Why Do You Think Homeschooling on the Rise?

Why Do You Think Homeschooling on the Rise?
Ask 100 families why they chose homeschooling and you will get 100 different answers. IMHO the main reason it is on the rise is because homeschooling is now recognized as a valid and highly successful educational method. Families couldn't pick an option that they didn't know about. Many would look for an option because public and or private school wasn't working but they would often be give misinformation if they found any information at all. A good friend of mine is a perfect example. Her mother was told for years that homeschooling was illegal in GA. She finally researched the laws well enough to find that it was legal, and pulled my friend out of high school a few weeks into 9th grade. This was in the late 1980's. IMHO the internet has contributed greatly to the rise of homeschooling. Parents and children alike now have quick and easy access to statistics, studies, homeschool support groups, laws etc

Would you ever, or do you now, home-school your kids? This is my 10th year as a homeschool parent.

What do you think would be the hardest part? Giving up the idea that education only happens is a traditional classroom setting. At first I tried to recreate "school" within the home and found that it was too much work for me and too boring for the kids.

Are the laws in your state favorable toward homeschooling? Yes

William Benson: The facts prove you wrong. Homeschooling has consistently been on the rise for at least the last decade. The percentage of children in the US that are homeschooled has consistently grown over the last decade+. In 1999 an estimated 1.7% of children between the ages of 5 and 17 were homeschooled. The percentage grew to 2.2 percent in 2003, and to 2.9 percent in 2007.(from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009030.pdf). Estimates based on the growth trend and numbers from states that report numbers of homeschoolers now put the percentage of children in the US that are homeschooled right at 3%.

Studies and statistics also disprove your false claims.Statistics and standardized test scores prove that homeschooling works. Homeschoolers consistently score higher than their public school peers. When homeschoolers are broken down into categories by their parents’ education levels, the children of school teachers/those with degrees in educational fields score slightly lower that the average for homeschoolers. While no one knows for certain why this is the case, it is believed that “trained teachers” are more likely to insist that a student bend to fit the curricula instead of bending the curricula to fit the student’s needs. Most former school teachers that homeschool will tell you that their schooling got in the way of being an effective homeschool parent.

There are many false assumptions about how homeschooling works such as: parents are the only ones teaching; the parent can't learn right along with the student; students can't learn something on their own...etc. There also seem to be the assumption that parents can't teach more then they know. If humans were incapable of learning beyond what their parents knew we would still be living in caves. Humans are curious by nature. It is the unnatural setting of public school that kills that natural desire.

All research indicates that not only are homeschoolers well socialized and well adjusted, but that they also participate in more social activities as children and adults. Research also shows that public schools are harmful to social skills and the ability to socialize. Homeschooling gives the chance to be around a wider variety of people. Homeschoolers are not limited to being around only those who live in the same school district and who were born in the same 12 month period. Instead, homeschoolers are free to be around people of all ages and who live within a larger area. There are so many ways to socialize beyond the box that is public school. Statistics show that the average homeschooler participates in 3x the number of extracurricular activities over their public school counterparts. Studies also show that homeschoolers are more active in their community not only when they are homeschooling but also once they enter college and/or the workforce.

As more people learn about it or have been homeschooled, the stereotypes and myths are falling away more and more and people are able to see it for the perfectly viable option that it is.

Public school has always been great for some kids, and detrimental to others. Nothing has changed about that; not everyone is well suited to the environment or methods. There was a time when people could not do anything about that. Homeschooling allows them to take an alternate route if they feel it will work.

I have been homeschooling my kids for 12 years (ages 10 through 21) until they are ready for college. It has been very successful in many ways.

I don't see anything particularly hard about homeschooling. Life is hard sometimes; parenting is hard somethings. You have to learn to take it in stride. My oldest went to school until 3rd grade, that was hard, too, trying to live life around the school schedule, fighting with her to do her homework, etc., bullies-- it was no picnic, either. I have my days when homeschooling that you just want Calgon to take you away, too. But there's nothing particularly more difficult about it.


In-laws are not an issue for me as my husband spent the latter half of his childhood as a ward of the state in institutions.

My own mother and I have more issues than homeschooling and I've long since learned how to handle her critism and deal with her negativity so it wasn't an issue.

When we lived in NY I felt the laws got more in the way than helped. Planning an IHIP at the beginning of the year, which might end up veering off as other interests and opportunities arose, and their constant demand for paperwork just got in my way of actually doing productive things with the kids.

But I've lived in FL for the last 11 years and it's much more homeschool friendly, though I wished I lived in a state that basically just stayed out of it because really there is absolutely no benefit to any of the requirements, for me or for the state.

It is not on the rise, this is a myth - or just plain lie. Every year gobs more students enroll in public schools than home school. Home school is hard, seldom effective, and is a serious case of running from the bogeyman's. But the bogeyman is often right at home. Home schooling parents cannot teach with the necessary detachment and professional standards that public officials are held to. And many home school parents are wackos, sorry but it is so true.

Knowledge that something is a problem is not reason to avoid it - it is reason to look for ways to solve the problem. Learning to navigate in a social climate of competition and diversity while avoiding pitfalls of the lure of underworld is a great place to lear to be a real man or woman. Priceless.

I think the main reason people home school is because they are paranoid that their kids will learn something they don't know and be smarter than them.

That and they want their children safe at home when the Zombie Apocalypse starts.

I think most of the people in my generation (early 40s) remember when there where basically 4 kinds of people who home-schooled: REALLY extreme people on the right, REALLY extreme people on the left. People whose child was REALLY sick, and people who who lived REALLY far from a school. Now, home-schooling is main-stream, middle-class, and very common. It's respectable.

Our family home-schools for religious as well as academic and social reasons.

It just boggles my mind that in a public school my child could read about religious myths and legends of every culture but her own. Christianity is pointedly excluded in the public schools, even to the point of violating freedom of speech if not freedom of religion. It's even avoided in history, where it played a pivotal role. Educators and social planners at high levels have made it very clear over and over that their goal is social engineering, including the reduction or abolition of Christianity. Some have come out and said this directly:

“Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday-schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?” Charles Francis Potter, signatory to the Humanist Manifesto I


We also want our child to receive a good, classical education that will prepare her for life. Both my husband and I are professionals with post-graduate degrees. We've both interviewed young people who could not read, write, spell or do basic math. We're not the only ones concerned about this. Other parents are also worried about the education their children are receiving at p.s. In some schools children no longer memorize math facts; in others, they don't learn to spell. It's all great and good to pad the child's self-esteem, until he hits the real world and his resume is pitched in the trash because he can't spell "cat." If you can't read, write, do math without a calculator, spell, or speak with a decent vocabulary, your occupational choices are limited and you're stuck in a minimum wage job.

A good many of us are also concerned about the socialization available at the p.s. Once the public schools tried to raise kids to a higher cultural/social level by introducing them to a higher level of vocabulary and culture; now the public schools are bringing kids down to the cultural level of the local prostitute or drug-dealer in the name of political correctness. It seems as if young people's horizons are being constricted rather than broadened. This does young people of all social classes a disservice, because they will not know how to dress, behave, or interact in the higher levels of professional society. We knew a professional who recently had to explain to an applicant that he could not be hired because the young man had large holes in his ears, had tattoos, and many piercings. That simply does not work in a professional office; yet many young people are being blinded by their peer culture that this doesn't matter.

The public schools have also usurped the parents' place in teaching children about sex and moral values. Parents are really concerned about what their kids are being taught. The schools teach kids that "it's their right to express themselves sexually," but then Mom and Dad have to be there to clean up the mess when the young person finds himself with herpes or AIDS or their daughter finds herself pregnant. Liberal counselors aren't going to be there when 15 year-old MIssy is sobbing after find out her "lump of tissue" had tiny fingers and a beating heart, or finds out that pregnancy means stretch marks, hemorrhoids, an epidural, and some really embarrassing situations. Schools are encouraging young people to defy their parents and experiment in areas that can cause a life-time of hurt and suffering, if not death.

There are other reasons that parents have for moving toward home-schooling: being able to move at the child's pace rather than an arbitrary scope and sequence, the ability to choose curriculum, the ability to work with a gifted or challenged child one-on-one; physical and emotional safety issues; desiring a closer family; flexibility to travel or move as needed; etc.

I want to be clear that I respect many public school teachers. I think they are fighting a losing battle in a thankless, no-win situation. They're being pulled in multiple directions by sports-fanatics, people who want academic accountability, and social engineers. The good teachers in our system are not to blame for the problems in our schools; instead, they are being treated as baby-sitters rather than as professionals.

As for our state (Texas). It is very favorable to home-schooling. We're considered a private school.
I hope this helps! :)

As for the Zombie Apocalypse, that occurs here every morning before I have my coffee. :)