Home Schooling

There have been a lot of questions raised whether homeschooling or public schooling is more beneficial for our future generations.

Homeschool Home schooling is an alternative to public education. It is a choice that many more parents are making today, and even more are projected to make by the year 2000. It is estimated that at the end of the year 2000 there will be 2,000,000 home schoolers in the United States (Gorder 1996). There are other alternatives to Public School education. Some examples are Catholic or Private schools or a privately hired tutor.

Today, many parents across the nation are choosing to homeschool their children. A U.S. Department of Education’s report shows that approximately 1.5 million children were being homeschooled in 2007 (Lips, and Feinberg). This is almost 3 percent of all school age children (Lips, and Feinberg). A private researcher, the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates 2.5 million children were being homeschooled in the 2007 – 2008 academic years (Lips, and Feinberg). Either way, homeschooling is growing drastically every year.

Left Behind: Not just a series of novels In 1999, there were an estimated 850,000 homeschool students, K-12, in the U.S. (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2007). By 2010, that number had more than doubled to an estimated 2.04 million students (National Home Education Research Institute, 2011). While there has been continuous growth in the homeschool community since its beginnings in the early 1960s, this most recent jump in numbers is unusual, and suggests a catalyst for a movement away from public schools. One obvious reason is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).

Homeschooling is an education that gives parents choices and the right to teach their child however they want, but are the parents’ wants what the children need. Parents want to give their children moral instruction or want to teach them based on their religious beliefs and parents do have the right to do that because it is their child, but there are specific things that are essential for a child to learn or to experience. There are religious schools that give children an education on their faith and academically. Homeschooling doesn’t work because states have varying or no regulations on curriculum, some parents just aren’t equipped to teach their children, and homeschooled kids do not experience socialization. Parents don’t have to show how their child is performing academically, some parents only have a high school diploma or less, and homeschooled children are missing an important element of life because they aren’t learning or participating in class discussions or activities in a classroom setting.

erupted in the late '70s against our monolithic government school systems, stands as one of the most significant educational developments of the century. The number of American children being taught at home, although minuscule compared to public school enrollments, had grown by the late 1990s from near zero to a near million” (Wagner, 2001, p. 58). Indeed, the rise of homeschooling is one of the most significant trends of the past half-century. Homeschooling is vastly growing to nations as widespread as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, as well as the U.S. (Ray, 2001). The main reason for this reemergence of an old practice is a desire to gain control from the education bureaucrats and reestablish the family as central to a child’s learning (Lines, 2000). The homeschooling movement surprised the professional education establishment with its rapid growth. The number of homeschoolers nearly tripled in the five years from 1990-91 to 1995-96 when there were approximately 700,000 homeschoolers (Lines, 2000). Patricia Lines conservatively estimates the number of homeschooled children at approximately 1 million, while less conservative appraisals among homeschooling researchers and associations place the number of homeschooled children at approximately 1.2 million (Welner & Welner, 1999).

Homeschooling has become a new fashion trend among the many young American parents whose wishes are to ensure that their children receive the best education. On the other hand, the opponents of the homeschooling who prefer public school believe that homeschooling is an extremist belief and always potentially abusive since the kids are isolated (Kunzman, et. al, 23). They think that parents who decide that their kids will attend homeschooling are reacting out of displeasure

Homeschooling is an educational option that permits parents to teach their children at home rather than sending them to public schools. It is believed that "homeschooled children now number 1.2 million in the United States and the number is steadily growing" (Farris, 1997, p. 4). Ray (cited in Mirochinck & McIntyre, 1991). Some Parents believe that sending their children to public schools in which qualified teachers are responsible for educating them is beneficial .However, other parents believe that it is better for their children to be educated at home by people who know their needs. In this paper, I intend to argue with homeschooling.

Last year, my husband and I were trying to decide what was best for each our children when it came to his or her education. Although Freeport, Illinois, does not have a significant amount of schools from which to choose, we certainly looked at them all. After we had spent numerous hours talking to teachers and touring classrooms, we were not impressed by any of the local schools. Basically, every school offered the same general subjects served in a cookie cutter fashion. We, however, wanted our children to have a more diverse and individualized education. Therefore, we decided to look into other options of schooling, particularly homeschooling. “[P]arent-led home-based education . . . is an age-old traditional educational practice that a decade ago appeared to be cutting-edge and ‘alternative’ but is now bordering on ‘mainstream’ in the United States” (Ray). Even though homeschooling has become more popular, some educators and homeschool opponents disagree with the effectiveness of home-based education; believing that children should not be taught by uneducated or undereducated parents who may lack the resources provided by the mainstream school system. However, the public and private schools are not providing children with the proper techniques for learning and understanding the fundamentals of the materials being taught due to the time restraints imposed by teaching multiple children with different educational needs at the same time. In contrast, homeschooling can help children not only learn the concept but understand why they are learning the concept. Structured homeschooling is the best option for most children when it comes to his or her educational needs.

Virginians of all different races, experiences, and backgrounds are taking sides on the important issue of homeschooling. The debate consists of primarily two sides; one that is for homeschooling, and the other that is against homeschooling. Homeschooling has been used as a form of education for hundred of years, but its still not fully accepted by a large amount of Virginia citizens. The subject is fraught with controversies about cogitive and social development, government involvement, safety, and standards. Proponents of home schooling believe that the one on one time that a child receives during homeschooling is greatly beneficial to their future. Those supporters of home schooling also argue that with the control over what the child learns, is an advantage for any child that is homeschooled. The parents can control the child’s curriculum into the need of the child. Despite these fair views, there are some who feel the cons outweigh the pros of homeschooling. In the opposition view homeschooling limits the contact with other perspectives and environments. By the same token social contact with others is greatly hampered