I don't think the determination that home schooling is MORE efficient makes any logical sense.

The idea that parents should remove themselves from the workplace in order to educate their children individually would appear to be a huge drain on resources in society at large.

It should also be noted that there is virtually no regulation of Home Schooling in practice (at least in the Toronto area). Once a parent pulls their child out of school, the governmental oversight of their child's education is for all intents and purposes absent.

It should also be clearly acknowledged that the stated purpose of the Fraser Institute is basically the disentanglement of Government influence and the personal democratic choices of citizens of said government. Obviously they are going to advocate for Home Schooling as a means of achieving their goal.

Basing results on individual studies that support their argument, when no mention of studies that disprove their arguments is not sound research.

Great article. I have always known (and seen) that home schooled kids were just a lot more grounded, calm and well rounded people. In sharp contrast to public or private schools where kids spend more time honing their social skills (ie rat race skills), or worse, just trying to survive the bullies and other degenerates.

Also for those who think the home schooled child misses out in quality interaction with their peers, all you have to do is enroll them in sports, music and other activities that are available to all children.

I for one would love to be the person taking my child out on a field trip or to the local science world.

Reading the research makes it clear how many advantages, both academic and social, there are to homeschooling (whether structured or of the more 'unschooling' kind) -- but I can't possibly see how 'free' could in any way be one of them, not by a long shot. What an odd thing to claim, while almost immediately afterwards pointing out that you'd need to quit your job??? I looked up Upper Canada College -- the day student tuition is 'only' about $25,000. So I guess if you make less than that after a year, you can save the difference by homeschooling... but really, I would say cost is the biggest _disadvantage_ of homeschooling.

We home schooled both our kids - one for 3 years, the other for 8. We gave the public system our best try and it was roundly a gong show.
A lot of school time is truly spent waiting and so much of it is dealing with disturbances of one kind or another. It was a huge relief to pull our kids from the system and teach them at home.
During all those years of home schooling, I rarely spent more than 2 hours, one on one, doing what one would consider traditional school work. They were mostly 'guided', worked through their own math curriculum, read A LOT of books - fiction and non-fiction - and participated in a huge number of outside activities.
The argument of social isolation is truly flawed unless you're holding your child hostage in the basement. Our kids accompanied us everywhere and took outside lessons in music, art and sports.
I think the home schooling community is well aware that it is considered to be weird. In turn, many consider traditional schools to be inadequate, unhealthy and often dangerous.
Home schooling is an option - like private, public and French immersion. At the end of the day, you have to assess what's best for your child. Nothing is perfect.

We have homeschooled or children or over 12 years with some breaks for private schooling. Individualized curriculum is useful especially if you have young boys who are initially slow to pick up reading. Their early lack of progress in reading can stigmatize them if they are directly compared to same aged girls.
The loss of earned income is substantial. This, when combined with the fact that most provinces (NB) will not put one penny toward the real expenses incurred parents in home schooling, can make a families finances very challenging. The money saved by a homeschooler not appearing at local school is kept by the provincial government and the local school board sees not one cent. I don't think this lack of support is fair.

Home schooling can be free. Yes, it costs to send your child to school (public and private). In School you pay for the building, upkeep, teacher and staff salaries, utilities, books, busing and so on.

To educate at home you are already paying household bills, so that is no extra cost, unless you buy curriculum. As for resources there is the library and internet. I have known people who don't buy curriculum (which you can do) but use the local public library for all their book resources. The internet has tons of stuff you can use, all you have to do is search a subject area and you have free stuff.

Personally we perfer to have our own resources so I buy books for the kids and we hardly use the library. We also use internet resources and do things that really interest the kids. There is so much out in the world to learn from it is great. No teachers, no curriculum, just the personal interests and needs of the kids. My kids feel bad for their friends who have to go to school.

I'll start by saying that I mistrust any report put out by the Fraser Institute, a right wing think tank based in Vancouver. It doesn't matter what I read by the FI, it's always got some serious methodological flaws, and as a consequence, some curious conclusions

That said, there is a lot to be said for the individual attention that results from homeschooling...there's no reason we can't replicate some of that in a public school system: indeed, teachers have been asking for smaller class sizes for years, only to be laughed at by the government (I still remember the mockery of the BC Liberals towards the teachers on this very issue a few years ago). There's also a lot to be said for allowing the child to learn at the pace that suits them and through models that work for them. Again, there is no reason that this cannot occur in a public school classroom. The (over) emphasis on curriculum (generally a ministry of education directive) usually comes at the sacrifice of individual students' personal interests...for example, a child can learning math, spelling, social studies, science, math, history, etc all from a deep interest in trains, or planes...or horses...or cars....or dogs...or dancing...and it's certainly possible to allow students to get deeply into subjects that interest them within a public school classroom.

However, I don't think that asking children to wait - the main argument this author is making (I don't know if that's one of the main pillars of the report) - is not necessarily a bad thing. Patience and leanring how to use one's time alone, productively, are also important things...and I can tell you that my homeschooling friends' children all wait too...in order for homeschooling to fit into the daily calendar, it has to give way to the logistics of running a household as well...which means that the much-anticipated trip to the library to get more books on subject A may have to wait until laundry goes into the dryer, or until little brother wakes up from his nap, or whatever.

the biggest 'problem' with public education today is not the teachers, nor the students...but the fact that it is chronically underfunded: that there isn't a budget for new library books, or for a playground....and that it's up to parent advisory councils to fundraise to make up the difference, resulting in serious educational inequities across the system.

Having worked in a classroom with children who were previously homeschooled I must disagree with Mitch. These children were not calm and grounded at all. They had no concept of having to wait their turn to speak or for assistance. They were impatient and often disruptive. They also tended to have poor social skills and little ability to be coached in sports. I think people who home shcool their children do them a grave disservice on the whole.

the problem with any research that claims causation is that they are most often measuring a correlation and not a cause and this fraser institute report seems to be no different.

it is quite possible that students who are homeschooled achieve better results on various tests and measures, but it could possibly be a correlation with having parents actively engaged in their children's learning, living in affluent families that can afford the materials and the social outtings, or a variety of other things that this report does not consider.

it is great to see kids succeeding, but any ethical researcher will not make such claims to the reasons for such success being solely affected by the type of school received.

keeping in mind the objectives and stance of the organisation producing the research is always important.

As with everything sometimes it works really well, sometimes it doesn't. However, I am glad that these studies are now being done. I don't home school my children, but I fully support the option and totally disagree with people who make the blanket statement that it is detrimental to educational well being of the students. With dedication and planning homeschooling can be the perfect solution. There is plenty wrong with the public and private school systems. There is no perfect solution, but home schooling should not be frowned upon. One thing I've noticed is that most home schooled kids are very self sufficient and well versed in putting their knowledge to practical use. That is something that is often missed in the group settings. They get lots of book knowledge but have no idea what to do with it. Basically we all have to remember that there is no one solution for everyone and we need to be open and supportive of a variety of approaches. I thought this was a great article.

There are controlling and isolating parents who use "home schooling" to avoid the scrutiny that school attendance brings.
These kids need help but no one is paying any attention to them.

It's no small wonder more and more parents are sending their children to private schools or home schooling. In the mad rush to assimilate each and every child, we've taken special ed children; children with severe problems mentally and often physically and put them in the same classroom. Teachers end up devoting much more time to these students and, in the case of mentally challenged children, the effort is wasted and for naught. Never mind that they also have to be taught that lesbianism, homosexuality,transgenderism,sexual perversion is all perfectly natural, well and fine. And, of course, there's the absence of God as he is no longer welcome in the classroom.
You can applaud the attempt and even, to a degree, the rationale in including special needs children in the regular classroom but it comes at the expense of the others. Forcing children and their parents to accept that deviant behavior is normal is beyond the pale however and no parent should have to keep their children in such an assemblage.

homeschooling is NOT "free"

Materials cost money, extra-curricular activities cost money and, most importantly, having a stay at home parent costs money.

It's not like the gov't gives us a tax credit.

Otherwise, yeah, homeschooled kids, in my experience are more mature, grounded and able to find practical applications for their knowledge. They tend to have, not just superior standardized test scores, but a superior abiliity to synthesize information.

As for the commenter who found her homeschooled classroom to be "disruptive" there is one thing homeschooled kids don't excel at: traditional schooling. fortunately, public school classrooms are exactly nothing like university OR the real world, so that particular skill is not a great loss.

Those same kids she finds "pushy" are exactly the kind of people who are called "go-getters" everywhere else.

My four children were all homeschooled. Two went on to become successful owners of their own businesses. The other two went to university and went into technical careers. Two of them were making a six figure income by the time they were 25. They have always been go-getters, happy, well adjusted and get along great with everyone. I agree that school is a great waster of time and you expose your children to both adults and children who may not have their best interests at heart. Why not keep them home, let them play and learn at their own speed and follow their own interests? In my experience, it works very well. And they never lacked friends, home schooled and schooled both.

lystgl - the reasons you cite are some of the most powerful reasons for children to *go* to school: I want my children to understand that not everyone thinks the way we do; that not everyone has the opportunities we do; that not everyone has as easy a time of it in school as they do; that not everyone is white or brown or whatever; that not everyone is heterosexual and that some people never feel comfortable in the bodies in which they were born. That's part of growing up in a larger world - trying to understand those around us, trying to work with them, trying to find solutions together...and it's all the more necessary as our world grows ever larger. We need to learn how to work together. And what better way of doing it than by being exposed to difference?

Hiding in a bubble doesn't help anyone.

leftcoast - it sounds like your kids did well. But there are as many success stories from the public school system. Let me share mine. My sister and I both went to public schools. We both have our PhDs. We both have successful careers. We both have happy personal relationships and bright, happy children (in public school). See, it's a nice story. But just like yours, it doesn't prove a single point. It's an anecdote and nothing more.

Home schooling will work well for some; it wont' work as well for others. Let's take a closer look at the methodology of this study; I think you'll probably find that it's flawed, like most of the studies offered by the Fraser Institute.

I find many people have a very narrow definition of home schooling. Most kids I know who are/were home schooled did not live in a "bubble" as one person put it. Home schooling seldom means you spend all your time at home, or for that matter just with your parents. Some people chose to do that, but many do not, their children are involved in a variety of programs which include both home schooled and non home schooled children.

Jade, you were probably referring to my comment; however, if you'll read it carefully, you'll see that I was responding to someone who *was* looking for a bubble in which to place his/her kids (lystgl above)...

I have friends that homeschool for morality reasons (the bubble approach), but also those who, on the other end of the spectrum, have chosen the unschooling approach, and I find aspects of unschooling very appealing in many ways.

If you want people to understand homeschooling more broadly, then you also need to ensure you read other people's posts more carefully.

Parents do home schooling for many different reasons, and there are examples of successful people from both home schooled and regular educational institutions. Not sure about Canada, but this U.S. site lists many famous individuals who were home schooled some time in their life www.homeschoolacademy.com. I don't think the focus is which way is better, or turn out kids who are more successful; but rather, which path is better for the family and the children, and whether home schooling met their needs and goals. As a single parent, I would not have the time, money, or energy to do home schooling. One way I did facilitate my child's quest for knowledge and moving along faster was to scrape up some money and signed her up for a couple of distant learning courses at Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. She loved the courses while at school, guidance office forbade her from signing up AP Calculus in 11th grade. My niece, who went to a public school in California, finished 6 AP courses by the time she completed 11th grade. In my kid's case, I can't figure out if its the school or TDSB's policy to hold student back. That is 1 reason I agree with home schooling - it doesn't hold your child back.

Home schooling is definitely not free to the parents. The way I understand it is each school draws up a budget based on the number of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) students, and receive money from the school board for each student who attends the school. The parents of home schooled kids would still contribute to the school's funding via rent or property tax. There is no credit or refund or deduction if you home school your children even the money is paid.

If anything, the parents who do homeschooling are paying twice, once in tax money, and once in whatever resources spent on homeschooling (curriculum, books, trips to library, museum etc.)

Whether FI's report is valid or not, I recall reading news articles (cannot cite the article) that on the state side, Ivy League universities like Harvard and Yale do admit a higher proportion of freshmen from home schooled kids.

It doesn't matter the findings of the Fraser report though I agree with most of what I read there, what is really important is what is good for each family and more importantly the child(ren) in that family and in my experience homeschooled children are very balanced and focused. The downfall in current times in most cities is that there might be an overabundance of activities to choose from, I know of homeschoolers who are mostly learning 'on the road' that is on the bus or in the car because they have so many other homeschool friends or learning/activity buddies

I am once again surprised by an educated person no less a journalist who is covering an old story without doing her research around the actual facts relating to the topic.

There are so many homeschoolers in Ontario that she could quite easily find a family that could have answered her questions and referred her to relevant research (then perhaps not as so many homeshcoolers have been tricked in to sharing their homes with reporters only to find later that they were looking for the negative and not sharing the positive)

Homeschooling is not for everyone but I do believe that it is a possible option for most and in my opinion it is a great choice but not for those who are not interested in spending time with their children, I personally choose homeschooling because I love to be with my children I am lucky enough to have other family members who offer to cover the subjects where I am unable but for others there are other options.

To those who are negative about homeschooling I suggest you try met some homeschoolers you will surprise yourself I too had those negative ideas before my children attended school and before I met some great homeschooling families that turned my beliefs right around.

My wife and I have been teaching our 4 children at home for almost 20 years, but we are the de facto students, role playing as teachers. Their inquisitiveness, intense application, pride of achievement and dreams of their own future have taught us that 'education' is mostly caught, and less taught. School pedagogy operates on the premise that children are empty vessels that experts must fill, and the children seem to be the only ones who know that's just control propaganda. Poor grades and bad behavior are symptoms of bored children telling us that they feel disenfranchised, and they don't want to play this game anymore. Its child abuse to ignore or overrule them.
An increasing number of schools resemble penitentiaries more than libraries, and yet less than 50 years ago, most schools in North America were safe citadels of learning and social skills. We home schoolers want that for our children, and yours too, and we're getting it at great personal cost. Homeschoolers support public schools with our tax dollars. It would be nice if public schoolers supported us with access, resources and best wishes for our children who are just as precious and needy as theirs. We need each other equally in different ways. Most of today's parents, including virtually all homeschooling parents, were taught the value of citizenship and equality in public school. Our children, by virtue of their trust and dependence on adults, embody that lesson. Who's the real teacher here, and who's the empty vessel?
gregathome

It's as no-brainer -- private one-on-one teaching is bound to be far superior to group lessons.

However, I take exception to the comment by the author: "I knew one family that decided... their local school wasn't offering a 'proper Catholic education'. Whatever that means."

Substitute "proper Catholic education" with "proper Orthodox Jewish education" or "proper Muslim education" or "proper Afro-centric education", appended by the remark "Whatever that means", and see how long before it has to be removed from the article.

I would suggest that if the author is unaware what a "proper Catholic education" entails, she should, as good journalists do, endeavour to find out what that phrase means instead of being derisive and dismissive of it.

gregathome, a great comment.
Thank you.

It is a statement about being governed that the Education Ministry would develop a tool to "shop" for a public school, and yet not develop tools to assist home schooling.

Several observations: There are few parents who can teach Pre-Calculus, Physics, have properly equiped science labs at home or even understand the Social Sciences enough to teach a child. I've seen the results of homeschooled students trying to catch up when Mommy decides the now not so wee one needs to get into University or Community College or tires of the homeschooling experiment - It tends not to be pretty. Due to the adaptable nature of young children a parent can probably get away with keeping the child home in early elementary and maybe able to teach basic math and literacy - if they have the time and discipline to work at it. Most do not! The complexities of upper elementary, Junior or Senior High curriculums is another story and the vast majority of parents are not equipped to teach any of that.
Getting along with people not like ones parents and immediate peers is part of growing up - The public schools provide that valuable experience. Working with, and in the larger society, and coping with those we may not like is necessary to maintain a peaceful and inclusive Canada. Home schooling robs children of those experiences and smacks of isolationism and misguided eliteism.
It has been my experience that the people who decide to "homeschool" are often those least able to school their children in anything more than their own biases, prejudices and anti-social phobias. Most who chose this course tend to be motivated by narrow religious prejudices, rascist bias or personal hostility towards some teacher/official. Even if "homeschooling" were effective a quick look at Canada's demographic reveals that in most homes both parent(s) work and don't have the time or resources to effectively educate their children to any comparative standard. I have also observed that many "homeschoolers" want the time, resources and often financial support of the local public school in their endeavour. Seems presumtious and arrogant to me.
It would be interesting to look more deeply at the data that inspired this story - Likely more holes than swiss cheese - generated and spun to serve an anti-public school agenda.

Here's an interesting study to do--try taking all the kids in one school, and requiring them to be home-schooled for one year. After that year I think you would find exactly the same spread of achievement and motivation, from mostly the same kids, as if you kept them all in a public school. Study after study has shown that parental motivation and involvement are one of the main factors in how well kids do in education, so in some ways homeschooling is "skimming" the kids that are best supported at home. Naturally you will get generally good educational results. And personally, contrasting what I remember of peer relations in elementary school with how I see my 4-year old acting now, I don't anticipate an improvement in behaviour once he enters school. But at the end of the day, the "bubble" approach just delays the shock of encountering the "real" world.
One last thing--if you're not happy with your school or teacher, get involved. Volunteer in a classroom, join the PTA, or get elected as a school trustee.

The article is interesting, however, from strictly anecdotal experience, I believe there are as many types of 'home schooling' as there are home schoolers. As always generalisations are only a magnet for further opinionated generalisations.

We homeschool - it's a sacrifice - and we pay taxes so other parent's kids can have an education.

Yet, for the reasons mentioned in the article, and the pure enjoyment of our children, we make the sacrifice.

As for tough subjects, current high school courses in math and science are nowhere near what is needed to prepare students for what they will face should they tackle such disciplines in university.

I thought the comment about mothers taking time out of the workforce was just plain foolish. At a time when many Canadians are desperate for a job, a mom giving up her position for a few years to homeschool allows a person in need to have the dignity of employment.

As for the so-called "bias" of the Fraser Institute, how about citing some bias, rather than just alleging it?

The fact is, the Fraser Institute's Annual School Report Cards should be an embarassment to the educrats and public school boosters - and where's the bias in simply publishing the system's own test results? The conclusion that the public system is a desperate failure is demonstrated conclusively by its own data. Don't blame the messenger.

It is true that homeschooling is not for every family. Butfor those who don't, remember that those of us who do, do so with tremendous financial sacrifice, and at no cost to you.

So many tempests in this teacup.
For those who have not attempted or succeeded teaching their children at home, please remember that most of us who do, came up thru the public or private systems, while you have little or no experiential knowledge of our new lives outside the box.
Citing personal examples of home taught kids who don't qualify for college is cute.
Their parents were likely public schooled, and are trying to take responsibility for their own kids outcomes. Like Michael Faraday, we march to the beat of our own drum.
Read the bio on Michael Faraday, the inventor of just about everything electrical. School dropout, homeschooled, self taught. There are many kids in schools like him, who will never reach their potential.
Given that our academic and social skill sets were learned in the 'real world', its no surprise some have difficulty. What's more impressive though is that most succeed. Check out this site for statistics. www.nheri.org
My kids parents have a cumulative school education of 10 years. My wife is a Cambodian refugee who spent her youth in a death camp and refugee compound and I dropped out of grade 8 to pursue a career in 'sales'.A few years later, I found Christ and life gradually changed for the better. I never went back to school.
Our oldest child entered Carlton U with a half scholarship in Journalism/Mass Com and is top of her class in third yr.
Our second child is finishing grade 12 with a 90% average, is a leader in her large social group and an artist par excellance.
Our oldest son is 14, paid for (paper routes) and is rebuilding a 1974 Dodge Charger, just rebuilt his 21 speed mountain bike, manages his own commercial cleaning contract weekly, is doing RCM grade 8 piano and is fast tracking to get into the best
Engineering school he can qualify for.
Our youngest son is 10 and appears to be a unique mix of the three older ones.
He loves animals. We, like many other home schoolers, teach our children how to learn, as we expose them to what is necessary to know. They own their own learning journey and they are free to sell their skills to whoever is willing to pay them what they think they're worth. Isn't that the 'real world?
If children are safe, respected for their innate skills, and given creative opportunity, they blossom. The 'real world' of school too often kills them on the vine.
Want a more authoritative perspective?
John Taylor Gatto, New York State teacher of the year and three time NYC teacher of the year, quit teaching in 1991, saying he no longer wanted to hurt children. Since then, he has been supporting 'real learning' among street kids. Check him out,and his latest book "The underground history of American Education" at www.johntaylorgatto.com
I used to think it's too bad we don't have a Canadian like Gatto, to spearhead a revolution in learning, but then it occurred to me that we have tens of thousands of gutsy parents and a few supportive bureaucrats who are a thousand points of light in the darkening 'real world' of factory schools. The battle isn't between public and home schools, but rather, like most of history, it's between smug elites and honest Joe's and Jane's.
Public schools are the latest attempt to turn us into serfs. Home Schooling is our Magna Carta.
gregathome

Dear Georgio,
Congratulations ! Excellent post !
I hope some home schooling supporter responds to your first observation. I don't see how most parents can cope with high school level material in all subjects either.
Learning to socialize can be done in other venues - playing on soccer teams etc. I note that most home schoolers are involved in many such activities.
I don't understand why the government is not more involved, both in providing financial support and in monitoring students' progress. Here in Quebec independant schools 'in the public interest' can get part of the cost (80%) of educating students in the public sector; why not home schoolers ? In 'attending' school is required legally why are home-schooled children not tested, at least for basic skills like literacy and numeracy ?

John Kirwan wrote, Dear Georgio, Congratulations ! Excellent post! etc.

How do you define 'Excellence' John. Is excellence sniping from the sidelines, or smart aleck heckling. Georgio has nothing to say other than to string together a series of cliches criticising 'home schoolers'. It wasn't a home school lobby group that prepared the study it was a right wing think tank referring to that mediocre school in Massachusettes (Harvard), that seeks out 'home schoolers'. We home school and have found that to our surprise our biggest supporters have been teachers. The critics of homeschooling tend to have no experience with it but see themselves as the gaurdians of the greater good. One thing we do make clear to our children is that their is no inherent antagonism between regular school and home school. While their friends were going through the February blues and they were parasailing in the Tyrolian Alps and visiting Mozart's home in Vienna it was hard not to feel they were enjoying a more enriching experience.

"The opportunity to escape negative peer pressure (e.g., drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex) through controlled and positive peer social interactions."

This reinforces the notion of intolerant people terrified of their kids' exposure to a non-Christian way of seeing the world. Otherwise they might have objected to "teen sex", not "premarital sex".

"more and more universities are accepting home schooled students." This information - that home schooling could significantly limit post-secondary education choices - is far too important to be buried at the end of the article.

Great article! I have been homeschooling my children for 4 years now. I have 5 children (2 diagnosed with special needs and one under investigation for special needs). I can say for a fact that my children would never have gotten as far as they have if if was not for the benefits of homeschooling them and keeping them in a routine and a familiar environment. In public school children with special needs get separated from the "normal" kids and are not encouraged to improve their learning. My kids are extremely social as well. They do gymnastics, swimming, and music just to name a few. Many of these activities are involving other children who are not necessarily home schooled as well as those who are. I feel my children are more adjusted and more socially balanced than most children their age. After all they have to be around many different ages of people and know how to treat them with love and respect. That is much different than hanging out with your peers most of the day and listening to your teacher maybe occasionally. I take my kids everywhere and they know how to talk to adults properly as they have learned from their Mom (teacher) not their own peers. Having said that, that's not to say that kids who do not get home schooled are all rude. It just takes much more work on the part of the parents to make sure your kids are respectable and upright citizens. We home schoolers have it easier as our kids spend much of their time around us. (not "all" if you are doing a good job!) Kids need a balance and I have seen no better place to get a balance than through home schooling my kids!

In my earlier post I was referring to Mozart's home in Salzburg, and meant to write that 'there' is no inherent antagonism between regular school and home school. Gregathome, I enjoyed your post a great deal.

From my experience I've discovered that families who choose to homeschool their kids tend to fit one of two profiles:

1. Their kids don't function well in the system.
2. They're not content with what the system has to offer.

The realities of educating special needs kids (... and there are many flavors of "special needs") is that it's often very difficult for school boards to find the resources to develop custom curriculae or physical settings for those kids who don't fit the mold. Most boards try to accomodate special needs kids the best they can, but at the end of the day, if the money's not there, it's going to show most in the quality of special needs education programming. Many parents have dealt with the bureaucratic procedures (IPRCs) larger boards have set up to develop customized learning plans (IDPs), only to find that after months (or years) of assessments and analyses, there's no money for the required program itself. Homeschooling for many of these families becomes a function of necessity, not principle. It's a tough road for many of these families, where one parent staying home to educate the children can create a lot of stress in the household. Not everyone "wants" to homeschool their kids - so doing so out of necessity can be an unpleasant journey. I commend those parents who set aside their own comforts to care for their kids - it's a sign of true love and courage.

Conversely, some families - without special needs kids - simply choose to homeschool because they want to give their kids "better" (or different) experiences than those offered by public or private schools. We chose this path because, to call a spade a spade, we are not satisfied with the quality of education offered by the public system. Every family who fits this profile will have their own reasons (academic, social, safety, faith, etc), but the general theme here is that many parents choose to put their money where their mouths are when they advocate that the upbringing of kids is the responsibility of parents, and not that of the state. Put differently, if the state isn't offering their kids an educational experience consistent with their expectations, parents will either i) choose to complain about it and rag on the education system (all the while keeping their kids in the system), or ii) take responsibility for their kids and do the job themselves.

I'm not trying to bash the first group (the complainers) - at least not too much - but it's worth noting that no public system will EVER be able to offer every child an optimal educational experience. Parents who choose the public system need to acknowledge this, and not harp too loudly at a system that was not designed (or funded) to offer a customized educational programme for every student.

Homeschoolers know this - and recognize that the best way to give a kid the best experience possible is to design and deliver the experience themselves.

I'm a university student, entering my fourth year. All that I know about the difference between homeschooling and conventional schooling is purely anecdotal. However, I have noticed one thing: how well a child does with either system seems to depend on the type of child and family. In my case, I went to an ordinary public school for all of elementary school, sometimes with excellent teachers, sometimes with teachers who were essentially useless.

In my case, homeschooling would have been a complete failure. I had a generally happy childhood in a good family, but my mother and I argued too much for her to teach me. While she could offer academic support to my sister and I, we had to hire a tutor when I struggled with math - I could have never learned any kind of numeracy had I been homeschooled.

I have friends who thrived in the public system and the private system, and friends who thrived with some homeschooling or from being entirely homeschooled. There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of education.

Two parent families with a large income are lucky that they're able to make the choice between regular and homeschooling. In my opinion, though, the decision between public, private, alternative, or homeschool should depend on the needs of the child.

I have no doubt that my children would get the "best" possible education if I chose to homeschool them myself. In order to do that, however, my family would have to forgo an income well into the six figures for me to stay home and I would have to forgo my own career satisfaction. As it is, my children get an education of reasonably high quality and great social opportunities and we are able to afford the best possible supplementary child care and high quality extra curricular activities. It's a balance that works for us. If the income I'd forgo were smaller, or my children had special needs that the system could not meet, then I might strike a different balance that might include homeschooling.

In the end, it's all about what works for your own family.

The reality is that, regardless of what's out there, parents are still the primary educators. By the time they get to school, their personalities are already pretty much intact and they act / react based on what they've already learnt at home.

Home schooling certainly has it’s merits.

However, I am disappointed that this article does not provide a more balanced view evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the Fraser Institute’s report. This article ignores the Fraser Institute’s politically biased view of education that allows the real achievements of public schools to be systematically ignored.

This right wing think tank seeks to privatize all public services, including education. This report encourages parents to enroll students in private schools, and undermines overall support for public education. It turns schools against each other, and pits families against teachers and their unions.

The recent VSB decision has set off a political storm, including bitter editorial attacks against the trustees in the Vancouver Sun and National Post. Clearly, the right wing forces for which these media speak fear that the Fraser Institute agenda to privatize education is threatened by a broad revolt of teachers, parents and trustees.

What people need to realize is that there isn't any one path for ANY family to follow, with respect to educating children. All families are different and all children learn differently.
Homeschooling is not the best situation for all families, but it is for ours. I would be the last person to trumpet homeschooling from the towers, because in many families, it would be a disaster! In ours, though, it works splendidly.
We have a profoundly gifted child who was bored in school and beginning to tune out, all at the ripe old age of 6. This was a child that, at 3 years old, could grab one of my Human Anatomy books off of the shelf and tell you the correct anatomical names for any part of the human body....not because I drilled it into her but because she thought it was fun! Fast forward to grade 2 and we steadily saw her love of learning fizzle so badly that she eventually just gave up trying. Her report card would show C's in subjects that she adored, even though every single test that she took was 100%. When we asked the teacher for a reason for the discrepancy, we were told that even though her test scores were perfect our daughter didn't look as though she was paying attention.....she would stare out the window and doodle. Well, duh! She's b-o-r-e-d! I think it says quite a bit that she could stare out the window, doodle and STILL get 100%, don't you? (For the sake of brevity, I am, of course, simplifying the issue, but I'm sure you get the gist.)
Anyway, taking our daughter out of school was the best thing for her. She has regained her love of learning and now at the age of 13 is not only learning much more, in every subject, than she would in school, also has a strong self confident personality that isn't seen in a great deal of teenage girls today. Everywhere we go people will always comment on how mature she is and will ask us again how old she is, because she is so different than the teenage girls of today. And before anyone pictures us chaining her to a desk and force feeding her information while keeping her isolated,all while wearing an ugly polyester pant suit, think again. She is primarily unschooled, in that she chooses what to study, has may friends, is a published poet, has acted in plays, loves romance novels, takes extra curricular classes with many schooled friends, loves video games, scary movies, eating candy, dressing nicely, looking pretty and making people laugh! She can laugh her shorts off at Family Guy AND discuss the conflict that occurred in Rwanda (or any other region, for that matter) and how it could have been prevented and how future generations have the responsibility of preventing such atrocities. She can be a typical teen one minute and give me the eye-roll extraordinaire and in the next minute run to help our elderly neighbor or a woman in the store in a wheelchair that needs someone to pack her shopping in the back, where she is unable to reach. In other words, she is well-rounded, smart, kind, funny and deliciously happy. Isn't that the only thing that matters? That is the best result for any of our children, schooled or unschooled. It really doesn't matter how you get to that point with your child, as long as you can say they are the best that they CAN be.......and happy, to boot!
Thank you for this article. It is nice to see support in a national paper. There will always be naysayers on any subject, especially anything that deviates from the norm, but it is nice to see an attempt to discuss a topic that is becoming more common day by day.
May every parent choose the best path for their child and nurture them so that we have a new generation of productive, well-rounded and socially responsible adults.

In reading the research further I have more than a few problems with the thrust of this article and the research paper it was based upon.

1. The original article was published in October of 2007 and is largely based on research that is horribly out of date, and mainly anecdotal.

2. Much of the supporting documentation originates from conservative and like minded sources - i.e. the Cato Institute in Washington, and the Fraser Institute itself.

3. No fewer than 33 of the 109 reference articles in the research appendix are press clippings or transcripts of television shows from the main stream media. That isn't exactly a sound resource for research. (1/3rd of all references? Seriously that's pretty pathetic).

4. Of the 'serious' research, one of the references is an "unpublished" doctoral dissertation. If it's unpublished it can't be verified and is thus far from meaningful.

Frankly the whole research article as far from "empirical" despite it's assertions to the contrary.

I came away from reading it with LESS confidence in the ability of the institute assess the information accurately.

Digging on info like this is kind of important if it's being presented as factual or accurate.

I would like to say that I'm both a proponent of the public system and the home school option. My son attended public school for 4 1/2 years. The teachers he had worked hard to help us try and resolve his learning challenges. I have nothing but praise for teachers, but with the limited resources and the sheer numbers in the classroom it's difficult at the best of time for them to meet individual students needs.

Our decision to home school was not made because we felt he would get a better education at home, but a different way of providing that education. I think we all can agree there are pros and cons to any educational system. In our case, we would not have chosen home schooling for our son had we been able to find a way to make it work for him in the classroom. But to see our child start to hate learning is something we had to change. It hasn't been easy to homeschool nor has it been cheap...but to see our son getting excited about learning again has made it all worthwhile.

I feel frustrated to read some of these responses based on limited knowledge of either system. I think both systems can co-exist nicely. Children have exceled in both systems of that there is no doubt, just as children have failed in both systems. There is no "one-size-fits-all" educational system that has yet to meet all of our children's needs, so as parents we do the best we can.

Having a child that has been in both systems, I do know that there is one thing that BOTH systems need in order to have success. They both need ongoing parental involvement. The more parents are involved in their children's education the better both systems work.

I'm forever shocked by the way people like to generalize. It seems that some people here would like to say that I'm homeschooling because I want to put my kids in an anti-social bubble and cram ONLY my own beliefs down their throat while ensuring they can get no decent job in their future. That makes just as much sense as me saying that people who are putting their kids in public school only do so because they want to get their kids out of their hair as often and as soon as possible while exposing them to government-derived beliefs in a sink or swim environment designed to turn them into either bullies or victims, both with no self-esteem. Neither really encompasses the whole picture, does it?

I believe that homeschooling is the right thing for me to be doing at this time. It's working for our family, and my kids are thriving. I don't think it's the right thing for everyone, and I'm thankful that there's more to the public school system than the narrow generalizations I made above. I think if people take the time to actually examine what homeschooling is about, they'll find there's more to it than they might first assume.

As for how we'll cover high school topics, I hope people aren't insinuating that homeschooling parents aren't capable of either covering the material or finding someone who can. There are online courses, community college courses, correspondence, friends, and personal or community experience as resources. Most of us who are homeschooling our kids made it through those courses in high school ourselves, and many even have university degrees!

I personally know a woman who was homeschooled in a 'life learning' environment (no formal curriculum) for her whole 'school' life. She has a university degree, has held very prestigious jobs, is very well-spoken and respected in the community and is now homeschooling her children. It would seem at least part of the time it works.

As the mom of five children and a professional speaker and author, I have been privy to quite a bit of research on education and child development. In this age of saturated information instantly at our fingertips, where digital children are teaching our teachers how to use technology, it's quite appropriate that children can teach themselves so much more about our history, culture, math, English and Science then adults, either parents or teachers can. On a personal note, my children have been homeschooled, in private, public, French Immersion, online and unschooled for chunks of their education. We have tried it all. For the most part, self-directed learning has been the most effective, and it never ceases to amaze me how they can score high marks on provincial exams, yet have no formal education other then play video games 16 hours a day and get an education government allowance of only $665 funding per year. Makes you wonder why so many children sit in jails (classrooms) for the better part of their childhood and we spend $10.000 per child to make them do it with mediocre results.

What a well-rounded and fair article on homeschooling from someone who doesn't homeschool themselves. Thank you.

Having recently decided I must homeschool, I'm really happy to see this. I'm in the third category not mentioned here, homeschooling around my work schedule because my highly gifted child cannot seem to fit into public school. I do think that it was right that the author didn't think everyone should homeschool. If each child is different, it stands to reason that some will do well in public school while others don't. In the case of learning disabilities, sometimes the power and resources of a public school can be unmatched. But there is not very much in public schools for the unusually precocious and to a degree, I recognize that my child can disrupt the rest of the class while trying to entertain himself when boredom becomes unbearable.

I think that there are reasonable approaches to homeschooling and the net has made those approaches easier than ever to find. If you're seriously committed to doing what's best for your child, you won't have to worry about them not getting enough social interaction or enough experiences, because it comes hand in hand with enrichment opportunities found at the library, in team sports and at museums and zoos all across the nation. I want what is best for my son and as it currently stands, he won't find that in public school. But I'm also not certain it will always remain that way. So I may try public school again down the road.

John Kirwan wrote, Dear Georgio, Congratulations ! Excellent post! etc.

How do you define 'Excellence' John. Is excellence sniping from the sidelines, or smart aleck heckling. Georgio has nothing to say other than to string together a series of cliches criticising 'home schoolers'. It wasn't a home school lobby group that prepared the study it was a right wing think tank referring to that mediocre school in Massachusettes (Harvard), that seeks out 'home schoolers'. We home school and have found that to our surprise our biggest supporters have been teachers. The critics of homeschooling tend to have no experience with it but see themselves as the gaurdians of the greater good. One thing we do make clear to our children is that their is no inherent antagonism between regular school and home school. While their friends were going through the February blues and they were parasailing in the Tyrolian Alps and visiting Mozart's home in Vienna it was hard not to feel they were enjoying a more enriching experience.

Dear John Eccleston,
My description of Giorgio's post as 'excellent' was based on his raising a general concern about home schooling - that most parents do not have the background to teach all subjects at high school level - instead of just citing anecdotal 'evidence' based on their own experience. Your comment about your children's visit to Austria is a good example of personal experience masquerading as 'evidence.' I'm quite ready to agree that it was more educational than the February blues - but this simply doesn't respond to either of the concerns raised in my post.
What background do home schooling parents have in diverse areas - english, math, history, science, music etc. that qualifies them to teach all of them ? How do you teach science without access to a lab ?
It would be interesting in discussing these concerns.

Dear John Kirwin, you are correct that most parents do not have the background to teach all subjects at a high school level. On the one hand I want to respond that 'most parents' don't home school. On the other hand you deserve a more thoughtful response. As a home schooling family with younger children 10 and 12 the issue of specialisation is on the horizon and is of concern. An inlaw of mine who also chairs a dept. at U of T and home schooled his children once said to me that 'your alright at home until high school when they actually start to learn something.' My children will in all likelihood go to high school to benefit from structure in specific disciplines beyond what I think of as needing to read and to count. Parents who do go the whole way often resource specialist tutors and turn kitchens into some remarkable labs. Unfortunately, any discussion of home schooling is anecdotal because each home schooling family is unique in it's priorities. My family has chosen to travel, read, ski and study music as well as pursue John Mightons Jump math program and read widely with an emphasis on handwriting and study various religions, focusing on the big three monotheistic and Hinduism and Budhism. It has been incredibly rewarding. We have floated in the Dead Sea, been to the Sydney Opera house etc. The trouble with school is that just as your kids become more independant and able to keep up on a walk we lose them for the best hours of the day. Perhaps, when they become dislikable teens we need to give them over to High school. I agree with you and don't want to fatigue you with anecdotes, but that is what home schooling is. It is completely personal.For piano lessons, learning to ski and Karate etc. you pay people. Home schooling doesn't mean your children become isolated, in many ways they become more enriched through one on one specialised instruction with experts other than their parents. An anecdote is not masquerading it is a specific example from a sample of one. I hope this gives you some insight into this persons experience.

Dear Johneccleston,
I think we agree more than we disagree. Most (though by no means all) parents who choose home schooling are likely to be capable of coping with teaching all subjects up to high school; they're probably also capable of dealing with some subjects at a high school level. Your inlaw, who obviously is capable of teaching some subjects through high school and beyond, obviously says the same thing. But "parents who do go the whole way (and) often resource specialist tutors and turn kitchens into some remarkable labs" are running a considerable risk.
We also agree that "any discussion of home schooling is anecdotal because each home schooling family is unique in it's priorities." My objection to people citing this is that their argument breaks down to an "It worked for us therefore it's the best system" argument. They cite, as you do, their choice "to travel, read, ski and study music as well as pursue John Mightons Jump math program and read widely with an emphasis on handwriting and study various religions, focusing on the big three monotheistic and Hinduism and Budhism. It has been incredibly rewarding. We have floated in the Dead Sea, been to the Sydney Opera house etc." Leaving aside the obvious expense of all this (far beyond the reach of most families) the fact that it has worked for you does not make it a panacea.
We agree that "Home schooling doesn't mean your children become isolate." As I noted most home-swchooled children are involved in a variety of other activities with their peers.
Your final comment, that you "hope this gives you some insight into this person's experience" is a very fair summary. Mine would be that one can't generalize from this and conclude as the author does, that it applies universally.
I would be interested in your reaction to my other point - that if school 'attendance' is legally mandatory then somebody (school boards, provincial departments) should be monitoring what's happening in each home school.

Comment by John Eccleston - June 4, 2009 at 4:32 PM

>I hope some home schooling supporter responds to your first observation. I don't see how most parents can cope with high school level material in all subjects either.

I am having no problems. To put it bluntly, I am not stupid. IF there is a subject I must know more about, I learn it. If there is something I can't handle well (violin, for instance) and don't care to devote the time to, I...get ready for it....hire an instructor!

This is HIGH SCHOOL, not rocket science. If the public schools did a decent job, then any high school graduate should be able to handle teaching it.

And if they don't....wait, why is public school better, then?

BTW, tolerance is supposed to be, you know, tolerant, not a fancy word for politically correct bigotry.

My children certainly wouldn't do anywhere near so well in public schools due to the institutional devotion to artificial age-based demarcations. I'm teaching my 6-y-o from a math program mean for the top 2% of 5th graders that begins with college-level math.

For his FUN BEDTIME ACTIVITY.

Yeah. Public school would SO support him.

Dear Mead, I’d glad that your experience in home schooling is working out to your satisfaction. I do not agree, however, that “any high school graduate should be able to handle teaching” high school. Most high school teachers, especially at senior levels, have at least a degree in their subject and, while you may feel that you can learn whatever you’ll need to know, (or hire instructors to fill in some gaps) I think that, as your six year old reaches high school, you’ll find it a bit more challenging
As for your final comment , that “tolerance is supposed to be, you know, tolerant, not a fancy word for politically correct bigotry” I would point out that the discussion you’ve joined has been a reasoned exchange of different opinions on home schooling for high school level students. At no point has either of us questioned the right of parents to choose this option. How does expressing reservations that the kitchen table is the perfect school (to paraphrase the article’s title) become “bigotry” ?

Dear JohnKirwan
May I point out that your point of view represents the majority, and that therefore the onus is on your camp to not only tolerate us, but rather respect us as smaller, but equal? Anything less than trusting us and supporting us is a departure from the spirit of democracy that invisibly holds societies together and makes intolerance a moot point. The fact that there are two polarizing worldviews in this forum bespeaks the true nature of our situation. The fact that homeschoolers have to, or think they have to get permission or accreditation from the majority shows how far we have come from true egalitarianism, which is purportedly the most valuable lesson learned in public schools. We have proven ourselves credible. Don't try to co-opt us at the high school level just because public schools have trouble at that juncture. We don't.
The legislators that created the Education Act early last century had a truly democratic view of the value of learning. The Act says " 21-(2) A child is excused from attendance at school if,(a) the child is receiving satisfactory instruction at home or elsewhere;
Satisfactory is nowhere defined, which is currently fortuitous for the public system. I don't say that with any glee.
We homeschoolers however have chosen to make that our focus. We define and demonstrate satisfactory in many ways, and attendance, which is the reason the Act was created, is never a problem for us. Most homeschooled children that are given the choice to return to the public system, choose home.Public systems don't offer the choice.
Maybe, in the spirit of goodwill and egalitarianism, the public boards would allow a qualified homeschool parent to act as a Provincial Attendance Officer who would inspect public schools to ensure satisfactory learning and full attendance is happening?
The true elephant in the room is not satisfactory learning or attendance though. Its pedagogy. A century after the creation of the Act, schools, which were created to bring equality to all children now demand allegiance to their existence and the only thing that thwarts between their success is the wording of the Education Act, veneer thin as it is. If and when Public education, or homeschooling for that matter, become the dominant cultural petrie dish, we will have removed the final obstruction to becoming a collective megalopolis. Borg. Satisfactorily educated Borg.
I digress. Homeschoolers quickly learn that children are not empty vessels, with no innate hunger to know or intuitiveness to employee in their life search. They are us, smaller but equal.Intelligent, clever, ambitious and resourceful. A pedagogy that force feeds a diet of predigested and often politically motivated dated information to millions of unique souls, not only mitigates against the Education Act, but common sense and nature.
A hybrid of public and private learning modalities could easily emerge if thinking people like us could turn our swords into plowshares long enough to create a hybrid lexicon and mutually beneficial rules of engagement.
This forum, in the generous spirit of the journalist that generated it, could be a starting point, and shadows of that spirit have surfaced here and there so far.
gregathome

My mother briefly considered home schooling me after a particularly bad teacher. Ultimately, she concluded that even though I might learn more at home, I would learn different things at school, from other adults, and be exposed to a range of views. You get enough of my ideas already, she told me later. I think that's a powerful argument against homeschooling, and might explain why it seems to pop up so frequently in fundamentalist communities (Christian or not) who perhaps feel threatened by outsiders.

To ‘gregathome’,

I have no trouble respecting you as smaller but equal. Having spent virtually all of my teaching career in independent schools I’m used to not being the norm. In the time between my previous post and your reply I found and printed the Fraser Institute report and I suggest that any others who have reservations should do the same. It certainly answers one of mine - that too many of the posts here were citing anecdotal ‘evidence’ based on a sample of one. (or two) It cites a wide range of studies based on samples large enough to support general conclusions. I also learned that “each province and every state has at least one home school association (which) offer students the chance to interact with other home schoolers... in study groups or for field trips... Some... offer shared facilities... and some have organized athletic teams and competitions for students.” (Pg.17) Clearly the popular image of home-schooling as an isolated experience is wrong.

However another point (or rather a pair of them) I had raised is only dealt with in a few provinces. First, if school ‘attendance’ is mandatory then somebody should be monitoring what’s happening in each home school and second if independent schools (in a few provinces) can get some financial help why not home schoolers ? Turns out that British Columbia’s E-Bus program provides (through school boards) about $4000 per family which provides “a computer, a CD-ROM, internet access, a selection of software, and ongoing on-line assistance. In return, the students must demonstrate that they are performing at the level of their classroom peers and submit their work to an on-line instructor for grading.” (Pg.11) Apart from the obvious benefit to comparatively wealthy family finances this opens the possibility to less fortunate families as well. Personally I would leave any compulsory monitoring to the former (After all provincial governments insist only that the home-schooled child receive ‘satisfactory’ instruction.) since the literacy and numeracy abilities of the elementary school age child would reflect this. (At the high school level it would get more challenging but still, I think, doable. This testing might be done by the school board, the department of Education or the local home school association.This would meet your concern about oedagogy since only outcomes would be tested. How the child is taught to read is less important than the ability to read.

I do not believe the fraser report no matter what school it is reporting on--who made them an authority???

Home schooled children are for the most part socially inferior...I have yet to see an exception to this...as for GOOD universities accepting their home schooled marks...I guess it depends what program they are applying to. I refuse to believe they would be on equal footing with say UCC if applying for medical school at the U of t....I doubt this very very much!!

All of my friends I still see (after 30 years) were friends from school. If I didnt attend any school I would not have these friendships today!!

To ask some group in favour of home schooling whether home schooled kids are accepted at universities is a joke...we all know their opinion!!

I have yet to see a home schooled kid that is anything but a weird geek!

Dear JohnKirwin

You're attempt to be impartial is noble, and refreshing. But the logic of applying equal measures of litmus to our two worldviews is fundamentally unworkable, and the suggestion that we might be scrutinized by the Boards for attendance demonstrates the point.
Time, for one thing, prevents us from being able to empirically develop a lexicon of common pedagogical definitions and terms. Too bad really, because that's the womb where true conversation between conflicting ideas is birthed. But more indicative of the true state of our common-wheel (commonwealth) is the fact that a growing tide of citizens (of which homeschoolers are a small segment) are simply voting with their feet and leaving the conversation altogether.
The suggestion that testing outcomes might be achieved without the oversight of methods, is naïve, and ignores the history lesson of all civilizations.
First, no one who does not subscribe to the prevailing pedagogical conformist worldview would be considered credible for such a task, by the equally predisposed group that would appoint them. The point of testing anything assumes there is an objective standard to achieve. I'm sure the educrats would love the opportunity to test us, so that they could finally, after many decades, define 'Satisfactory' by declaring us unsatisfactory. Those outside the box are now the defacto, and then would become the official straw man in this debate. Public school systems and their parental governments are being relentlessly held accountable in the headlines for dumbing down succeeding generations of compulsory inmates in our schools. Asking them to fix their problems, much less evaluate us who left them for those reasons, is ludicrous. Governments fall when investigations uncover this inbred circle of oversight behind gross mismanagement, and even as we speak, the Ontario Government is under fire again for complicity in the eHealth spending scandal. Shall I mention the WSIB fiasco and many others?
Do you honestly have confidence in this never-ending story of unchecked arrogance and injustice, John?
Secondly, if huge amounts of money were not transferring hands within the education assembly line, or Health, WSIB etc. etc; the prima fascia argument for worshipping at this altar would evaporate.
Your conclusion that how children learn is less important than measuring outcomes of learning would disqualify you from an appointment to any oversight board whose operating axiom is ‘Just US’.
Form follows functions. How we teach and learn determines the structure and limitations of our learning environments. Schools produce curriculums, schedules, modalities and test standards to measure those performances. We fail their tests because we don’t teach to them, and so do their children, according to their own reports. But we excel in our homes and businesses, as previously supported by the only data available to date by the Fraser Report and www.nheri.org.
And John Taylor Gatto is not someone you can easily dismiss either. When the top teacher in New York advocates for ‘weird geeks’, as Pam labels us, our anecdotes pale by comparison.
The Globe and Mail masthead reads ‘The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures. -- Junius
Public schools are advising but I’m not submitting.
gregathome

Dear gregathome,

Thanks for your reply. It seems that I did not make my ideas about a couple of items clear. First I have no interest in having boards scrutinize attendance. Apart from its complete unworkability it would be pointless. My greater concern is that I haven’t made my ideas about testing clear. First, as you point out, any testing “assumes there is an objective standard to achieve.” Avoiding the pitfall of ‘objectivity’ in testing I think that there are a variety of generally accepted tests of reading and arithmetic which might be used. Since these evaluate outcomes rather than inputs I think they minimize your concerns about pedagogy. As I suggested earlier, “this testing might be done by the school board, the department of Education or the local home school association’ to which I would add qualified professionals such as educational psychologists. (That this position would disqualify me from any oversight board is something I can live with.) What objection do you have to an annual readind test (for example) when you can choose the test (assuming it’s generally accepted) and choose who nwould administer it ?

I accept that most home-schooled children are learning perfectly well but, given a few of the posts here, I’m not sure that some aren’t being educated by their parents to the parents’ own complete satisfaction.(We have our ‘Pams’ as do you.) Nor do I find the argument that some children in public schools fail their own tests very comforting; surely you’re aiming at a higher standard than that !

Dear JohnKirwan
I would not object to anyone testing our children in reading and writing, as long as we choose when and with what material.
Im sure you are right about some parents testing to their own satisfaction, though I don't know any among the dozens of families we interact with. I do however know quite a number of children that didn't learn to read till they were 12 or 13. Mostly boys, mostly kinetic types and quite a few auditory learners. Visual learners pass them in tests, but not necessarily in comprehension. My 14 yr old boy is not a reader by choice, unless we give him mechanical or related material.
Once in a while he reads historical fiction. Coming from a family with over 2000 handpicked books in the home,his reading time compared to us readers is exceedingly low, but he has a mind like a steel trap. He remembers tiny details and interesting points, and puts them to practice. He hates grammar, but can diagram sentences for his grade. (9)
He would have failed several levels of tests had he been tested before now. He is equal to his peers in reading and math testing, but is close to being able to write a description of and verbally present(teach) basic mechanical theory or rough construction technique, or piano, or oriental cooking, or volleyball, tennis, soccer, mountain biking (and repair), or basic electricity, plumbing.....In short, we have given him the basics, in the context of meaningful real life experience. There is no test that a school, regardless how well intentioned it is, might grade him on.
See my point?
It may sound cliche, but we generally don't have failures, because we set the children up to pass from the start.When they excel at what they love to do, they pass.Self esteem problems are moot.
Schools used to do this in great measure, within the classroom paradigm, before the 1960's. (our cultural revolution) Since then,function has driven form,otherwise called conformity, as bureaucratic micromanagement of every pencil stroke has transformed schools into powder kegs of frenetic conflict. Children are commodities and curriculum is the currency. How else do you justify teachers increasing salaries and pensions even as children decrease in world level competitiveness?
Yes, I'm aiming at high standards. I pit my children against their own best previous effort. Not others. And they have not disappointed themselves or us. They believe they can accomplish anything they set their hearts and minds on, because they are accomplishing those things. The Chinese say you wont work a day in your life if you enjoy what you do. So true.
Today's assembly line schools are producing large numbers of inept,inert,illiterate, innumerate drones. And lesser numbers of well prepared workers and citizens. The reverse of the pre 60's revolution.
Homeschoolers are producing pre 60's numbers of creative, well behaved, industrious, literate, numerate workers and citizens. I hire them regularly in my businesses. I regularly fire public schoolers for every imaginable breach of conduct and incompetance.
Do you think I take pleasure in this indictment? I weep for these once beautiful children so abandoned and abused by an adult generation bent on justifying their narcissism.
Shame on us all.
gregathome

Dear Pam Smith,

Let me introduce myself so you can have the opportunity to meet someone who is not, as you so eloquently and kindly put it, "a weird geek".

I am afraid you would be sorely dissappointed with my appearance, personality, interests and social skills as they are boring, average and normal.

I have been "normal" for all of my 25 years.

I have friends who I have had since I was five. We are still very close (20 years!)but I may not have been friends with them if I had gone to school. (They were all publicly schooled)

I was a Brownie/Girl Guide

I talked on the phone way too much to my friends as a teenager.

I went to high school for 3 years. I was Student Council Vice-president in grade 12.

I hated chores, homework and math.

I went to university at the top undergraduate university in the country.

I completed post-graduate studies.

My average grade has been 75%-80% for 20 past years.

I watch TV.

I have a job where I sit at a desk in front of the computer, type reports, and talk with clients. (No social anxiety here)

The only part of this that isn't normal, is that I was home-schooled. Someday I may home-school my own children when that time comes. Or I may not. Depends what is best for them.

You've officially met a home-schooler who is not a "weird geek". The pleasure was all mine I am sure.

It always makes me happy to see positive articles on homeschooling. However, it angers me that in virtually all cases where such an article is published, a host of self-righteous bigots who have done no research and have no clue what they're talking about instantly jump in to condemn homeschooling, throwing every inaccurate stereotype they know in for good measure. As a longtime unschooler (an entirely student directed form of homeschooling), I know better than most that homeschooling most definitely can, and does, "work". My parents took me out of school for entirely non-religious reasons. I have never lived in a bubble. What I have done is live in the real world, learning from amazing conversations and great books and online articles and debates with strangers and cooking and taking photographs and long walks in the woods and SIMPLY LIVING LIFE! Thanks to my unschooling lifestyle, I'm a happy, healthy, quite literate 18 year old who could not be happier with the educational path that I've chosen.

Peace,
Idzie
http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/

To the above poster who wrote: Several observations: There are few parents who can teach Pre-Calculus, Physics, have properly equiped science labs at home or even understand the Social Sciences enough to teach a child. I've seen the results of homeschooled students trying to catch up when Mommy decides the now not so wee one needs to get into University or Community College or tires of the homeschooling experiment - It tends not to be pretty. Due to the adaptable nature of young children a parent can probably get away with keeping the child home in early elementary and maybe able to teach basic math and literacy - if they have the time and discipline to work at it. Most do not! The complexities of upper elementary, Junior or Senior High curriculums is another story and the vast majority of parents are not equipped to teach any of that.

My reply:

The vast majority of parents do not even attempt to homeschool, but most who do, I'd assert, are highly qualified to educate their children and they do it well.

While not every couple out there will have similar educational backgrounds, most homeschool parents are smart enough to know when a subject is over their head and seek out other homeschool parents who do know the subject matter well - they teach in small groups others children as well as their own.

And some, like my husband and I, happen to have an extremely well aligned education that complements each others strengths and weakness - he a physician, with a bachelors in chemistry, medical school, double boarding and a masters in physics....me a double major in english and history, masters in history and PhD in history, who also happened to do a bunch of classes in math and science just because I also love those subjects!

Interestingly, our child is a highly motivated learner, reading at 4, thus our decision to homeschool was motivated because the public schools don't know what to do with him and quite frankly, he's eager to learn and progress and I'm not about to hold him back making him attend kindergarten, all year doing nothing to foster his growing love of reading or continuing along with math, another subject he's already way ahead with, now at 5, working on multiplication!

Sorry, no way am I going to let the public schools have at him ---- later, if needed, we'll go with private tutors or private schools, but as it is now, he's advancing very quickly and might wind up in college in his early teens, like his dad!

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The surprising part: home schoolers are also outperforming private school students. Despite shorter schooling hours, home schoolers have consistently scored at or above average in virtually all subject areas on standardized tests.

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