I know this is going to get me a shit storm, but home schooling is probably the worst way to educate a child. If you have a crappy school public school send them to private. Most home schooled kids end up in a public highschool because their mom's can't teach them Chemistry, Physics, US History, Calculus etc etc, and when they do its a disaster. The kids are terrible at socializing, and are usually werid. There were two home schooled girls at my Highschool and they were not right socially.
I don't have any, um, excrement to fling, but if you appreciate research instead of volleys of fragmentary impressions and subsequent shitstorms, I have something worth looking at:
* The largest data set on the academic success of the home educated reveals positive things. 16,311 students from across the country were tested with the nationally normed Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The nationwide average for the homeschooled on the Basic Battery (i.e., reading, language, and math) was the 77th percentile. They were at the 79th percentile in reading, the 73rd in language, and the 73rd in math. (The national average is, by definition, the 50th percentile.) 1
* Canada's largest study of its kind revealed similar findings on the academic success of the home educated. Dr. Brian Ray found the students scoring, on average, at the 80th percentile in reading, the 76th in language, and the 79th in math. Students whose parents were certified teachers did no better than the other students. 2
* Dr. Steven Duvall compared the academic engaged time (AET) and basic skill development of learning disabled students who were home educated to those in public school special education programs. Higher rates of AET and greater academic gains were made by the home educated. "... parents, even without special education training, provided powerful instructional environments at home..." (p. 11). 3
* Repeatedly, across North America, the home educated score as well as or better, on average, than those in conventional schools. 4
* Drs. Paulo de Oliveira, Timothy Watson, and Joe Sutton studied Christian college-age students at a large liberal arts, Christian university. They compared four groups - those who had graduated from two types of private schools, from public schools, and those from homeschools. There were no statistically significant differences in various critical thinking skills among the student groups. That is, the home educated did as well as the others. 5
* Public school, conventional Christian school, and homeschool graduates at a large, Christian liberal arts university were examined and compared for their college academic preparedness and college academic achievement. Dr. Rhonda Galloway found that the home educated performed as well or better than the others on these measures.6
* Dr. Gary Knowles, of the University of Michigan, explored adults who were home educated. None were unemployed and none were on welfare, 94% said home education prepared them to be independent persons, 79% said it helped them interact with individuals from different levels of society, and they strongly supported the home education method.7
Endnotes (Full citations are in the Home Centered Learning Annotated Bibliography available from NHERI):
1. Home School Legal Defense Association, 1994.
2. Brian D. Ray, 1994.
3. Steven F. Duvall, 1994.
4. Brian D. Ray, 1992.
5. Paulo Oliveira, Timothy G. Watson, & Joe P. Sutton, 1994.
6. Rhonda A. Galloway, 1994
7. J. Gary Knowles, 1991.
The National Home Education Research Institute gathers and distributes a wealth of information and NHERI is actively engaged in collecting and analyzing original research data.
NATIONAL HOME EDUCATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., President
PO Box 13939, Salem, Oregon 97309, (503) 364-1490, fax (503) 364-2827, www.nheri.org
Beyond this, the average hmeschooler gets MORE outside-of-school socializing and recreational actiities than does the typical public school student, including Scouting, church youth groups, music, art, and sports activities.
See?
No negative prejudicial impressions, no shit storms.
Cordially,
Mrs. Don-o
It certainly will get you a s.s. Even insufficiently enthusiastic comments have had me fielding bombs right and left.
But what many are talking about is as much home DIRECTED schooling as actual teaching. They counter the obvious objections you raise by pointing out that they enroll them in community colleges for those subjects. Which begs the question as far as I am concerned.
My eldest daughter has been homeschooled since 2nd grade. You're right in that her mom couldn't teach her advanced math and science. So I did.
For the courses that required lab work, I let her take classes at the local community college. She took a full-time credit load there this year, and is transferring to a 4-year college in the fall as an engineering major. This summer she's volunteering as an EMT and taking classes to get her EMT-Basic certification.
She's 16