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Homeschooling as an Equalizer
By Rebecca ManorThere is a graphic that has been floating around on the internet
recently and I've found it fascinating. As the homeschooling movement
grows in size and multiple generations of people can now state that they
are either homeschool grads or were homeschooled for a portion of their
education, it's getting easier and easier to measure their
achievements, academic records, and even adjustment to post college
life.
According to the data, homeschoolers are more successful than their
public school peers when it comes to performance on standardized tests
in all subjects. They are also more likely to graduate from college and
have higher post-secondary GPAs. As a disclaimer, this entry is not
meant to be an indictment of those who choose to send their children to
public schools. Multiple studies have also shown that students in public
schools with highly involved parents are much more successful than
those whose parents are not involved. I am also not going to address
issues of poverty and education. I just want to talk through some of the
data on this graphic.
What I find fascinating in these statistics is that homeschooling is a
great equalizer. I find this so exciting and inspiring. Study after
study has linked student success with family income. For students in
public schools, those from lower income levels are consistently
outperformed by their wealthier peers. Those whose parents are more
educated also perform better. With homeschooling, disparities in family
income resulted in virtually no differences in a students' success.
Whether parents made under $34K per year or more than $70K per year, the
students performance was much higher than their public schooled peers
and only
4 percentage points separated the least and most well off homeschooled
students. This trend continued despite "per student" expenditures. Home
schooled students whose parents spent less than $600 per year per
student only performed four percentage points lower than those who spent
more than $600. Current public school spending is over $11K per student
per year. Obviously, homeschooling is much less expensive (not
factoring for lost income for the parent that chooses to stay at home)
as you are not paying for full-time teachers, building maintenance,
support staff, etc., This entry is not trying to tackle issues of public
educational spending. What I am interested in at the moment, is the
idea that a good education is not something you can put a specific price
tag on. I think these homeschooled students are not benefiting because
of what their parents spend on education each year. Instead, they are
benefiting from their parents' investment of time, energy, and vision.
These parents are affirming the importance of education in their
student's minds and this is crucial for a child's academic success. The
students are also benefiting from customized educational programs as
well as time to read, explore, and create. Unstructured time, is so important to a child's creative development and homeschooling
allows students more freedom to pursue their own interests.
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This study brings up many interesting issues and I think that
homeschooling families will find it an encouraging affirmation of their
efforts. The United States faces diverse issues with its educational
system and I hope that homeschoolers will be a part of the discussion
and effort to seek solutions.
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