Many people in America are deciding to home school their children because they're afraid their children are not getting a high enough standard of education, their religious beliefs/values are not respected in the public school environment or simply because they’re worried for their Childs safety in the public school system. Thus these parents have turned to homeschooling and the number of people taking their children out of the public school system has been steadily increasing.
It’s hard to distinguish which form of schooling is superior but recent results have been released and it shows that home schooled children scored significantly higher than the national average on the ACT and SAT but comparing that to public school children directly is too difficult. Also most studies conducting on home schooling are carried out by supporters of home schooling so a natural bias is suggested. The reason no studies are done by actual colleges of education are because they don’t see a reason to because schools are so ingrain in our culture they don’t see them coming to an end any time in the near future.
Charles Howell, an associate professor of education at Minnesota State University Moorhead had this to say; "They're devoted to preparation of teachers for public schools, and there's very little institutional incentive in academia to study home schooling," What he’s saying is basically professional teachers are trained educators and can do a better job than parents.
On the other hand Veronica Meehan of Riverhead, a former teacher explains that children are learning "a different set of skills - it's more like tutoring, one on one,". Basically more time and effort is placed on the individual to learn, public schools are like conveyer belts of education where some students may not receive as much support as others but they’re just pushed along. They learn at their own pace and almost of their own volition, you get the idea that the structured nature of the school system is boring, they make learning feel like work whereas home school children’s learning can be tailored to them and they can learn at their own pace, it’s all together more personalised learning.
The main worry is that home schooled children will not be as culturally savvy as they are educationally, but we’re told that the idea of the isolated home schooled child is a myth and in fact they are encouraged to go to more clubs and activities and interact with people of all ages as part of the learning process. "They're confident, stand tall, look you in your eye, engage you, hold political conversations. They don't feel intimidated talking to adults. They're independent thinkers with more initiative and more free time." Cheryl Carter of Uniondale talking about home schooled children.
I think this is because publicly schooled children become institutionalised to dislike authority figures, they learn to fear them, they’re told to listen and do what they’re told or else but home schooled children go at their own pace, they have free time, they don’t necessarily have deadlines and they certainly don’t have homework.
The negative aspects of this still exist as home schooling does not allow children to mix with other cultures and peoples and narrows their world view. Some families choose homeschooling as a method of keeping other peoples cultures and religions from corrupting their own which I personally think is a massive failing because it basically does not give them a choice of their own world views, you’re essentially assigned world views because you aren’t aware of any others. The basic counter arguments are that public schooling is better in terms of socialising children and educating them about culture.
