"These statistics are just nonsense. You have to compare kids with the same social background."
Their called "self-selecting statistics" and I've been attempting to make the same point on another thread. The HSLDA (mentioned in the article) has statistics (oft quoted - and misinterpreted - by posters here) that describe a 30+ point increase in standardized test performance - All just by taking your kids out of public school!
I'm all for homeschooling - but you have to be rational about the potential benefits to academic achievement for each individual kid.
statistics lie, and simply correlating high achievement and saying it's because of homeschooling is simply not true - these high-achieving students are more often than not selected (in the statistical sense) for homeschooling by rightfully concerned parents worried that their gifts will not be sufficiently challenged by being around average-ability peers in public school.
Achievement should be honored and emulated wherever it is found. High-Achieving kids are often homeschooled, and should be held out as examples to other kids.
No, not the first year though there are usually small increases (sometimes dramatic), but studies have shown the longer they are home taught the higher the test scores. So Yes, in the long run if you can stick with it poorly performing school students improve greatly when brought home and given one on one instruction and supervision.
You're missing one of the key ingredients. Public schools have taken to teaching singular methods - even in subjects like math, where any number of techniques can correctly derive the correct answer. The teacher gives a single methodology, and proceeds to mark wrong anyone who uses a different methodology, even when the disparate method is correct.
Unfortunately, the singular method taught doesn't "click" with all of the kids. In fact - it's frequently an estimation method and not a solution, in my experience. When a kid "gets it" through using another method, he or she is told that noncomformity is not an option, even if he or she can't do the work using the conformed method.
Homeschooling gives the opportunity to explore as many correct solution methods as necessary to make sure the child "gets it". The 30-point differential, in many cases, is not unrealistic. I have 2 kids who have demonstrated this VERY clearly (having started out in private and/or public schools, then progressed into homeschooling).
You seem to have an axe to grind. I'm curious as to what it is.