Response to Homeschool Criticism

© 2003 Steve Waller, All Rights Reserved

Response to Homeschool Criticism

Dennis L. Evans directs doctoral programs in education leadership at the University of California, Irvine, wrote a homeschool criticism in the USA Today newspaper in September, 2003. He seems to want to keep control of our kids for us (as though our kids are his, he has superior knowledge of our local situations and our child's needs and values, and has chosen what he feels are the superior methods and values, regardless of how we feel) as opposed to parents being responsible for our own kids and applying child specific strategies and values of our choosing from the wide available menu (as though that was wrong).

Evans is obviously offended to learn that homeschoolers don't need him or his education leadership students! It is different when parents are NOT homeschooling and kids are NOT getting an education, then the state SHOULD help kids learn, but when kids ARE being educated by their parents, the state is inferior. If anything, he should be helping parents do the good thing they are already doing, not criticizing them.

The bottom line is that if students learn (meet age appropriate objectives, or call them milestones), the method has been successful, regardless of the method or regulating structure.

Based on homeschool performance, homeschooling, even WITHOUT Evan's permission, approval and "education leadership" is successful, even superior to that which he DOES influence, not to mention the nonacademic (social) advantages of homeschooling.

Academic Achievement (From Homeschool Performance)

• Dr. Brian Ray, in the most in-depth nationwide study on home education across the United States, collected data on 5,402 students from 1,657 families. Homeschool students’ academic achievement, on average, was significantly above that of public-school students. In addition, the home educated did well even if their parents were not certified teachers and if the state did not highly regulate homeschooling.3
• Home educators are able to be flexible and tailor or customize the curriculum to the needs of each child.
• In study after study, the home educated score better, on average, than those in conventional state-run schools (see table).2

• For learning disabled students, there are higher rates of academic engaged time in homeschooling and greater academic gains made by the home educated. “... [P]arents, even without special education training, provided powerful instructional environments at home...” (p. 11).4

Check the brief summary from a recent booklet "Home Schooling on the Threshold" (with additional links at the bottom of this descriptive page).

Here is the home page of the National Homeschool Education Research Institute (NHERI). Add this to your favorites for future with discussions non-homeschoolers about homeschooling. It will prove very useful.

Why should homeschoolers (with superior performance) ever be regulated or managed by, or forced to attend public schools (inferior performance)? If anything, homeschoolers (superior performance) should threaten to regulate public schools (inferior performance)! THAT makes more sense and you would think a director of doctoral programs in "educational leadership" would be able to figure that out. It is simple math (homeschooler's 80th percentile > public schooler's 50th percentile!).

Sometimes acadamians need an education. In this case, a homeschool education!

Go Homeschoolers!

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