Home-schooling parents in the United States teach as many as half a million children. That's only about 1 percent of all K–12 students, but the number is increasing rapidly, according to Patricia Lines, senior research analyst at the U.S. Department of Education. Professional educators are asking not only why so many parents are choosing to keep their children out of school, but also what kind of relationship should exist between schools and home-schooling parents. Many public school educators are concerned about the quality of education and socialization for children schooled at home. But increasingly, public school systems are reaching out to home-schooling parents—and some parents are responding.
Explosive Growth
In the fall of 1990, Lines examined all available data and estimated that 250,000–350,000 children in grades K–12 were being home schooled. A clear count is hard to come by, but her current "guesstimate" is half a million, which means the number of home-schooled children may have doubled in the last five years. The trend was bolstered by a series of court decisions that began in the 1970s and allowed home schooling for religious reasons, coupled with the increasing number of religious Christian parents who sought refuge from secular education. Some form of home schooling is now legal in every state. Most states require standardized tests for home-schooled children, but only 10 states require teaching parents to have a high school education.
Recent media reports have highlighted a new group of parents taking on the task of teaching at home. These are parents who base their choice less on religious beliefs and more on fears for their children's safety, opposition to education reform agendas and large classes, or a distrust of public education in general. Even though the number of such parents has increased, however, the overwhelming majority of home-schooling parents are still devout Christians who seek control over the curriculum and values influencing their children.
Fundamentalist Christians "are still the majority, and that group is continuing to grow," says Maralee Mayberry, professor of sociology at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and coauthor of Home Schooling: Parents as Educators. While there is a "slowly emerging group" motivated by such concerns as school violence, the predominance of fundamentalist Christians is "not going away," she says. Mayberry's book includes data from a survey of home-schooling parents in Nevada, Washington, and Utah. Demographically, 98 percent of these parents are white, and 97 percent are married. Most are middle class, and they are twice as likely (45 percent) as the general population of their states to have completed college. More than three-quarters of these parents say they attend church at least once a week, and 91 percent say their religious commitment is "very important." Politically, 87 percent say they are at least slightly conservative, compared to 37 percent of the general population.
"Most home-schooling families I have met come from Evangelical or conservative Protestant traditions," says John Cronin, an education consultant in Council Bluffs, Iowa. "They generally perceive public schools as promoting a corrosive moral neutrality. They are very reluctant to entrust the education of their children to government, and believe home schooling allows them to maintain control."
Gary Marx, senior associate executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, expresses reservations held by many educators, who he says have "a deep-down belief in the importance of public education." Besides differing over curriculum or pedagogy, he says, "in some cases, home schoolers are motivated by not wanting their children to associate with others who are different." This insularity contributes to professional educators' concerns that some home-schooled children will not "be prepared to be citizens in our society," Marx says. "We are a nation of the many. The common school has breathed life into e pluribus unum. The common school has served us extremely well."
Marx also has concerns about the quality of instruction that many home-schooling parents are capable of providing. Although "the support, encouragement, and involvement of parents is essential" in every child's education, Marx believes instruction by trained, qualified teachers is equally important.
Some Cooperation
From her survey data, Mayberry concludes that "there is certainly a segment of this group [of home-schooling parents] that would be willing to work in cooperative programs" with public schools, although "you're still going to have a group that is not going to want to cooperate" in any way. The survey showed that when parents are aware of services that their the local districts offer, a significant minority will take advantage of them. Such services often include standardized tests, enrollment in certain classes, or school textbooks. If parents feel they have some say in how these arrangements are structured, Mayberry states, over time a significant proportion of home-schooling parents will accept some guidance and standards from states and public schools.
Monique Lloyd, who home schools three of her four sons in Halsey, Ore., is one such parent. "The reason I home school is that my children are profoundly gifted and the public school system didn't know what to do with them," she says. After extended negotiations with her principal and district, she now uses a district-owned satellite dish, textbooks, school equipment (during off hours), and the school library. She has the option of enrolling her children in specific classes and sending them to school events or on class trips. In a small, rural district, Lloyd bartered an agreement that allows her to home school while the district collects state support money and offers some guidance.
San Diego County's Community Home Education Program (CHEP), founded in 1986, offers a more institutional approach. In California, home schooling is allowed only as an independent study under the guidance of a certified teacher. CHEP provides certified teachers, textbooks and libraries, resource centers, computers and laboratories, field trips, and so on, to about 400 home-schooled children in grades K-8. State law specifies that such arrangements "shall not be provided as an alternative curriculum." Participating parents agree to use state curriculum and textbooks, provide CHEP with work samples in every subject area, attend regular meetings with certified teachers, and administer standardized tests. The children are considered enrolled in school but working in an alternative independent study program; parents are called "instructional assistants."
Cooperative efforts such as CHEP are bringing home schooling closer to the mainstream, advocates say. By extending accountability to the home-schooling parent, professional educators who work with home schoolers hope to improve the education that qualified parents can provide, while identifying those situations where home schooling is not working for children. "Politically and educationally," says Cronin, "the best strategy may be to help home-schooling parents become stakeholders in the system by allowing them access to the resources and support public schools could offer."
While compromising with home-schooling parents may be politically tempting to minimize conflict, Marx says, professional educators must be "child advocates" at all times, "no matter how long the days and nights"—or school board meetings. State standards apply to children, not institutions, he stresses. "The bottom line always has to be making sure that each and every child gets a good education."