Report card on homeschooling

Using an article from the Washington County News, Lisa Dyess of Millry, in a recent Letter to the Editor to The South Alabmaian, quoted David Davis, Washington County Board of Education Truancy Officer: "The main problem we face comes with parents telling us their children are being homeschooled and yet they are not in school receiving an education. These cases have been neglected in the past and I am going to make sure that they start receiving attention." Dyess made the point (accurately) that Alabama has two ways parents can legally homeschool: tutoring by a certified teacher or parent(s) teaching under the umbrella of a church related school.

Davis' quote is ambiguous in that it is not clear whether he meant that the homeschooling parents are not following through, or homeschool is inferior to public school? Dr. Lawrence M. Ruder, with the College of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland did exhaustive research in 1998 comparing public schools, private schools and homeschool students. Dr. Ruder is a former director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation and he has been in quantitative analysis for over 30 years. His two children attend public schools.

Everything that follows is taken from Rudner's findings, published in 1999.

Demographics In 02-03, there were between 1,700,000 to 2,100,000 homeschool students, K-12, with statistics showing that the trend is growing.

Eighty-eight percent of homeschool parents have continued their education beyond high school compared with 50 percent of the general population; the median income for homeschool parents is $52,000 compared with that of all families with children, $36,000.

Almost all home school students (98 percent) are in married couple families and 77 percent of homeschool mothers do not participate in the labor force. Sixty-three percent of home school students watch one hour or less of television per day as compared with only 25 percent nationally.

Achievement

Within each grade level and each skill area, the median scores for homeschool students fell between the 70th and 80th percentile of students nationwide and between the 60th and 70th percentile of private school students. For younger students, this is a one-year lead. By the time the homeschool students are in 8th grade, they are four years ahead of their public/private school counterparts.

The achievement test score gap between homeschool students and public/private school students starts to widen in grade 5.

Homeschool students did quite well in 1998 on the ACT college entrance examination. They had an average ACT composite score of 22.8 which is .38 standard deviations above the national ACT average of 21.0 (ACT, 1998). This places the average homeschool student in the 65th percentile of all ACT students.

Analyzed data for 7,607 homeschool students shows that there is no significant difference in the achievement levels of homeschool students when parents are certified teachers and those that are not.

After Graduation

and Citizenship

Seventy-six percent of home school graduates between the ages of 18-24 voted within the last 5 years compared with 20 percent of the relevant U.S. population.

Over 74 percent of home-educated adults ages 18-24 have taken college level courses compared to 46 percent of the general U.S. population.

Eighty-eight percent of homeschool graduates surveyed are members of an organization such as a community group, church or synagogue, union or a professional organization.

Discussion

Homeschool achievement scores are exceptionally high. The median scores for every subtest at every grade (70th to 80th percentile) are well above those of public and private schools.

The achievement test score gap between homeschool students and public school students starts to widen in grade 5.

The factors that account for significant differences among homeschool students are the amount of money spent on education, family income, parent education and television viewing. (Since this study is nine years old, perhaps video games may be substituted for television?)

This was not a controlled experiment, therefore, differences between groups do not control for background differences in homeschool and general United States population. It does not indicate that children will perform better academically if they are homeschooled. This study simply shows that those parents choosing to make a commitment to homeschooling are able to provide a very successful academic environment; and that test records show that homeschooling works well for those who are choosing this form of education.

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