Homeschooling As A Better Alternative To Public School

September 19, 2005

Chris Liakos

Hundreds of thousands of families have made the decision to homeschool. According to Christine Scheller, an estimated three to four percent of the school age population, approximately two million students, participate in homeschool (Scheller 47). While the reasons for individual decisions to homeschool may vary, many parents cite serious concerns about the academic failures of the public school system and the on-campus social exposure of students to the use of tobacco, drugs, alcohol, and sexually explicit behaviors. The homeschool environment promises a more wholesome atmosphere and academic progress that can be monitored closely by parent instructors with a vested interest in the student’s learning outcome. *Although a homeschool program may not meet the needs of every student, it is becoming recognized as a decidedly superior alternative to the public school system for many.*

Some may believe that the homeschool alternative is a relatively new idea; a brief review of history, however, will reveal a number of famous historic figures who were the products of homeschool educations. Among these individuals were Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain (Jones and Gloeckner 13). In fact, homeschool classrooms were the source of educational opportunity even after the advent of public education often because schools were not readily accessible to families living in rural settings. While the idea is not new, the reasons for contemporary interest in the home-based classroom are a product of the modern world.

It may also be argued that while the problems of the modern world have breathed new life into the idea of homeschooling, the same modern world has made this alternative viable for more and more families. Access to public libraries, academic publishers and affordable technology including computers and access to the Internet are among the many resources and tools available to homeschooling families. It is, however, more than that; the educational marketplace has also seen the development of a wide variety of materials developed specifically for the homeschool classroom. Homeschooling families have effective access to all the materials available through the public school system, as well as to many not available to the public school teacher and student whether this is the result of lack of funding or bureaucratic approval.

Homeschool environments afford family educators greater freedom related to both content and calendar. While many home educator parents elect to parallel the general organization of the public school system, they are also at liberty to invest additional time in an area of interest or timeliness, to plan “real world” field trips that illustrate or enhance a lesson, or to accelerate, decelerate or otherwise modify lesson plans, worksheets, and other presentation materials. The liberty to do make choices in content, to manage the educational calendar, and to adjust according to the needs of the individual student make homeschooling advantageous for students across the spectrum, whether gifted, mainstream or learning disabled.

Homeschool families broadly report that students within these programs are not only the beneficiaries, they are invested in the educational process. Rather than memorizing for test recall and regurgitation, homeschool students are more engaged in their educations, more interested in the subjects at hand, and are likely to retain more information and develop a more substantial knowledge base than the peers who are situated in the public school environment.

Students further benefit from socialization in a more wholesome setting; a setting in which students are socialized to the standards established by parents through the home-based classroom, and the extracurricular activities approved and monitored by those parents. The home environment is a shield from unnecessary exposure to the public school dramas of teenage sex and pregnancy, use of tobacco and illicit drugs, the stress of peer pressure and the pursuit of popularity. It is difficult, if not impossible, for the public school system to keep these distractions out of the institutions which are supposed to be devoted to academic learning. Homeschool students are, however, not without social interaction. They are often involved in sporting events, community service volunteerism, and church sponsored activities. According to a survey by Jones and Gloeckner, homeschoolers can be verified as socially healthy and compatible with their same age peers:

Admission officers were asked how they expected homeschooled graduates to cope socially in their first year of college compared to traditional high school graduates. This question revealed that 43.6 percent of the admission officers expected homeschooled graduates to cope socially as well as traditional high school graduates their first year of college. (18)

Surveys are not scientific studies, and are highly subjective; even so, this is an interesting finding in light of recent news reports suggesting that many university admissions officers are not only accepting homeschool graduates, they are seeking these homeschoolers out in recruitment efforts.

America’s school system once brought learning opportunity to the general population, raising up a more educated public, but it can no longer claim that greatness. The news is replete with stories of young people who cannot read being issued high school diplomas, students who cannot compute basic math problems unable to compete for college admissions and ultimately for technology based jobs, a shocking prevalence of teenage pregnancy, drug use and campus-based violence. The very system that brought hope to people for a better future is now failing those people. Whether responsibility rests with the school system’s very design, the people who populate it, or some combination of these other factors, the result is that a growing number of people have made an alternative educational choice.

The homeschooling alternative is without its own set of challenges and sacrifices. Homeschool families must provide intensive parent supervision, organize and teach a wide variety of subject areas often to children across a broad range of ages, individualize their programs, and plan for extracurricular activities. They must also support the cost of these endeavors over and above the property taxes they pay to support public sector education, and without any tax relief otherwise. There is also some degree of media vulnerability within the homeschool movement. Perhaps because this movement represents a shift within society away from government based supervision and toward the personal accountability of families for the education of children within those families, examples of individual failures are given substantial media coverage; by contrast, the general population seems to have accepted the failures of the public schools. People may shake their heads in disappointment, but hardly seem outraged by the daily exposures of American kids to the very behaviors that are likely to ruin their individual lives and further erode the fabric of our culture and society. When these failures occur within the homeschooling community, whether related to questions of truancy, parent educator qualification, curriculum choice or the influence of religious beliefs in the development of the educational program, they are portrayed as far more shocking. A call for “government supervision” is typically not far behind; the same government supervision that has failed our public system of education.

Despite the challenges and sacrifices that come hand in hand with the decision to homeschool, it remains a viable alternative to public education; for many parent educators, it is decidedly the superior option. The freedom of parents to select curriculum, to modify or adapt it as necessary for an individual student, the opportunity to expose children to experiences in the field, and the wholesome environment in which the homeschool education can take place make homeschooling the choice of these families. As parents and students continue to discover that the government-run public school system does not suit them, many will make the decision to homeschool.

OpinionEditorials.com � Homeschooling As A Better Alternative To Public School – Liakos