Homeschoolers perform better academically as well, claims report
By Dain Fitzgerald
Homeschooling is on the rise, according to a report by Education News, and has grown by an average of 75% since 1999. ABC has also reported on the same trend, first picked up last summer. And while the EN report notes that only 4% of America’s school kids are educated at home, they tend to perform better academically.
“Concerns about the quality of education offered to the kids by their parents can surely be put to rest by the consistently high placement of homeschooled kids on standardized assessment exams,” writes EN‘s Julia Lawrence. “Data shows that those who are independently educated typically score between 65th and 89th percentile on such exams, while those attending traditional schools average on the 50th percentile.”
So what kind of parents opt to homeschool their kids? A survey from the mid-2000s conducted by the National Center for Eduction Statistics found that certain stereotypes of homeschoolers as religious zealots is off the mark (though not entirely inaccurate). The top reason cited by parents who opted to educate their kids was “concern about the environment of other schools including safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure” (one might add bullying in 2013). However, the second most cited reason was indeed, “to provide religious or moral instruction.”
Homeschooling parents were also less likely than public school parents – and far less likely than parents whose kids attend private schools – to belong to households with yearly incomes over $75,000, discounting the notion that homeschoolers have greater material resources.
Via Education News and the National Center for Education Statistics.
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