also discount the variety of subjects and experiences that occur outside of the four walls of the classroom such as activities, athletics, and the arts, and the rich experiences children learn through collaborating with others in public schools.
We who serve in public education respect the choice that parents make regarding their preferences for home-schooling here in Virginia and nationwide. Parents who choose this path feel that they can provide a targeted and specific education for their children and have total control over the content and form of teaching and learning. If the resources are in place to deliver rigorous educational exposure and the parent is prepared to accept the full responsibility for a comprehensive curricular experience then we are compelled to approve of this approach.
In conclusion, I said this to Jay Scarborough of the Petersburg Progress-Index in May of 2009, “We are preparing children today for a global experience tomorrow. Children have to be flexible and adaptable and they’ve got to be ready to modulate and function in a world without borders. What public education does well is bring disparate, socio-economically deprived children into the same classroom as privileged children and educate them and prepare them for a role in the world.” Let us not forget the role America’s public schools played in creating the great democracy we live in today. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. The challenge will be to adjust and change to meet the technological challenges that the new century presents for us in order to produce the creative, intelligent, and thoughtful future citizens America deserves.
11 comments:
The implication that parents who cited "environment" as their primary reason for homeschooling their children are seeking a homogeneous social group for their kids is misleading. It would seem to be "code" for suggesting that white parents don't want their children to associate with children of color, or that religious parents don't want their children to associate with the non-religious or with persons of other faiths. This is certainly a stereotype of homeschooling embraced by many in the public education system, but it is by no means true.
I homeschool three young sons here in Virginia and we enjoy regular meetings with other homeschool families. In the local group, there is a huge diversity of religion. Homeschooling is most often associated in the press with evangelical conservative Christianity, but that does not bear out in our local homeschooling organization (of over 400 families). If an evangelical Christian viewpoint is strongly expressed on the associated e-mail list it is sure to be criticized by parents with strongly secular views - everyone in this group agress to keep religion and politics OUT of online conversation because our diversity, and the strength of our various viewpoints, can cause discomfort. Homeschoolers in Virginia (and even in my local area) include many families of color, varying sexual orientation, and many non-Christian families (including those who expressly identify as "pagan"). Our family, which happens to be Christian, is close friends with at least two Wiccan families, several families of different races and ethnicities and many others of no faith or varying Christian faiths, denominations other than our own. We are good friends with supporters of Barack Obama, John McCain AND Ron Paul (all homeschoolers themselves).
My husband and I both graduated from public schools and public universities in Virginia and we found that in practice, our peer group in school segregrated itself much more than our children's peer group with other homeschooled kids. I interacted mainly with other children and young people much like me and from families much like mine in public schools (where cliques are more common than in homeschooled social situations).
We also live (and play outside) in a diverse neighborhood (race, political orientation and religion, or lack thereof).
Because homeschooling itself is outside the mainstream, homeschooled children are not as susceptible to peer pressure or "group-think" and as a result happen to be MORE open difference. Being available to be out in the community during regular school hours (always under the supervision of their parents, of course), they are also able to encounter a wider variety of people in a normal life-setting - in the daily world of work. They learn to interact with people of all ages - from younger siblings (their own and friends') to adults in all settings. Rather than being confined to peer-oriented socialization, they benefit from age-integrated socialization, something that prepares them better for the world of work (which is age-integrated after high school and college).
Our family supports strong public education (not least with our tax dollars). However we feel that the constant hand-wringing about homeschooled children's socialization reflects bias, and is not grounded in a real understanding of the diverse homeschooling community.
This may come as a surprise but EVEN USA TODAY can sometimes fail to capture the complexity of a whole diverse group of people, such as homeschoolers.
I realize that many public educators see homeschooling as a threat, but this is unwarranted. Homeschooling provides both the potential for academic excellence (though tutoring, a legitimate, time-tested method of educating children), and excellent opportunities to interact meaningfully with a highly diverse population in the real world.
I appreciate this this blogger acknowledges the legitimacy of the choice to homeschool, but I wish that he - and all members of the public education establishment - would make the effort to educate themselves about the realities of modern homeschooling, rather than rely on the caricatures and stereotypes that tend to come up in the media, and that can be (rightly or wrongly) seen as self-serving disparagement of the competition by public education professionals.
Part of why I am ready to home school is that the public school, and good ones at that, have failed my children. My daughter, taking all advanced classes, became suicidal in hs because she just hated it. we did work with the system, but she was happier taking only 2 classes at the schools and taking a full load of classes at a community college. My emotionally disturbed and gifted middle-schooler is getting suspensions because the teachers outside of self-contained classes arent willing or able to handle a bipolar child. Not all kids fit in to the big box school.
You said homeschool children "are not socialized to the extent that children exposed to diverse learning styles are in public schools" as well as other things about not being internationally prepared or having tolerance.
I find this to be an incredibly uninformed comment on homeschooling. Homeschool children are socialized among much more diverse people than those with same-age-mates for 12 years. My homeschooled kids are with far more of a diverse population in our homeschool group than they would be in our suburban school. The kids in our group do the following things with nonhomeschoolers as well: Scouts, 4H, music lessons, dance, soccer, baseball, football, YMCA activities, fencing, martial arts, Renaissance Faire, riding lessons, dog training, photography club, astronomical society, swim team -- and that's just off the top of my head. They also volunteer in the community, working with people from all walks of life and of all ages, races and backgrounds. Again, off the top of my head the kids I can think of are at SPCA, nursing homes, museums, library -- and guess what? They are HIGHLY sought after as volunteers because they work with people so well! They are in politically engaged families who are right, left and moderate and frequently engage one another in discourse about politics and current events from highly varying viewpoints.
What I see when our families of
VERY different backgrounds gather is much more cooperation and tolerance than anything I have seen among school children when I sub in the public schools. That's because the parents model tolerance and appreciation of various backgrounds and do not allow their children to self segregate. We have international families and celebrate one another's holidays with interest.
Your picture of homeschooling reflects that you have bought the stereotype without actually having explored inclusive homeschoolers, who make up at least 50% of all homeschoolers.
When I talk to people about schools, I am careful not to broadbrush them despite the fact that our own family had such negative experiences, despite the fact that I was a committed volunteer and my children were good students who were well-liked. We tried to change the system by being part of it and worked hard for years to do so. I would appreciate the same care used in not broadbrushing homeschooling.
Too bad you were not at the VaHomeschoolers conference last weekend, where you would have seen a gathering of multiple races, many belief systems, many kinds of families, and the whole religious spectrum. These families were Christian, Muslim, pagan, Mormon and more, and the children were playing together and the parents were exploring many homeschooling issues together. I met parents of homeschooled college students who are successfully majoring in engineering, international studies, computer science, and liberal arts.
Our homeschool group has children of all these backgrounds and ages working together on projects and passions all the time - and oh yes, we include special needs kids and low income families, too.
You know not whereof you speak, my friend. Educate yourself about homeschooling before you denigrate it.
Some things to google:
Homeschooling diversity
Homeschooling tolerance
Homeschooling African Americans
Homeschooling Muslim
Homeschooling Unitarian Universalist
Homeschooling socialization
Homeschooling LDS
Progressive Homeschoolers
Homeschooling Evolution
Inclusive homeschoolers
secular homeschoolers
I hope our schools do a good job of teaching that one should do primary research using multiple sources before reaching and preaching conclusions. This is certainly what we teach in our home. I'm not so sure that you have had the benefit of this academically rigorous idea!
Um, you could read about the socialization of homeschoolers if you haven't visited a homeschool group to see them in action.
Here's one:
http://learninfreedom.org/socialization.html
In citing academic reasons for homeschooling, you do not consider that some children do not thrive intellectually in an industrial educational setting. The point is not that the parents think they are better educators than others (although some definitely are and resources for all subjects and any level of achiever are abundant), the point is that the children don't do well academically in a traditional or big-box educational setting regardless of who is teaching. My observation of who has been removing their children from school to homescool and for what reasons over the last 12 years seems to indicate that (regarding this particular sub-group) in the younger ages it tends to be more boys than girls, while the opposite is true in junior and high school years.
It always amuses me when a public education official brings up the purported socialization benefits of school attendance. This idea has been invalidated so many times in so many ways over so many years, it amazes me that otherwise intelligent and discerning individuals continue to make this argument. It is more true to say, imo, that children are well socialized in spite of having been to school, not because of it.
As others have already pointed out, living diversity, tolerance and acceptance is more effective than "teaching" it. It's not an assignment.
Narrow-mindedness, ignorance and stereotyping are all good reasons to seek alternative forms of education. Homeschooling can be a perfect prescription for this insidious malady.
Your "reflections" are nothing more than an echo of complete unawareness about what happens on the "front lines" of public education and total ignorance of what homeschooling truly is. Your ideals about how American education should "...prepare children today for a global experience tomorrow. Children have to be flexible and adaptable and they’ve got to be ready to modulate and function in a world without borders" are admirable, but has not been attainable to date in the public school environment. How you think students will learn to "be flexible and adaptable" in a peer-segregated, fill-in-the-blank, multiple-choice culture that lacks autonomy is laughable and smacks of the ignorance that I cited above.
Read about stress and the brain, pour over statistics about special needs children and how they are LEFT BEHIND in public schools, despite the efforts to accommodate these students. (The efforts, I might add, are in terms of allocated funds, of which most schools are reluctant to put spend.)
And in regards to your paragraphs about socialization, well, again, it is laughable and quite unfortunate. Do you really think that homeschoolers are locked away in their houses with parents teaching their children intolerance, never letting them outdoors to talk to other children or adults and never allowing them to participate in extra-curricular activities? Really? And who says that parents can't teach their children Advanced Placement classes such as Biology or Chemistry, Calculus or English? You've, no doubt, heard of the internet, specialists who are tutors, early enrollment in community colleges. Are you not familiar with any of these resources and what they can offer? Ah, but it's because of the LACK in THINKING about these alternatives that brings about your "reflections". Or perhaps it's because you are in a position to preserve the status quo...because it's your bread and butter.
"Ignorance and blindness" (quoting a phrase in the play "Our Town", a homeschool performance this year) is something that will never go away, but as adults we have a responsibility to eliminate as much as we can and as homeschooling parents, that job is overwhelming large. But we network together to teach our children, to expand their minds, to give them the real world experiences that cannot be duplicated within the confining walls of public education. The homeschooling journey is a hard road, filled with questions, doubts and frustrations especially in the face of all of the judgments and narrow-mindedness of others. But it is a freeing and enlightening experience. One wrought with opportunities and new discoveries. I pride myself on taking the alternative road. I learn with my children and I dedicate my time to broaden my children’s view on the world and I teach them HOW to learn, not just WHAT.
Homeschoolers endeavor to transcend the entrapments of traditional public schools of thought. To end with a quote: “Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.” – Baron Henry Peter Brougham
I appreciate what you have to say, but since you are not involved in a home school setting, you are ill informed.
First, my kids have more time to do social activities because they are not spending 7 hours in school and another 3-5 on homework. Where is the time to socialize in that dynamic?
Second, it is wrong to assume that all 60 educators will give an effective model for my children. I have attended, been a parent, and taught in public and private schools. MANY teachers in both environments are incompetent in one or more ways. I am more educated than the majority of the teachers working with my children--particularly in my subject area. It is why I decided to homeschool.
Third, I agree that a parent, even educated, may not be able to do advanced subjects with their kids. That is my case in math and some science. There are many co-ops, tutors, and on line programs as well as community college classes that are options.
Next, as a college instructor, most of my brilliant students have been home schooled kids. These are kids who can think critically and write well. The majority of kids coming in from both public and private schools cannot do either.
Finally, I dismiss your diversity claim. Diversity is a bad word now that means be tolerant of everything--including immorality. NO, I don't want my childrent to be tolerate of everything. Yes, I do teach them about other views and explain why people have them. Their are many different people they encounter in the community, but at least I can limit those influences (because many are bad) and guide them through it.
I don't have to throw my kids to the wolves to make them strong. I'd rather teach them how to live among the wolves to help them be stronger adults.
I have a daughter who has been in the public school system for 11 years. She has benefited from a number of resources, activities and teachers (specifically in the area of arts education). She has also suffered tremendously in other ways: socially (including bullying) & intellectually (the emphasis on SOLs has all but crushed her sense of curiosity).
We removed our son from public school in the middle of the 6th grade. He had become completely discouraged by the "we've got to get through this material" nature of the current educational environment.
It's sad that the focus in public schools today is more on ensuring that the students master specific skills and learn specific information than on teaching children how to think - and encouraging in-depth studies.
Your observations about socialization are really pretty narrow - and parrot the same old arguments that I heard when we first decided to homeschool our son. If you'd done even minimal research before writing this piece, you would have discovered a very large, thriving online community that networks and organizes many face-to-face activities for homeschooled children.
And your suggestion that I might have a desire for a homogeneous social group for my son is offensive - and wrong.
Guess what happens in public school in middle school? Take a look in your school's lunch room. My son's happiest years in school were at our neighborhood elementary school - his friends were from very diverse ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds. The easy friendships began to fray when all 5th and 6th graders in the city were thrown together in one big school. I don't have any answers for why this happened, but I didn't like it; neither did my son. Now, my son makes friends online and through his homeschooled network: and it's a very diverse group.
Finally, I don't have a philosophical problem with public schools. In fact, I do support the concept of public-supported education. The current structure of the public school system, however, is badly broken and fails to adequately serve large numbers of students.
I saw that my son was floundering and did something about it. Public schools in the US are floundering as well.
I remain involved in my daughter's public school because I believe that it's important to try to fix the problems.
I don't think that criticizing (and wrongly evaluating) the homeschool phenomenon will do much toward addressing the Public School crisis.
I will not attempt to replicate the very insightful, well-taken commentaries already posted. But I will briefly speak to our experience with why we pulled our children (two girls) from public schools. In concurrence with the comment on middle school being the start of trouble, our thriving, AP'd daughter experienced propositions of oral sex, rumors of sex in bathrooms, etc. She absolutely loved most of her teachers, as did we. I told the superintendent (who begged us to keep our daughter in public school in the transition from 5th to 6th grade) at the beginning of the year we would give the middle school a try and that the environment was our biggest concern. And although she never asked us to take her out of the public school, she thanked my wife profusely once we did.
Between the lines of the blog are numerous, oft-cited, blatantly false stereotypes of homeschoolers, and I appreciate the kind manner with which fellow home-schoolers have chewed it up and spit it out.
I am reminded of a comment I heard on radio just before we pulled our children from public schools: Parents are trusting the care, nurture, and up-bringing of their children for 7-8 hours a day to people (teachers) who most of the parents would not trust enough to loan them their car or lawnmower!
You, Mister Self-Serving and Mis-informed Administrator, fit into that category. You are part of the problem and your comments reflect its symptoms.
Interesting topic. I personally feel that the only valid reason to excuse your child from public education in favor of educating them at home is if one feels they can do a better job educating the child AND they have the credentials to prove it. Wanting to pull a kid out of public school because you want to teach them Genesis instead of science is, frankly, a disservice to children.
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