The Benefits of Homeschooling, Research Paper Example

Homeschooling is an educational practice that involves parents taking charge of their children’s education in a home-based environment.  Although homeschooling has been historically considered a fringe movement, statistics from the U.S. Department of Education indicate its growing popularity and the culturally and socially diverse range of families who opt for this educational alternative.  Current estimates suggest that over two million school-aged children in the United States are taught by their parents, a number which Brian Ray suggests may be conservative due to a segment of homeschooling parents he terms “underground” (Ray) who opt not to register their children through the state and thus aren’t taken into account in statistical surveys.   Although public perceptions of homeschooling families tend to depict them as “left wing unschoolers and right wing religious fundamentalists” (Reich), the limitations of the public education system has led to many families choosing this method of education for reasons other than religious freedom or a desire to avoid involvement with government institutions.  This includes the desire of parents to develop a stronger relationship with their children while controlling educational curriculum so as to provide a more comprehensive education than is currently available through public educational institutions which are often overcrowded and underfunded.  Surveys of homeschooled children reveal that they often do better at standardized tests than their publicly-educated counterparts, suggesting that individualized education in a home-setting prepares children to excel academically.  Although homeschooled children do not receive the same social experiences as children educated in traditional schools, there are many ways for parents to ensure that their children’s social development receives the same attention as their academic development, from local networks of homeschooling families to extracurricular involvement in sports and other group activities.  Given the current crisis in the American educational system, homeschooling can provide a viable alternative for parents who are able to commit to taking control of their children’s education in order to ensure that their children receive a solid educational foundation.

The history of homeschooling in the United States has its origins in cultural and social traditions of the 17^th and 18^th Century which deemed that parents were best suited to provide their children with moral, academic, and social skills.  According to David and Kim D’Escoto, “prior to compulsory education, findings show that the literacy rate in America was as high as 90 to 98 percent, a remarkable level that has never been attained since the establishment of our current state-controlled education system” (D’Escoto 3).  Although formal schooling has been the most common educational practice in the United States since the mid-19^th Century, homeschooling has remained an option for parents who were dissatisfied with the level of education provided by state-controlled schools.  In his article “The Civic Perils of Homeschooling,” Ray Reich writes that “just ten years ago, educating a child at home was illegal in several states. Today, not only is homeschooling legal everywhere, it’s booming” (Reich 56).  Although the legality of homeschooling rarely acted as a deterrent for parents who were determined to educate their children outside of traditional school settings, the gradual acceptance of this teaching method has allowed for an increased level of parental accountability in the educational process.  The use of standardized testing also allows for homeschooled children to gain admission to colleges and universities by demonstrating that they’ve reached the academic level necessary for such educational pursuits.  While there are many reasons why parents may choose to educate their children at home, the freedom to design a curriculum and implement it at a different, often quicker, pace than the traditional school system is primary among these.  As Reich points out, “no other education arrangement offers the same freedom to arrange an education designed for an individual student; in homeschools, parents are responsible not only for selecting what their children will learn, but when, how, and with whom they will learn. In this sense, homeschooling represents the apex of customization in education” (Reich).  The laws and regulations for homeschooling vary widely from state to state.  Some states like California have fairly strict regulations requiring homeschooled students to confer with a tutor or other accredited teaching advisor while others take on a much more limited role.  In Texas, for example, the only requirement for homeschooling is that certain subjects be taught with the intention of providing an education.  Throughout the United States, there is no true limitation on who can teach their children at home, nor is there any sort of testing system for parents who wish to take on the role of teacher.  Indeed only two states–Rhode Island and Massachusetts–must pre-approve a parent’s plan to homeschool.  While there exists the potential for the abuse of this system–or lack of a standardized system–the overall relaxed attitude, nationwide, towards homeschooling exemplifies how homeschooling allows families total involvement, choice, and freedom in educating their children.

According to Dr. Brian Ray, founder of the National Home Education Research Institute, children who are homeschooled “typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized achievement tests” (Ray).  These statistics remain consistent regardless of the level of state involvement in the homeschool process, the education levels of the homeschooling parents, or the family’s household income.  Ray’s suggestion that homeschooled children do better academically than their public school counterparts is echoed by Roxanne D’Amato, who has been homeschooling her three children–aged 11, 14, and 17–for the last five years.  Mrs. D’Amato notes that it is easiest to gauge the difference between the two educational systems with her eldest daughter, Diane, who attended a public school until she was in middle school.  In fact, it was Diane’s inability to read that motivated Mrs. D’Amato to embark upon a homeschooling program with her children.  “After just a few weeks of working one-on-one with her, I saw a noticeable improvement in her reading comprehension,” Mrs. D’Amato stated in an email correspondence.  “Once she began to gain confidence, we never looked back” (D’Amato).  Diane recently completed her high school education through a combination of homeschooling and online distance learning, an option which allowed her to study advanced level chemistry and calculus, subjects which Mrs. D’Amato admits are “not [her] strong suit” (D’Amato), and has been accepted at several universities, including Cornell and Columbia.  Clearly, for motivated parents, homeschooling can provide one route to accommodating and combating difficulties that children encounter in the traditional school system, where teachers can be overburdened with large class sizes, budgetary constraints, and multiple high-needs students who require individualized attention.  As Dr. Ray points out, “for learning disabled students, there are higher rates of academic engaged time in homeschooling and greater academic gains made by the home educated” (Ray).  The customizable nature of homeschooling allows for the educational curriculum to be greatly compressed, making for shorter school days, more flexibility within the daily schedule, and increased time for family activities outside of the regular school day.

There is the potential within the homeschool environment for the social growth of children, namely their relationships with their peers, to get overlooked.  This can occur, primarily, because the educational environment tends to be comprised of the parent/teacher and child/student with social interactions being limited to siblings.  This has led to the public perception that homeschooled children as socially awkward and maladjusted, a stereotype that Mrs. D’Amato took great pains to correct within her own educational environment.  “I made a point of connecting with other families who homeschool, right from the start,” she states.  “We organized group trips, sporting events, parties, library days–basically it was all about combining fun and learning while making sure that our kids got to spend time with other kids” (D’Amato).  Research conducted by NHERI suggests that children who have been homeschooled have fewer social difficulties than their publicly-educated peers, perhaps because of the high level of parental involvement and motivation in ensuring that this aspect of their child’s education does not get overlooked.  The NHERI website states that “the home-educated are doing well, typically above average, on measures of social, emotional, and psychological development [and are] regularly engaged in social and educational activities outside their homes and with people other than their nuclear-family members” (NHERI).  Beyond socialization issues, which can be combated through extracurricular activities, the most worrisome aspect of homeschooling is the potential division it creates between homeschooled and publicly-schooled children.  This division, in which parents can customize their child’s education to a high degree, creates an educational disparity which allows some parents to avoid problems within the traditional school system rather than working with educators, local and state government, and other parents to

Works Cited

D’Amato, Roxanne. “Re:  Homeschooling Questions.” Message to the author. 28 June 2011. E-mail.

D’Escoto, David and Kim. The Little Book of Big Reasons to Homeschool. Nashville, TN:  B&H Publishing, 2007. Print.

NHERI:  National Home Education Research Institute. 2011. Web. 9 July 2011.

Ray, Brian D. “2.04 Million Homeschool Students in the United States in 2010.” National Home Education Research Institute. NHERI, 3 Jan 2011. Web. 9 July 2011.

Reich, Rob. “The Civic Perils of Homeschooling.” Educational Leadership 59.7 (Apr. 2002): 56-59. Web. 9 July 2011.