Home Schooling vs Public Education

For many families, home schooling children is a viable alternative to public education for several important reasons: Strengthening the family, providing adequate education, and to promote moral and religious values.

With a perceived declining in the educational quality of the public school system in America, many parents are coming to the belief that homeschooling can offer their children a better education and result in better opportunities later on in life.

Educational Effects of Homeschooling

Research on homeschooling thus far strongly supports the thoughts of homeschooling parents. An extensive nationwide study showed that home schooled students outperformed their public and private school counterparts in every category. In fact, many homeschool students are enrolled in a grade level that is higher than their counterparts of the same age.

Home schooled children have a higher rate of high school graduation, a higher rate of college attendance, and a higher rate of college graduation.

Homeschooling is About More Than the Education

But for some families, a better education isn’t the only reason to homeschool. Protection from the harsh world that encourages deviation from a successful path is another, as is the opportunity to strengthen the family.

The teen years are an extremely important time in the family building process. Spending six to eight hours away from the home can be very detrimental to a teen’s ability to cement family relationships. Over time, subtle changes can erode family relationships, especially during the more tumultuous adolescent and teen years. By providing a homeschool education, parents can prevent this erosion and help strengthen the family bond.

Additionally, many people believe that public education is not up to the standards that a home school education can provide. No one is more invested in a child’s education than his parents and a home school curriculum can help a child’s ability to learn. For instance, a school teacher may grade your child’s paper and tell him which answers are correct, and which are incorrect and leave it at that. But parents who are homeschooling their children, can spend time to explain to them why the answers are right and wrong, in order to help them learn more thoroughly.

Also, many parents believe that a child’s educational curriculum should include not only academic learning, but also the teaching of morals, ethics, and values. According to recent polls, about 77 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Christian values are an important part of our functioning society and providing children with home schooling is a great way to ensure that they are social and moral values in addition to academic learning.

By Art Gib.