Sofia Sanchez
5062225
WRI 100 AE
Steinberg
HA! Beat that Public Schools
Would it be socially acceptable for students to be able to get their education in the comfort of their home? Homeschooling has been growing dramatically since the 1970’s when John Holt argued for taking children out of schools, and parents themselves or hired teachers began teaching children at home. Today, all fifty states have legalized homeschooling, so over 1,770,000 students are being homeschooled nationwide; however, most of these states have restrictions, and one of them is Massachusetts. Most of the reasons that students are homeschooled include the belief of a better education, avoiding a dangerous environment, personal family reasons, and to instill character. Religion is a main reason because religious parents fear acceptance of their faith or exposure to ideas contrary to their faith. Although homeschooling is becoming a popular option for education, is it effectively teaching our children?
On the one hand, homeschooling believers can argue that homeschooling is one of the best decisions anyone can do. Parents learn to know what they are getting themselves into when they are signing up for homeschooling. “Homeschooling associations provide advice and information, run conferences … and review educational materials at exhibition booths. Electronic homeschool discussion groups abound. Parents also find guidance in books, magazines, and newsletters” (Lines). Parents know what is best for their child. If they must teach them to be able to strengthen them in what they are highly advanced on doing, then they will. They understand its hundreds of dollars invested into doing homeschooling, but they understand its beneficial for their child. Parents will hire tutors or older students in organizations to be able to help with subjects that the parents are not the greatest at, so they can have the full education experience. Homeschooling parents share lessons with each other, so everyone can understand what they should be teaching their children. In certain states, parents can receive resources from their school districts because they worry about the children’s education.
Homeschooled children are more likely to be well behaved in a socialized factor. They aren’t kept isolated from others. “They participate in homeschool support groups, scouting groups, churches, and other associations” (Lines). Students can get the full socialization skills from their parents and do better in certain situations, due to a study that was done. In a controlled study, they filmed 140 students, half of them being homeschooled children, and saw that homeschooled children have fewer behavioral problems (Lines). Overall, the education aspects of them is high. In 2000, there was a spelling bee that ended up having homeschooled children taking the top three trophies, just after four homeschooled students took the top ten for the National Geographic Society’s geography bee (Cox). Homeschooling advocates push on the debate saying that educators don’t have to worry about their children’s education and how well they do. There are many different studies that can prove that homeschoolers are scoring above average in state tests. “But there is certainly no evidence to suggest that homeschooling harms academic achievement (Lines).” In addition, homeschool students have successfully been admitted into colleges. Colleges have considered that qualified homeschoolers are able to bring a different type of diversity onto their campus (Lines).
On the other hand, homeschooling is not the greatest decision can make. According to the National Education Association, homeschooling students because of a parent’s choice isn’t going to help the student get the comprehensive education experience (Preface to ‘Is Homeschooling a Good Option?). Teachers go through years of schooling, paying thousands of dollars, and becoming certified to be able to teach children. Parents just have to go online and find the online resources they need in order for their child to succeed in education, which makes the educators look like they did all that for teaching one less child. They can buy all these different subjects of books, but they aren’t qualified enough to be able to teach anything in the book. Teachers are able to have ready resources available to them to use in their classrooms, but parents cannot get that same full learning experience (Preface).
Another aspect of this argument is that students aren’t socialized in a different environment. “After all, the socialization part of a typical day-in-the-life of a home-schooled child, looks nothing like the government school experience” (Preface). People who disagree on the idea about homeschooling can say that there are some risks with homeschooling because of unregulated states. Students who are homeschooled in an unregulated state are more likely to go under abuse because they are isolated away from the public eye (West). Socialization is an important aspect in every child life. They learn about different people, culture, and religion with school that has a diversity of people. Since they become very isolated from the world, they are required to do sports to be able to get that interaction and most children probably don’t want to do that. The most important reason for this debate is the education aspect. “Nevertheless, some homeschoolers are suffering educational harm which would be avoided or minimized, were they either in public school or were their homeschool subjected to decent regulation” (West). We can avoid the risk of homeschoolers being uneducated, from just learning from the Bible, by letting them go to a public school and get an education from certified teachers. There is no significant evidence that students fail or pass standardized testing due to lack of evidence, but parents are the ones who submit their children for testing are end up being tested against the public school population (West). It’s not fair for the students to feel pressured to be able to prove that their education is actually making a difference. The government should make sure that there is enough significant data that homeschooling students either do above or below average for people to see that homeschooling is not the greatest factor for everyone.
I feel like education is an important aspect in each children’s life. Everyone ends up graduating high school then moving on with life. Personally, I would want every child to go through school to at least be educated in something, they don’t have to end up going to college right away, but they should at least be a part of the school system. As I was getting older, being around different ethnicities, race, and religions, helped suit who I am today because I would try to get along with anyone, no matter who they were. I understand why parents would take their kids out of public schools because of the school system being unsafe or not reliable for their children. As a student that has gone through the public-school systems all her life, I would want to know what made parents decide to homeschool and how their child ended up doing with the rest who were not. Every parent talk about how education is highly important for every child, so what is the best option for them to be able to achieve that.
Homeschooling is on the rise as another option for parents to choose to do, as the best option for their family. In the future, it’s going to get to a place where we are going to end up having to take online courses during college or even high school. It’s important to know what our choices could be soon when we must face these kinds of decisions. As years go by, more data is going to be collected to see what has helped other students do great in certain situations. All of my articles would use logos to help back up their argument, using statistics, interviews with different doctors and educators, and even parents were mentioned. They use the facts, based off each state across the country, to be able to determine by what the choice of homeschooling was and what the end results of it ended up being.