Home Schooling Continues to Grow

[FrankRep]

Home Schooling Continues to Grow

Ann Shibler | John Birch Society
06 January 2009

There are now at least 1.5 million home schoolers in the United States. Some inside the homeschool movement place the numbers nearer 2.4 million, but we won’t quibble on this. The Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics has reported that the number of home-schooled children is up 74 percent from 1999 and up 36 percent from 2003, based on 1.5 million home-based students.

A 2007 survey of home-schooling parents showed that a majority educated their own offspring for moral or religious reasons. But those who home school because they want a more untraditional approach are growing, now up to a possible 32 percent of all home schoolers. And fewer home schoolers are enrolled part-time in government or private schools as well. Some who might have chosen that option are now choosing online instruction for at least some of their children’s education.

This statistical data for those with home-based education programs was obtained by the Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the National Household Education Surveys. Admittedly, the estimates are just that, estimates, because the National Home Education Research Institute, a private research organization, noted that home-schooling parents are “significantly less likely to answer government-sponsored surveys.”

Based on strictly empirical evidence, several researchers report that the homeschooled consistently outperform, on average, non-homeschooled students, both on standardized tests and college entrance exams.

The news of a continuously growing home school movement is probably not going to sit well with the government change agents or educators’ unions. Not happy with the proven academic achievement and aptitudes demonstrated by those who are home schooled, some teachers even seem to take it as a personal insult instead. Others are just plain leftist liberals, while some demonstrate that they are narrow minded and intolerant of others' choices, and must attack the movement on any grounds they can think of.

For your perusal then, we present a comment posted by a supposed teacher with the moniker “teacheru” on the USAToday website that carried the original story, word-for-word, spelling mistakes and all. Read it and weep -- or laugh:

It seems that home schooled kids primarily tend to fall into a couple of general categories such as those who just cannot separate our Church and State tradition and refusal to want their kids to mix with non Whites. So it seems to be either religious extremism or racial. I suspect most homeschoolers overwhelmingly fall within these two areas. True that a meager 4% is Black, if that, but what about Hispanics....nary a percent or Asians? This is the aweful reality. Home schooling IS the insidious and harmful modern day segregation and needs to be dealt with straight up. Truency laws ARE on the books. They simply need to be enforced. What percentage of these homeschoolers are not in our schools due to severe behavior problems and dysfunctional homes, caused by socio-economic-linguistic disadvantage? This is another possible area to our home schooling population....kids abondoned by the system to protect itself. With powerful local school board elected officials who get elected by local bigoted, racist, religious extremists that are out of control with dictates and often backed up through collusion with a hijacked local union cut from equally bigoted racist and religious extremists, kids can be "eased" out of a public school district. These things are happening. Civil rights laws need to be enforced and be pro-active. After 30 years of this homeschooling stuff being allowed to metastasized by the anti-public school gang, it is now way out of control and the federal government needs to intervene forthwith like in the 60's and 70's with desegregation. In conclusion...generally speaking, most parents can't teach a foreign language, music, or advanced mathematics and science without knowing those subject areas and having methodologies in their pedogogy. And the very, very few that might, well, we CANNOT make a generalization for our society based on them. Home schooling IS a way to avoid institutions through religious extremism as President Carter so aptly alludes to in his book Our Endangered Values or just masked religious bigotry and racism.

If ever there was a reason to homeschool one’s own child....


SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/index.php/education-blog/4331

[kathy88]

I've been dealing with issues in my son's public school the whole year. The bottom line is NO ONE in that buidling gives a $#@! whether the kids pass or fail. I wish I could economically home school. It's not possible at present. The best I can do is try to stay involved and NOT call teachers $#@!s (again).

[pinkmandy]

The school I went to growing up now has a 'no fail' policy. NOBODY fails. Even if you don't do your work. My friend teaches there (high school earth science) and says it's a total nightmare. She said her foreign exchange students can write a better paper with English as their second language. It totally pisses her off because she can give a test date and the kids can walk in, having not studied, write nothing but their names on the paper then turn it in with zero repercussions. They can take the test as often as they need which means she has to give the test as often as they request until they get a satisfactory grade.

[Mesogen]

I guess that homeschooling requires one parent to be at home during the day.

Are there any examples of homeschooling where both parents work?

[heavenlyboy34]

The school I went to growing up now has a 'no fail' policy. NOBODY fails. Even if you don't do your work. My friend teaches there (high school earth science) and says it's a total nightmare. She said her foreign exchange students can write a better paper with English as their second language. It totally pisses her off because she can give a test date and the kids can walk in, having not studied, write nothing but their names on the paper then turn it in with zero repercussions. They can take the test as often as they need which means she has to give the test as often as they request until they get a satisfactory grade.

socialized school FAIL!

[JeNNiF00F00]

The school I went to growing up now has a 'no fail' policy. NOBODY fails. Even if you don't do your work. My friend teaches there (high school earth science) and says it's a total nightmare. She said her foreign exchange students can write a better paper with English as their second language. It totally pisses her off because she can give a test date and the kids can walk in, having not studied, write nothing but their names on the paper then turn it in with zero repercussions. They can take the test as often as they need which means she has to give the test as often as they request until they get a satisfactory grade.

Wow. Embarrassing. What state is this school in?

[pinkmandy]

Wow. Embarrassing. What state is this school in?

Virginia. In a rural, fairly educated and well to do area. The school system is very small- the whole system has less than 100 kids/grade.