Homeschooling

Home-schooling vs. Public Schooling Introduction: There are more families today than ever before that have switched to home-schooling their children, an estimated two million. This statistic is unbelievable. There are many things that a public school has to offer in way of education. There are also extra-curricular activities offered for after school and even during school that a home-schooled child would not receive. Once you look at some of the statistics gathered through different studies taken, you will see that there are many differences and similarities in the education offered to both home-schooled children and those children attending public schools. There are differences in the methods used to teach children where academic lessons are concerned. For instance, with public schools, teachers are faced each day with the problem of trying to instruct as many as twenty to thirty students at one time. There is very little allowance of the amount of one-on-one teaching that is sometimes needed. On the other hand, a home-schooling parent is faced with just teaching one to maybe five students at one time, allowing that extra time that is needed for instruction. With such a vast difference, there tends to be a better learning curve for the home-schooled child. You also have the interest of the parents and how much more they tend to be involved in their child’s education. From an article, entitled, “Doing the math behind homeschooling”, written by Carl Azuz from CNN. There is a statement that was made. “Most parents aren’t certified teachers, so it stands to reason why some question the effectiveness of a homeschool education. But the Home School Legal Defense Association, an advocacy group in favor of homeschooling, reported in 2009 that homeschooled students averaged 37 percentile points higher on standardized tests than their public school counterparts. EducationNews.org backs that up, saying that while students in traditional schools mark the 50th percentile on standardized tests, students who are “independently educated” score between the 65th and 89th percentile.” This article was written on August 28th, 2012. There is an issue of learning materials that is offered to the students of both public school and those attending homeschools. With Federal and State budget cuts over powering public schools, there is a shortage of text books in many public schools today, and a large amount of them are so outdated it is unreal. There are times that students have to either share text books or even work off of copies of work sheets in order to learn their material. With homeschooling that is not an issue. The parents can order their text material through an accredited program such as Abeka or Alpha-Omega Christian Schools. These are just a couple of places to get material for students at home. The child and parents also have a choice of whether or not they want to work from workbooks, computer disc, or even virtual classrooms via the Internet. The question arises about the parents not being professional educators, the solution is simple. The parents are offered everything they need in order to successfully teach their child, such as, teacher’s aids, text material, testing supplies, and many other materials to aid in the teaching of their children. Another question rings out, what about socialization skills that a child needs' How can that lesson be taught at home if the child is never out mixing with other students' We all know that a child in the public school system has all kinds of opportunities to play sports if they wish too. They are also offered different clubs to partake in, such as, photo club, yearbook staff, chess club, and the list goes on. There are also the extra-curricular activities offered, prom, dances, home-coming, and so on. These all offer the child opportunities to develop their social skills. Home schooled children aren’t offered all these extra activities, so their chances of socialization are drastically reduced. What many people are not familiar with is the support groups that are out there for just that purpose. There are home school groups that organize around the country so that a child is offered a chance to interact with other children their age. Field trips are organized for the purpose of education and socialization for both the child and the parents. Museums, libraries, ski trips, shopping trips, trips to National and State landmarks. All activities include some type of educational or physical values. Home school families are even offered legal aide through a law firm that specializes in home school rights. One thing that you see and hear about more frequently today is peer pressure and the act of bullying. These are words that no parent likes to hear about, especially if it involves their child. Peer pressure is something that always has been around, even since the starting of the public school system. With the constant pushing of a child to fit in with the crowd, it can turn into something devastating. Children always want to be included, but when you have certain cliques where a child must choose to act a certain way, or wear certain clothes, or even just hang around certain people, otherwise, you won’t be included, and often times, shunned. This has a huge impact on a child’s mental growth and well-being. With home schooling, there is not that constant threat of being someone the child doesn’t want to be. You no longer have the growing problem of bullying in the school. This just isn’t an issue any more, allowing the child better opportunities of maturing in life and in lessons. Conclusion: There are many different pros and cons to home schooling and to public school for the child. Many parents, not to mention, academic institutions feel that home schooling doesn’t offer enough for the child and that the child will not be able to co-exist in the real world. Over the last few years, this manner of thinking has started changing. In an article, written by Christopher J. Klicka, ‘Esq. Senior Counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association, dated September 20, 2006. Titled, “Homeschooled Students Excel in College”, (www.hsida.org). Under the sub-title, “How Are Homeschoolers Scoring On College Entrance Exams'” The author writes, “Research has shown that homeschoolers on average do better than the national average on standardized achievement tests for the elementary and secondary grade levels. Statistics demonstrate that homeschoolers tend to score above the national average on both their SAT and ACT scores. For example, the 2219 students reporting their homeschool status on the SAT in 1999 scored an average 1083, (verbal 548, math 535), 67 points above the national average of 1016. In 2004 the 7858 homeschool students taking the SAT scored an average of 22.6, compared to the national average of 20.9.” Home schooled children have been offered the chance to attend ivy league colleges, as well as state and community colleges, and have gone on to have very productive life’s in the real world. They are finally obtaining the right to prove themselves very capable individuals in both their family life and their places of employment, and making a major contribution to their communities.