January 15, 2004 - 12:13 EST

I think I'm going to have to share this article. Although I do not currently homeschool, I did homeschool for some 6 years and have never regretted it.

January 4, 2005 - 10:23 EST

Home Schooling Results
Friday, December 24, 2004
U.S. Freedom Foundation www.freedomfoundation.us
David W. Kirkpatrick Senior Education Fellow

The evidence that home schooled students do well is more than special interest pleading. Departments of education in such states as Alaska, Tennessee and Washington have conducted studies that found the typical homeschooled student comes out ahead on virtually every significant measurement.

Specific instances abound. One family sent three home-schooled youngsters to Harvard; a homeschooler wrote a bestseller at age 15; homeschoolers placed first, second and third in the 2000 National Spelling Bee; Patrick Henry College in Virginia was founded for such students. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett has suggested, probably only partly tongue-in-cheek, that "Maybe we should subcontract all of public education to home schoolers."

Self-esteem is a much-proclaimed goal for students by many public educators, a goal that, whatever its merits as a theory, has created much controversy. One study found that home-schooled children did far better when measured for this attribute as well. Only 10% were below the national average. By definition, among the general student body, 50% score below average.

Studies by Cornell University Professor Urie Bronfenbrenner suggest that, at least until age 10 or 12, students who spend more time with other children their age than with their parents tend to rely on other children for their values. The result? They tend to have a lower sense of self-worth, of optimism, of respect for their parents, and, ironically, even of trust in their peers. If he is correct, this is one of the major, and unrecognized, reasons for the growing dysfunction of much adolescent behavior.

More than 200 colleges, including such prestigious institutions as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, actively seek to attract such students not only because of their high SAT scores, but for their advanced social skills as well. So much for the rhetorical concern about socialization.

A study for the Smithsonian Institution by Harold McCurdy concluded that genius is more likely to develop among children who spend more time with their parents and other adults, less time with their peers, and have freedom to work out their fantasies. McCurdy also suggested that the public school system tends to do the reverse and restrict the development of geniuses.

Martin Engle, head of the National Demonstration Center for Early Childhood Education in Washington, D.C. some years ago said children sense rejection if they are schooled too early. Raymond S. Moore, citing Engle in an September 1985 PHI DELTA KAPPAN article, suggested that "early schooling may be the most pervasive form of child abuse in the Eighties."

That may be carrying things a bit too far. But, in the face of the evidence, there is no justification for the hostility so many public school supporters seem to feel toward homeschoolers. In district after district they are rejected when they try to participate in a limited number of school activities, academic or extracurricular, although a number of states now require public schools to allow such participation. In Pennsylvania, which lacks such a law, hundreds of school districts do this voluntarily.

As Stephen Arons wondered in his book "Compelling Belief," "Why is it that millions of children who are pushouts or dropouts amount to business as usual in the public schools, while one family educating a child at home becomes a major threat to universal public education and the survival of democracy?"

Speaking of taxes, homeschooled students, whether there are 850,000 or 2,000,000 of them save the taxpaying public billions of dollars a year by withdrawing from the public schools. Using $9,000 per pupil as a rough approximation of current annual spending on public schools, homeschooled students save the taxpaying public from $7.65-$18 billion a year. It has been estimated that homeschooling parents spend about $800 of their own money annually to educate each child.

In brief, while no one should be compelled to undertake the unusual dedication required to homeschool their children, those who wish do to so should not have government place bureaucratic roadblocks in their way. The evidence to-date makes it clear that the success rate is much higher for homeschoolers while the actual cost is lower -- as little as zero for taxpayers. The results benefit students, parents, family and society.

It doesn't get much better than that.
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"(R)eviews by the Hewitt Research Foundation of more than 8,000 studies have failed to turn up any replicable research suggesting that normal children should be schooled before age 8 ... Except for highly specialized classical services, even handicapped children are best taught in their homes prior to the age of 8 or 10." p. 63, Raymond S. Moore, "It Depends on Your Aim," pp 62-64, Phi Delta Kappan, Sept.. 1985
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