Posted on 09/04/2019 3:32:26 PM PDT by upchuck
As many recognize, homeschooling has been booming in recent years and promises to keep growing. The most recent numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) hail from 2012 and suggest that 1.8 million children are now educated at home.
Compared to public school students, studies suggest that homeschoolers perform up to 30 percentile points better on standardized tests, have higher college GPAs and completion rates, and may even be better adjusted socially. Judging from these numbers, it would seem that homeschooling definitely benefits the individual student.
But what about the nation as a whole? Are there any immediate benefits which homeschoolers offer to their communities?
One of the most obvious is the money each homeschool student saves his or her state. Based on state spending per student multiplied by the approximate number of homeschoolers in each state, the following statistics demonstrate how much savings homeschoolers are passing off to their fellow citizens each year:
The chart below gives a visual idea of what these numbers look like:
Graphic Credit: David Curran @iamreddave.
It should be noted that because homeschool registration varies by state, these numbers are likely conservative, making the savings even more than recorded above. In fact, a recent report by the Pioneer Institute suggested that on a national scale, homeschoolers save taxpayers $22 billion every year.
Such savings should give us pause. Homeschooling parents pay taxes like everyone else, yet they also fork out a lot of money each year to pay for books and other equipment. Should some of this savings be passed on to them, or would such a process only invite more government control into individual homes?
Furthermore, if homeschooling produces such a good product for such a large monetary savings, doesn’t it seem like states would want to encourage more parents to pursue such an education option?
[Image Credit: Flickr-Alexandre Normand | CC BY SA 2.0]
This post How Much Money Each State Saves Thanks to Homeschooling was originally published on Intellectual Takeout by Annie Holmquist.
Mega ping to a mega article.
That money should be RETURNED TO THE PARENTS of the home-schooled children !
California and New York lead the charge big league. No surprise.
“Furthermore, if homeschooling produces such a good product for such a large monetary savings, doesn’t it seem like states would want to encourage more parents to pursue such an education option?”
No, it must be fought at all costs, because students are more likely to develop critical thinking skill, thus less likely to become dhimmicrats
With the internet it makes sense. Why not homeschool. Brick and mortar schools should be voluntarily funded for those idiot parents who want their kids to be molested mentally by weirdo commie teachers.
Great news and God bless these parents and their children.
NO. Because the money saved represents non-indoctrinated children. The teachers unions *despise* charter schools as well as home schooling. As they do anything that represents a threat to their taxpayer funded monopoly.
PROPERTY TAX CREDITS
OTOH - how much money are states losing because of home schooled kids not in a public school; don’t they receive thousands per student? In WA they roll in the grades of home school kids into their system to raise the education standards but if home schooled kids are not counted the standards plummet.
Did they factor in the welfare savings attributable each student not indoctrinated into dependency at Gibsmedat U (pubic screwls) after they reach adulthood?
We homeschooled for most years. If anyone was worried about my daughter missing out on the school experience, I set their mind at ease by telling them that I stole her lunch money at least once a week.
Good question. Wish I had an answer.
bkmk
The author makes the common mistake of thinking the purpose of government schools is to educate children.
That purpose is far down the priority list. When parents ran the schools, the object was learning, with the greatest bang for the buck appreciated and sought.
Then “education” became a multi-billion dollar scam, run by educational bureaucrats at the state and federal level, in partnership with the teacher’s union, designed to extract every last possible dollar from their communities, in the name of “education” but with performance being far down the priority scale.
The highest priority? Political power.
The second highest priority? Union power and money.
The third highest priority? Teacher pay and perks.
The fourth highest priority? Indoctrinating students in leftist dogma.
The fifth highest priority? Getting contractors in on the gravy train.
This ping list is for articles of interest to homeschoolers. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping List. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added or removed from either list, or both.
The keyword for the FREE REPUBLIC HOMESCHOOLERS’ FORUM is frhf.
The waggish comment I learned here was that to simulate the public school experience at home, take your kid to the bathroom, blow smoke in his face, beat him up and take his lunch money.
I was homeschooled. As the regulations became worse every year, I had to have a few conferences with school district personnel.
I can assure you that nobody gave my parents any pats on the back for saving the taxpayers some money. On the contrary, I was told that the district lost thousands of dollars per pupil, when parents opted not to send them to public school. Take a child out of there and Tinker Bell dies.
Awesome. Do whatever you can to free your children from the Borg collective known as public school indoctrination.
All GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS need to be shut down. The education of children is the responsibility of THEIR PARENTS and not the government.
What children learn or do not learn should be a private issue in the family. Same goes for the duration of their schooling.
Some families might be better off giving kids the three Rs and putting them to work (thus raising the whole family out of poverty).
But for 100+ years, Americans have not had that kind of freedom, thanks to progressive treachery.
Now, THE GOVERNMENT decides the curriculum. Families are FORCED to either send their children to a state indoctrination center, or homeschool. But even homeschoolers have to follow educational standards established by the “experts.” And, if a poor family decides to go the route of self-reliance instead of taking welfare, the state STEALS THE KIDS!
In the old days, child labor raised MILLIONS out of poverty. But that system worked too well. It has to be abolished to create a new welfare class.
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