Issue

Home-schooled children miss important opportunities. Our pattern-seeking, socially oriented brain wires itself up to its environment during childhood and adolescence. A socially stimulating environment replete with challenging novelty and change, such as school, enhances a brain's physical development.Moreover, school is generally a child's principal site for developing social awareness and competence. Families and classrooms offer different opportunities for social development. A family structure is vertical—different ages, but a similar value system. A family's structure introduces a child to life's social nature. Awareness grows as the child explores the neighborhood and such social agencies as churches and scouts. A classroom structure is more horizontal—one adult plus two dozen students of similar age—but each comes from a unique family structure and value system. A classroom that capitalizes on its students' diversity provides them with an excellent opportunity to compare their family values with those of other families. Even the misbehavior and arguments common to school life create a social laboratory for learning how to get along with others who differ in their values and social competence.Home-schooled children miss this important opportunity. The children their parents don't want them to associate with in school will be their neighbors and co-workers when they are adults. One wonders where and when home-schooled children will master the social skills required in our diverse culture if their contacts with peers are limited—and to those who have similar values.—Robert Sylwester is a professor of education at the University of Oregon. He focuses on the educational applications of cognitive science research.

Public schools should support home schooling. If public schools are to fulfill Jefferson's mandate to support an informed, democratic citizenry and Mann's to help equalize economic opportunity, they need constant challenges from within and without. While some parents and community members encourage reform from inside the schools, other—home schoolers among them—stimulate change by demonstrating alternative practices outside the system.Home schoolers prove by their successes that individuals don't need institutions to meet all their needs. When people are allowed to take personal responsibility, they most often do so with satisfying results. In a market-driven society, public schools must learn from private and home educators to continue to attract public support. If they closely examine how others serve their children and communities, public schools will improve. Those that learn from home schoolers' experiences will develop policies that empower individuals to become responsible community members.Public educators and home schoolers share a concern for individual children's well-being. Public school officials should recognize that home-schooled children typically thrive, both socially and academically. Recent studies and the reported experiences of employers and college admissions officers confirm that home schoolers perform well in higher education and the marketplace.—Richard Westheimer has worked as both a classroom teacher and policy consultant with public schools for the last two decades. He and his family have home schooled since 1988.

School board members are skeptical about home schooling. Few parents who want to teach their children at home are objectively qualified to do so. They not only lack the credentials that public school teachers have earned, but they also lack any understanding of, much less appreciation for, pedagogy.Even when a parent apparently is qualified, home schooling is still a dicey operation. It denies youngsters the benefits of the socializing and civilizing dimensions of traditional schooling. A critical function of school always has been to teach children to deal successfully with others in a variety of settings. Solitary study with the family group at home exclusively is no substitute for the peer exchange of a formal classroom in a school community.Furthermore, few homes offer the opportunities schools provide through science labs, libraries, and learning technologies. Home schooling is also hard pressed to offer the enrichment of extracurricular activities and supervised physical education programs, which are necessary for developing sound bodies to accompany sound minds.Despite the best intentions and sincerity of most home schoolers, they take a route fraught with developmental danger for their children. It is not themselves but their children they place in harm's way. The time and effort these parents spend on home schooling would be put to better use if, instead, they worked with teachers, principals, and school board members to improve their own local public schools.—Thomas Shannon is executive director of the National School Boards Association in Alexandria, Va.

Public schools have the responsibility to support all parents who reside within their district boundaries, including home-study parents. Like magnet schools, home study is an alternative that school districts offer to parents.My district, Cupertino Union School District, has supported a home-study program for nine years. The program began after some parents who were home schooling asked for assistance from a public school agency. Today, this program serves as many as 120 families each year. This partnership offers parents the support of a credentialed teacher in planning lessons, selecting materials, and assessing learning. It also provides them with opportunities to network with other parents. Many parents who want the home-study option for their children also want to ensure that their children meet or exceed the expectations of the regular school. Programs like Cupertino's offer that assurance.This cooperation between parents and the school district also allows home-study students to take selected classes that parents are unable to teach or that meet the special needs or talents of students.No matter who teaches them, our students will one day take their place as adults in our community. Our goal is to develop an educated citizenry. Supporting parents who home study their children helps meet that goal.—Harvey Barnett is director of instruction and technology for the Cupertino (Calif.) Union School District.