Homeschooling

In the last thirty years, Homeschooling has grown in popularity among Americans, in the early eighties there were about ten thousands homeschooled students, today there are over two million children being educated at home. There are now more children being homeschooled than are enrolled in charter and voucher schools combined (West 7). The popular reasons why children were originally educated at home are simple in nature, religious and secular beliefs, learning disabilities and proximity to a public school – rural locations in the U.S. Over the last quarter century however this has changed dramatically, the majority of homeschoolers today and by quite a margin, are devout, fundamentalist Protestants (West 7). Of the hundreds of thousands Protestant parents who removed their children from public schools have done so not because of special needs or because they live too far from schoolhouses but rather because they do not approve of public schools’ liberalism and style of teaching, not just religious beliefs (West 7). Some may argue that this is an extreme way of thinking that they are punishing their children by not allowing them to be “properly” educated by certified teachers. However some studies may suggest a different thought. In a landmark study, Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute, among 7,000 young adults who had been homeschooled, 74% had attained some college courses compared with just 46% of other young adults (Feldhahn 1). Out of these 7,000, 82% said they would home school their children (Feldhahn 1).