Homeschooling vs Public or Private Schooling

Many times, parents ask whether homeschooling works. It's true that parents know that public schools can often have problems, but they don't know that they can do any better if they teach their children themselves that if they send their children to public school. As an alternative, some parents opt for private school. Since a child's education is so important, though, they're understandably cautious when they think of homeschooling their children themselves.

However, numerous studies show that homeschooling in large part produces superior results as compared to public or even private schooling. Part of this may be due to the fact that homeschooling by default means that parents are involved in their children's educations. This is also often true in public or private school education, but not always. Therefore, may be parental involvement is the deciding factor, rather than the homeschooling situation itself.

However, even when this is taken into consideration, homeschooling still produces better results versus public or private school.

A study sponsored by the US Department of Education showed that homeschooling students' scores were "exceptionally high" as compared to their peers. Every grade showed median scores higher than those for public or even parochial or private school students. Homeschooled students who would have been in grades one through four functioned at least a grade level above their peers. By the time they reached what was the equivalent of eighth grade, they were four years ahead of their public school peers.

In part, this may be explained by the fact that public schools in general often do a substandard job and not that homeschooling is by default superior. However, homeschooled students were even functioning above their private school peers.

In addition, homeschooling costs less than either private or public school does. On average, public schools spent $6,500 per student per year. Private schools spent $3,500 per student per year. Homeschoolers spent just $550 per student per year. Of course, the last number does not adjust for the fact that a parent teaches for "free" and teachers are paid monetarily.

Public school first became commonplace in the second half of the 19th century. At that time, more and more states made at least basic education compulsory. This was done in an attempt to increase literacy rates. Prior to that time, many parents were only barely literate in the English language themselves, often because they had just immigrated to the United States. Nonetheless, despite this, illiteracy rates in Massachusetts in 1840 were still just 2% among adults. By 1995, that figure had jumped to 19%, despite the supposedly increased emphasis on literacy in recent years as well as a much greater availability of books and other reading materials.

Presently, approximately one million children are homeschooled in America yearly. Many thousands have attended universities and colleges. Some of those colleges were prestigious and very difficult to get into. With homeschooling, peer pressure that normally plagues children otherwise eager to learn is absent. Instead, the parent or tutor, as well as any "classmates," only encourage the student.

In short, homeschooling is a wonderful way to give your child an education if you're up to the task.