31 Isabella Roll – Homeschooling as A Method of Education

Isabella Roll is a Freshman from Richmond, IN, majoring in Elementary Education with a minor in Special Education. Isabella enjoys reading and writing as well as coaching middle school golf. This work was prepared for Jackie Kauza’s English W290 class.  Professor Kauza states, “Isabella crafted a thoughtful, well-reasoned argument about homeschooling, addressing multiple perspectives and engaging with misunderstandings about the practice of homeschooling.”

Homeschooling as A Method of Education

As of today, 3.7 million of American children are being homeschooled. That number represents over six percent of children in grades Kindergarten through their senior year of high school. There are many techniques and ways of homeschooling children, but the misconceptions surrounding the practice of homeschooling are very concerning. Although some may think that homeschooled children lack an understanding of society, when homeschooling is done correctly, children will have a well rounded social life as well as better test scores and better mental and physical health on average. Recognition and true understanding of homeschooling needs to be advocated for throughout the entirety of the country, so that stereotypes can be eliminated and attention can be brought to those homeschooling their children. Parents should have the right to educate their own children, but are often shamed and looked down on because of their choice. The topics that are most important to cover regarding homeschooling are the academic achievement statistics, how parents can allow for a better homeschooling experience, how the pandemic affected the homeschooling life, as well as recent political issues that have come about relating to education.

While some may be concerned about the academic achievement of those being homeschooled, in fact, “the home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests and 78% of peer-reviewed studies on academic achievement show homeschool students perform statistically significantly better than those in institutional schools” (Ray, 2022, p. 2). It is a concern for some when the education of children is placed in the parents’ hands, but as of now, there are no significant academic or social downfalls of homeschooled students. So as long as parents continue to homeschool their children in an effective and proper manner, homeschooling can be seen as a more impactful form of education in many circumstances.

Studies not only show that children being homeschooled are excelling in percentile points and standardized tests, but that they also tend to be more successful in college and later life. “69% of peer-reviewed studies on success into adulthood (including college) show adults who were home educated succeed and perform statistically significantly better than those who attended institutional schools” (Ray, 2022, p. 4). Homeschooled students are also shown to be more physically and mentally healthy in comparison to students attending public schools. “87% of peer-reviewed studies on social, emotional, and psychological development show homeschool students perform statistically significantly better than those in conventional schools” (Ray, 2022, p. 4) It is a common misconception that homeschooled children lack the social concepts of the world and are sheltered from issues in society.

Not all parents are qualified or able to homeschool their children, but those who are able to do so can do many things to prepare to be the best possible educators for their children. Things such as joining homeschooling groups, picking the right curriculum, providing a productive and motivating workspace in the house just for instructional time, as well as defining a routine schedule, are all important steps for parents to take according to an article by Scholastic (Scholastic Parents Staff, 2018). “It’s not just for the kids, although socialization is critical for them. Homeschooling parents need to connect with like minded adults too” (Scholastic Parents Staff, 2018). Parents who are homeschooling their children should collaborate with other parents and bounce ideas off of each other. Parents must ensure they are educating their children to the best of their abilities and the best way to do that is to join homeschooling groups and see what other parents are doing. It’s not just the children who are learning; those teaching them continue to learn as well. Another thing parents must be sure they do in this process is to make sure they are following all of the state standards. If the state standards are not being properly followed, their children will most likely struggle on standardized tests, which expresses a negative outlook on homeschooling once again. Parents wanting to homeschool their children should do their best to keep negative stereotypes away from the matter and solely focus on what is best for their kids.

March of the year 2020, homeschooling changed across the country. The pandemic shut down schools, which brought a new light to the idea of homeschooling, for the good and the bad. However, this new light wasn’t expressing what homeschooling truly is. Instead it was expressing a false idea of education at home: the parents weren’t teaching their children, necessarily, but rather the students were just learning at home via electronics. Between the pandemic and the political issues happening at the time and the years to follow, some parents were eager to get their children out of the traditional school setting. Parents were concerned about their children being exposed to illnesses as well as political and social issues that may be too mature for some age groups. Some parents, however, were wanting their students back in public schools, but were being forced to homeschool them with the help of the school systems as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID has most definitely had a remarkable effect on homeschooling. During the pandemic, the public school enrollments plummeted, and the amount of students being homeschooled sky rocketed, with many of those recent homeschooled children not being educated in a proper manner. Keeping that in mind, the practice of homeschooling children has been going on for a long time. “Before COVID, already a significant portion of children in the United States – nearly 4% – were being homeschooled” (Dwyer, 2022, p. 36). Now we can see that this percentage has increased by over two percent over these past four years, but homeschooling isn’t a recent thing. It is just being frowned upon because of the way homeschooling was impacted by the pandemic in 2020.

Many political issues came up during this time as well that parents may not want their children to be exposed to. Some of these issues include issues surrounding the LGBTQ community and issues surrounding book bans. Saying this, parents of children in public schools saw how easy it was for their children to complete assignments at home during the pandemic and thought that would be better. “This fall, millions of new homeschooling parents have realized that their children can learn without school” (McDonald, 2024). Issues regarding controversial topics, such as book bans and sexuality, are another reason why so many parents are converting to homeschooling. But the concern is, are these parents homeschooling their children properly? Most homeschooled children are taken to museums and such to learn more about a topic; they have a strictly followed curriculum and are taught in a routine way. COVID-19 greatly affected the already homeschooled children, because of the closings of museums and educational places were harmful to those homeschooling their children. However, now that the pandemic has been controlled and public places are open again, it is crucial that parents are made aware of how important museums and field trips are to the homeschooling process. “When the world reopens to them, they will find that homeschooling is even better than they imagined” (McDonald, 2024).

Contrary to some misconception, the homeschooling community doesn’t just get to teach whatever they choose. There are many state mandates as to what students must learn at each age. “Meanwhile, the homeschooling community was on high alert. Before the pandemic, it saw itself as perpetually threatened by Big Brother, despite the consistent success that an American coalition led by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) had had in knocking out one regulation after another. They feared that a bad experience with home-based learning among children who had been attending “regular school” would be popularly assumed to reflect some inherent deficiency with homeschooling, thus leading to new calls to impose additional restrictions on homeschoolers” (Dwyer, 2022, p. 36-37). Parents homeschooling their children were very worried about the backlash they were getting regarding how they were homeschooling. It was crucial for the parents to do all they could to minimize the misconceptions so the world around them wouldn’t disapprove of their education methods and how they choose to transfer knowledge and information to their children.

When looking at statistics on test scores, mental health, success in life, and overall achievement, it is clear that homeschooling, more times than not, has a positive effect on children. When parents are able to and willing to carry out the requirements of homeschooling, homeschooling should be encouraged rather than looked down upon. To ensure that homeschooled children are being educated as the government standards expect, there could be a testing requirement put into place. This would be a well rounded compromise between those for homeschooling and those who may be against it. Along with this, those homeschooling their children need to find ways to diminish the misconception regarding the social lives of the homeschooled children. There will always be people who disapprove of homeschooling, but bringing awareness and positive attention to the homeschooling community will reduce the number of those against it immensely.

References 

Dwyer, J. G. (2022). Homeschooling reconsidered. Philosophical Inquiry in Education, 29(1), https://doi.org/10.7202/1088379ar

McDonald, K. (2024, February 6). Homeschooling more than doubles during the pandemic. Foundation for Economic Education. https://fee.org/articles/homeschooling-more-than-doubles-during-the-pandemic/

Ray, B. D. (2022, September 15). Research facts on homeschooling. https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/CommitteeDocuments/28/20735/20Sep2022 – Research Facts on Homeschooling Handout.pdf

Ray, B. D. (2013). Homeschooling associated with beneficial learner and societal outcomes but educators do not promote it. Peabody Journal of Education, 88(3), 324–341. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956x.2013.798508

Scholastic Parents Staff. (2018, December 7). 8 steps to homeschool success. Scholastic. https://www.scholastic.com/parents/school-success/school-involvement/8-steps-to-homeschool-success.html