I haven’t written about home schooling in a decade. Back then, home schooling was the province of WrongWingChristians, who wanted to teach their children without state interference. Virginia was one of the places where such activities were given a wide berth.
Now, a decade later, the impetus behind home schooling still involves WrongWingChristian beliefs. But there’s a wider universe of reasons that parents are opting for this modality.
School shootings. Bullying. Parents who fear their children will be indoctrinated in the woke (whatever the heck that means) concepts. Not to mention parental annoyance with mask mandates.
These are the results of the Washington Post Schar School poll. It was undertaken due to the explosive change in home schooling. Back in 2012, 2 of 3 home school parents were seeking a religious instruction format for their children. Now, that percentage is 34%.
The census of home schooled kids now shows that these students are racially diverse. No longer are ¾ of them White; there are plenty of Blacks and Hispanics being home schooled.
The domain is no longer dominated by Republicans (3:1 ratio previously), now they are evenly divided. (The parents are still very conservative, with 1/3 of them averring that the Bible is the literal word of God and 46% decry liberal influences on the public schools. (7 in 10 parents believe that moral instruction is a primary reason for home schooling, too.)
But there still is little oversight or regulation of the home schooled system. And, like it was true a decade ago, this is still a primary problem with home schooling. This actually means many of those being “home schooled” don’t’ receive much schooling. There’s a lack of curriculum- which means the children a being provided a disservice.
I know a few families who home school their young children and they don’t seem to have a “schedule” for learning. Most of the time they are going out for lunch and she says it’s getting her child out with others or going to the playground to meet other children. I never hear anything about curriculum. Back in the ancient days when I was in school, home school wasn’t even thought about. When my daughter had brain surgery at age 12, she was out of school for four months but back then the school sent work home and a tutor from school came over. I can see how some parents are worried about children being bullied but we need to find answers for that so no student should fear going to school.
That’s a great addition to my blog. Thanks, Marftha!
My husband and I homeschooled our son for three years (last two years of middle school and first year of high school) in the early 21st century. It was not for religious reasons and we were so disappointed to find that the first homeschooling co op we tried to join required signing a Christian statement of faith (we did not join). We were fortunate to find a local group that was non sectarian. We homeschooled in New York State, which (at the time) may have been one of the most highly regulated. We had to provide an annual home instruction plan to our district and provide a list of materials we would use for instruction (this, by the way, was all at our cost in addition to us having to pay school taxes plus my husband dropping from full time to part time work. Yes, he was the primary teacher and I continued to work full time because his job had a lot more flexibility.) A minimum number of hours of instruction were required, and we had to submit quarterly reports. Standardized year end tests were also required. I realize many other states do not have this degree of oversight. I realized interest in homeschooling has exploded in recent years and read your post with great interest.
Thanks foŕ providing more background on home schooling. As only a parent could!