Yale - 2009 Fall - Readings - Public Schools Policy - Case v Homer Center

Case V: Home-schooling in Homer-Center, Pennsylvania

(17 February)

Yale University Political Science Department

PLSC 240 Spring 2009

John Bryan Starr


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Table of Contents

The case

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Document #1: “Home-schooling” (Education Week Issues Page) (available at http://www.edweek.org/rc/issues/home-schooling/)

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Exhibit #1: Number and percentage of home schooled students, ages 5 through 17 with a grade equivalent of kindergarten through 12th grade, by various characteristics

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Exhibit #2: Number and percentage of home schooled students whose parents reported particular reasons for home-schooling as being applicable to their situation and as being their most important reason for home-schooling: 2003

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Exhibit #3: Number and percentage of home schooled students, ages 5 through 17 with a grade equivalent of kindergarten through 12th grade, whose parents reported using various sources of curriculum or books: 2003

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Exhibit #4: Number and percentage of home schooled students, ages 5 through 17 with a grade equivalent of kindergarten through 12th grade, who engaged in distance learning using various media: 2003

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Document #2: Lowell C. Rose and Alec M. Gallup, The 33rd Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools (available at http://www.pdkmembers.org/e-GALLUP/kpoll_pdfs/pdkpoll33_2001.pdf)

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Document #3: Kariane Mari Welner (UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies), Exploring the Democratic Tensions within Parents’ Decisions to Homeschool (New York: National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education Teachers College, Columbia University, 2002)

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Document #4: Clive R. Belfield, “Home-Schooling in the US January 2004,” (New York: National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education Teachers College, Columbia University, Occasional Paper No. 88) (Available at http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP88.pdf )

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Document #5: Lawrence Harvey, “Learning Without School,” American School Board Journal 188:8 (August 2001)

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Document #6: Rebecca Talluto, “Accountability for Home-Schoolers,” American School Board Journal 188:8 (August 2001)

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Document #7: Lawrence M. Rudner, “Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998,” Education Policy Analysis Archives 7:8 (1999).

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Document #8: Kariane Mari Welner and Kevin G. Welner “Contextualizing Home-schooling Data: A Response to Rudner,” Education Policy Analysis Archives (1999)

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Document #9: Isabel Lyman, “Keeping Home-schooling Private,” The New American 19:8 (September 2003).

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Document #10: Rob Reich, “The Civic Perils of Home-schooling,” Educational Leadership 59:7 (April 2002).

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Document #11: Brian D. Ray, Home-schooling Grows Up: Socialization? No problem! (Washington, DC: Home School Legal Defense Association, 2003) (Available at http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/Home-schoolingGrowsUp.pdf)

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Document #12: Jean C. Halle, “Home-schooling: Why We Should Care,” Education Week, November 13, 2002.

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Document #13: J. Dan Marshall and James P. Valle, “Public School Reform: Potential Lessons from the Truly Departed,” Education Policy Analysis Archives 4:12 (August 1996)

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Document #14: “Brief overview of Pennsylvania state regulations governing home-schooling” National Home Education Network (http://www.nhen.org/leginfo/detail.asp?StateCode=Pennsylvania)

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Document #15: Pennsylvania Statute 24 PS 13-1327.1 Home education program (Available at the Pennsylvania Department of Education Web site, http://www.pde.state.pa.us.

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Document #16: John Creason, compiler, Home Education in Pennsylvania 2004-05 (Pennsylvania Department of Education, February 2006) (Available at http://www.pde.state.pa.us/k12statistics/lib/k12statistics/homeEd0405withFig2.pdf)

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Background information on Homer City and its schools

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Exhibit #5: Homer-Center school system statistics

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Exhibit #6: Homer-Center School Governance

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Exhibit #7: Timeline of events in Combs et al. v. Homer-Center School District

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Document #17: Abbey Kerins, “Home-schooling in Homer-Center, Pennsylvania,” (Unpublished research paper for Education 176, Spring 2006) Excerpts.

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Document #18: Paula Reed Ward, Home School Parents Sue State Over Religious Freedom,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 11, 2004.

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Document #19: Editorial: “Life Lessons: Home-schoolers Shouldn’t Upset State Law,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 14, 2004.

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Document #20: Abbey Kerins, “Home-schooling in Homer-Center, Pennsylvania,” (Research paper for Education 176, Spring 2006) Excerpts (continued).

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Epilogue

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Suggested Study Group Questions

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· · · The case.

By some estimates, as many as 2.5 million children are being home schooled in the United States. This makes home-schooling by far the largest school choice option. While often associated with religious fundamentalists and libertarians, the movement now incorporates a much broader segment of the population. As we will learn, parents choose to educate their children at home for a variety of reasons. Until relatively recently, states were reluctant to give parents the right to opt out of the public school system. Today, home-schooling is legal in all fifty states.

This week’s case gives us the opportunity to investigate the home-schooling movement and to consider two policy issues raised by home-schoolers. The first is the issue of access to public school facilities and programs—curricular and extra-curricular—for students who are being home schooled. To what degree, in other words, can those who have opted out opt their way back in? The second issue—this one the actual subject of the case itself—is that of the degree to which the state has some responsibility for monitoring the educational outcomes of students who are being home schooled. The far-reaching hand of the No Child Left Behind Act does not extend to those who are home schooled. The Act deals with what happens in public schools, not what happens in homes. Nonetheless, many states—Pennsylvania among them—have crafted laws requiring that home schooled students’ learning be measured and monitored by public agencies.

And therein lies the rub that resulted in the court case—Combs et al. v. Homer-Center School District—at which we will be looking this week. Parents in rural Pennsylvania argued that the monitoring requirements of the state’s home-schooling statute infringed on their ability to develop their own curriculum for their children. Echoing the California State Department of Education, the Combs and their fellow plaintiffs argued that what transpired in their home classrooms was “none of the state’s business.” As we will see, the court disagreed.


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The casebook begins with an overview of home-schooling and the issues it raises drawn from the Education Week Resource Center. This is followed by a series of documents elaborating upon those issues. We then turn to Pennsylvania’s legislation regarding home-schooling, and then, finally, to the Homer-Center school district and the parents who brought suit to free themselves of state regulation of their instruction of their children.

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Document #1: “Home-schooling” (Education Week Issues Page) (available at http://www.edweek.org/rc/issues/home-schooling/)

Home-schooling has often been dismissed as a fringe activity, its practitioners caricatured as head-in-the-sand reactionaries and off-the-grid hippies. The most vocal and organized home-schoolers have tended to be religiously motivated, most often conservative Christians. But a newer breed of home schooler is emerging, motivated not by religious belief or countercultural philosophy. Uppermost for such parents are concerns about violence, peer pressure, and poor academic quality in their schools.

Back in 1980, home-schooling was illegal in 30 states. It was not until 1993 that all 50 states made the practice lawful. But in recent years, the practice of home-schooling has taken off. Consider these statistics—in 1999, the federal government estimated the number of students being home schooled to be around 850,000.1 By 2003, the number had jumped to somewhere between 1.7 and 2.1 million students, according to data from the National Home Education Research Institute. While reliable numbers are hard to come by since states define and track home school enrollment differently, some experts argue that home-schooling is the fastest-growing form of education in the country2

So who chooses to home school their children and why? Data from the U.S. Department of Education suggest that although families who home school represent a wide spectrum of racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, most are white, religious, and conservative. Most are also well educated, middle-class, and have two or more children. According to a survey of parents who home school their children, almost 50 percent say they do so because they believe they can offer them a better education at home. Another 38 percent cite religious reasons. About a quarter say they want to avoid exposing their children to what they consider traditional schools’ “poor learning environments.”3

Although some research has indicated that home-schooled students perform better on standardized tests than children in traditional schools, the claim that home-schooling offers children a superior education is much disputed. One study of more than 20,000 home

1 Bielick, S., Chandler, K., and Broughman, S.P. (2001) “Home-schooling in the United States: 1999,” U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2 Ray, B. (1997) “Strengths of Their Own—Home-schoolers Across America: Academic Achievement, Family Characteristics, and Longitudinal Traits,” National Home Education Research Institute. Cf. Ray, B. (2001) “Home Education Research Fact Sheets,” (National Home Education Research Institute). 3 Bielick and Broughman (2001)


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school students found that students’ median scores on standardized tests were typically in the 70th to 80th percentile, well above the national average. The study also found that 25 percent of home schooled students were enrolled one or more grades above their age-level public and private school peers4 . These findings mirrored those from a 1997 study, which found that home educated students scored, on average, at or above the 80th percentile in all areas on standardized achievement tests.5

But such studies have drawn intense criticism from some educational researchers. For example, the students in Rudner’s study were predominantly white and Christian and, critics argue, did not accurately represent the overall population of home-schooled students.6 Scholars also point out that these studies have only proven that home-schooled students perform well on standardized tests. But the studies have no way of indicating whether the same students would have scored equally as well on those tests had they been attending conventional schools.

Opponents of the movement worry that there is no way to assure that all home-schooled students receive a quality education. In the eyes of some public school teachers and administrators, this lack of quality control makes home-schooling a dangerously deregulated enterprise. For example, according to the Education Commission of the States, most states do not require parents to obtain any sort of teaching certificate in order to home school their children. Only half the states monitor home-schooled students’ educational progress by requiring any sort of evaluation, either a test, portfolio, or teacher evaluation. There are some exceptions; New York, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania require home-schooled students to take tests and require parents to submit their curriculum for approval as well as undergo professional evaluations.7

Generally, however, most states have no systematic approach to regulating the practice of home-schooling. As a result, organizations such as the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, have come out against home-schooling.8

The general public has some concerns about a lack of regulations, as well. In a 1997 Gallup poll, 88 percent of respondents agreed that home schools should “be required to guarantee a minimum level of educational quality.” In a 1999 poll, 92 percent of respondents said home-schooled students should take the same state and national assessments required in public schools. And although the number of people opposed to home-schooling has dropped over the years, the majority, 57 percent, still regarded it as a “bad thing,” in 1997.9

4 Rudner, Lawrence M., (1999) “Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998,” Education Policy Analysis Archives 7:8. 5 Ray (1997). 6 Welner, K. (1999) “Contextualizing Home-schooling Data: A Response to Rudner,” Education Policy Analysis Archives, (7:13) 7 Education Commission of the States, (2004) “Issue Pages: Home-schooling.” 8 Lyman, I. (2003) “Keeping Home-schooling Private,” The New American. 9 Rose and Gallup. (1997 and 1999) “The Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools,” Phi Delta Kappan.


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Students who have been home schooled tend to disagree. Recent research suggests that many home-schoolers are happy with their parents’ decision to educate them outside the traditional school system. In 2003, the Home School Legal Defense Association commissioned a survey of over 7,000 adults who were home schooled and found that 95 percent were glad they had been home schooled. Ninety-two percent believe their home-schooling has been advantageous to them as adults and over 82 percent say they would home school their own children.10

While debates over the benefits and risks of removing children from traditional learning environments continue, the home school movement has carved out its place in America’s education system. Every state has now established at least one home-schooling association and several states have begun to develop regional associations. Public programs that offer support to home schooled families are also popping up around the country. Alaska sponsors a program whereby teachers can communicate with home-schooled students all over the state via email, telephone, and home visits. California has developed an independent-study program for home-school students. Iowa and Washington now require schools to admit home-school students part-time.11

Nationwide, it is estimated that 18 percent of home-school students enroll in public schools at least part time.12 In addition to state initiatives, parents of home-schoolers are banding together to organize group activities, such as sports events and field trips, for their children.

10 Ray, B. (2003) “Home Educated and Now Adults: Their Community and Civic Involvement, Views About Home-schooling, and Other Traits,” (National Home Education Research Institute, Home School Legal Defense Association). 11 Hardy, L. (2001) “Learning Without School,” American School Board Journal, (188:8) 12 Bielick and Broughman (2001).


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Exhibit #1: Number and percentage of home schooled students, ages 5 through 17 with a grade equivalent of kindergarten through 12th grade, by various characteristics [2003]13

Characteristic

Total Number

of U.S. students K-12

Percent of Total Students

Number home-schooled

Percent of Home-schooled

Parents’ participation in the labor force Two parents–both in labor force 25,108,000 49.5 274,000 25.0 Two parents–one in labor force 10,545,000 20.8 594,000 54.2 One parent in labor force 12,045,000 23.8 174,000 15.9 No parent in labor force 3,008,000 5.9 54,000 4.9Household Income $25,000 or less 12,375,000 24.4 283,000 25.8 25,001–50,000 13,220,000 26.1 311,000 28.4 50,001–75,000 10,961,000 21.6 264,000 24.1 75,001 or more 14,150,000 27.9 238,000 21.7Parents’ highest educational attainment High school diploma or less 16,106,000 31.8 269,000 24.5 Voc/tech degree or some college 16,068,000 31.7 338,000 30.8

13 Source: National Center for Educational Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/home school/TableDisplay.asp?TablePath=TablesHTML/table_2.asp#f1) NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. Number and percent of home-schoolers excludes students who were enrolled in school for more than 25 hours a week and students who were home schooled due to a temporary illness.


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14 Number of students refers to all students in public and private schools and home schooled students. 15 This number amounts to 2.2% of the 50,707,000 children enrolled in public schools K-12 in 2003. Wikipedia gives the current number of home-schooled students as “between 1.9 and 2.4 million.” 16 Students whose grade-equivalent was “ungraded” were excluded from the grade analysis. The percent of students with an “ungraded” grade equivalent was 0.02 percent in 2003 and 0.03 percent in 1999. 17 Urbanicity is based on a U.S. Census classification of places. Urban is a place with at least 50,000 people. Rural is a place not classifed as urban.

Characteristic

Total Number of U.S. students K-1214

Percent of Total Students

Number home-schooled

Percent of Home-schooled

Total 50,707,000 1,096,00015 Grade equivalent16 K– 5 24,269,000 47.9 472,000 43.1 Kindergarten 3,643,000 7.2 98,000 8.9 Grades 1–3 12,098,000 23.9 214,000 19.6 Grades 4–5 8,528,000 16.8 160,000 14.6 Grades 6–8 12,472,000 24.6 302,000 27.6 Grades 9–12 13,958,000 27.5 315,000 28.7Race/ethnicity White, non-Hispanic 31,584,000 62.3 843,000 77.0 Black, non-Hispanic 7,985,000 15.7 103,000 9.4 Hispanic 8,075,000 15.9 59,000 5.3 Other 3,063,000 6.0 91,000 8.3Sex Female 24,888,000 49.1 527,000 48.1 Male 25,819,000 50.9 569,000 51.9Number of children in the household One child 8,033,000 15.8 110,000 10.1 Two children 20,530,000 40.5 306,000 28.0 Three or more children 22,144,000 43.7 679,000 62.0Number of parents in the household Two parents 35,936,000 70.9 886,000 80.8 One parent 13,260,000 26.2 196,000 17.9 Nonparental guardians 1,511,000 3.0 14,000 1.3

Bachelor’s degree 9,798,000 19.3 274,000 25.0 Graduate/professional school 8,734,000 17.2 215,000 19.6Urbanicity17 Urban 40,180,000 79.2 794,000 72.4 Town 5,707,000 11.3 198,000 18.1 Rural 10,527,000 20.8 302,000 27.6Region Northeast 9,220,000 18.2 168,000 15.3 South 17,232,000 34.0 445,000 40.6 Midwest 11,949,000 23.6 238,000 21.8 West 12,305,000 24.3 245,000 22.4


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Exhibit #2: Number and percentage of home schooled students whose parents reported particular reasons for home-schooling as being applicable to their situation and as being their most important reason for home-schooling: 200318

Applicable19 Most Important Reasons for home-schooling

Number Percent Number Percent

Concern about environment of other schools20

935,000 85.4 341,000 31.2

Dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools

748,000 68.2 180,000 16.5

To provide religious or moral instruction

793,000 72.3 327,000 29.8

Child has a physical or mental health problem

174,000 15.9 71,000 6.5

Child has other special needs

316,000 28.9 79,000 7.2

Other reasons21 221,000 20.1 97,000 8.8 NOTE: Excludes students who were enrolled in school for more than 25 hours a week and students who were home schooled only because of a temporary illness.

18 SOURCE: National Center for Educational Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES). Available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006042.pdf 19 Percentages do not sum to 100 percent because respondents could choose more than one reason. 20 These include safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure. 21 Parents home school their children for many reasons that are often unique to their family situation. “Other reasons” parents gave for home-schooling include: It was the child’s choice; to allow parents more control over what child was learning; and flexibility.


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Exhibit #3: Number and percentage of home schooled students, ages 5 through 17 with a grade equivalent of kindergarten through 12th grade, whose parents reported using various sources of curriculum or books: 200322 Sources of curriculum or books

Number Percent

Public library

854,000 77.9

Home-schooling catalog, publisher, or individual specialist

843,000 76.9

Retail bookstore or other store

753,000 68.7

Education publisher not affiliated with home-schooling

653,000 59.6

Home-schooling organization

539,000 49.2

Church, synagogue, or other religious organization

400,000 36.5

Other sources

284,000 26.0

Local public school or district

248,000 22.6

Private school

184,000 16.8

NOTE: Excludes students who were enrolled for more than 25 hours a week and students who were home schooled due to a temporary illness. Percentages do not sum to 100 percent because respondents could choose more than one source of curriculum or books.

22 Source: National Center for Educational Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES). Available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006042.pdf


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Exhibit #4: Number and percentage of home schooled students, ages 5 through 17 with a grade equivalent of kindergarten through 12th grade, who engaged in distance learning using various media: 200323

Distance Learning Media

Number Percent

Total

451,000 41.2

Mail

167,000 15.2

Internet, e-mail, or Web

212,000 19.4

TV, video, or radio

220,000 20.1

NOTE: Excludes students who were enrolled for more than 25 hours a week and students who were home schooled due to a temporary illness. Detail does not sum to 100 percent because students could use more than one form of distance learning. Polling data suggests a growing acceptance of the idea of home-schooling. Unfortunately, questions about home-schooling have dropped out of the annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll in recent years and so our most recent information dates from 2001. Document #2: Lowell C. Rose and Alec M. Gallup, The 33rd Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools (available at http://www.pdkmembers.org/e-GALLUP/kpoll_pdfs/pdkpoll33_2001.pdf)24 Home-schooling In 1985 respondents were asked whether home-schooling was a good or a bad thing for the nation. Only 16% said it was a good thing. That percentage has increased each subsequent time the question has been asked, rising to 28% in 1988, 36% in 1997, and 41% this year. This is another area that divides the political parties, with 47% of Republicans but only 34% of Democrats viewing home-schooling as a good thing. Probing deeper into the home-schooling movement, two new questions were included in this year’s poll, the first exploring home-schooling’s impact on the nation’s academic standards and the second, its impact on good citizenship. The results show a divided public, with 50% believing home-schooling does not contribute to raising academic standards and 43% believing it does. Meanwhile, 49% of respondents believe home-schooling does not promote good citizenship, and 46% believe that it does.

23 Source: National Center for Educational Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES). Available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006042.pdf 24 Questions on home-schooling have not appeared on subsequent years’ Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup Polls.


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Forty-eight percent of Republicans believe home-schooling contributes to raising academic standards, and 53% believe it promotes good citizenship. On the other hand, just 36% of Democrats believe home-schooling helps raise academic standards, and 39% believe it fosters good citizenship. A regional difference also surfaces, with 53% of those in the West believing home-schooling promotes good citizenship as compared to 37% of those in the East. The first question: Recently, there has been a movement toward home schools—that is, situations in which parents keep their children at home to teach the children themselves. Do you think that this movement is a good thing or a bad thing for the nation?

National Totals (%)

No Children In School (%)

Public School Parents (%)

‘01 ‘97 ‘88 ‘85 ‘01 ‘97 ‘88 ‘85 ‘01 ‘97 ‘88 ‘85 Good thing

41 36 28 16 39 34 27 16 42 38 29 14

Bad thing

54 57 59 73 55 59 59 72 54 56 61 75

Don’t know

5 7 13 11 6 7 14 12 4 6 10 11

The second question: Do you feel that home-schooling contributes to raising the nation’s academic standards or not? National

Totals (%)No Children In School (%)

Public SchoolParents (%)

Yes, helps raise academic standards 43 41 43 No, does not raise academic standards 50 51 51 Don’t know 7 8 6


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The third question: Do you feel that home-schooling promotes good citizenship or not? National

Totals (%)No Children In School (%)

Public SchoolParents (%)

Yes, promotes good citizenship 46 46 43 No, does not promote good citizenship 49 48 52 Don’t know 5 6 5

∙ ∙ ∙ And here is some additional information from an earlier poll. Lowell C. Rose and Alec M. Gallup, The 31st Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools (available at http://www.pdkmembers.org/e-GALLUP/kpoll_pdfs/pdkpoll31_1999.pdf) This year’s poll asked two questions about home-schooling: one explores what services should be made available to home-schoolers, and the other asks about the standards to which home-schooled children should be held. The public expresses majority support for providing all five listed services to home-schooled children, with special education courses at the top (92% in favor). Giving home-schooling teachers the opportunity to participate in local public school teacher development activities draws 80% approval; participation in school extracurricular activities, 74% approval; driver’s education, 73% approval; and transportation services, 53% approval. Support for making the top four services available is strong among all demographic groups. The first question: Would you favor or oppose making the following public school services available, at public expense, to children who are schooled at home? Favor

(%) Oppose

(%) Don’t Know (%)

Special education courses for disabled or handicapped children

92 7 1

The opportunity for home-schooling teachers to participate in local public school teacher development activities

80 18 2

The opportunity to participate in public school extracurricular activities

74 25 1

Driver’s education 73

26 1

Transportation services 53 44 3


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The second question: Would you favor or oppose requiring children who are schooled at home to take all the state and national assessment tests that public school students are required to take?

National Totals (%)

No Children In School (%)

Public School Parents (%)

Favor 92 92 92 Oppose 7 6 8 Don’t know 1 2 *

*Less than one-half of 1% Kariane Welner’s survey of home-schooling families reveals substantial diversity in their outlook toward public schools. She identifies two categories of parents—the “civic-minded” home-schoolers and the “autonomy-minded” home-schoolers. She suggests that not all home-schoolers see themselves in diametric opposition to the public education system. Document #3: Kariane Mari Welner (UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies), Exploring the Democratic Tensions within Parents’ Decisions to Homeschool (New York: National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education Teachers College, Columbia University, 2002) Abstract When homeschooling parents discuss public schools, they often draw on their own notions of citizenship and each parent’s view of public schools is also likely influenced by his or her larger view of government’s proper role in society. I recently completed a three-year study designed to seek a better understanding of these issues. In particular, I explored homeschoolers’ interactions with broader social institutions—especially public schools—and I examined the relationship between parents’ homeschooling decisions and their notions of democracy. This investigation brought to light several tensions reflective of larger conflicts faced by Americans. In a pluralistic society it is very difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at educational policies that are acceptable to all involved or that fully meet the needs of all students and families. It is often equally difficult for parents to steadfastly match their private decision-making to their public vision of schooling. In this article, I draw on democratic theory—and the categories of liberal, communitarian, and deliberative democracy—to highlight the tensions between the ideals that homeschoolers espouse and the implementation of these ideals in their daily lives. Some homeschoolers, notwithstanding their contrary choice for their own children, support a communitarian vision of the public schools. Other homeschooling parents voice a liberal critique of the “indoctrination” of public schooling, yet their children remain subject to their own indoctrination. And still others would support the public schools if those schools taught these parents’ vision of morality and truth, but they condemn the schools for teaching contrary metaphysical views. This article explores those contradictions and offers some insights into how these inconsistencies surface in the broader discourse surrounding education in America.


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It is contrary to natural law for the state to usurp the natural authority and responsibility of parents to educate their offspring.... [Government-sponsored schooling] undermines self-government because the basic unit of free peoples is the family. By removing the most important function of the family life the passing on culture the state eviscerates the family… This is why in the struggle between the educational interests of the state and the rights of the family, the family must win, or the authority and currency of truth itself is undermined. This is especially so if the basic operating truth of a society is the supreme importance of human liberty.

-- Douglas Dewey, Remarks at the Inaugural Fordham Foundation Luncheon (1996)

[Man] is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another.

-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880) When homeschooling parents discuss public schools, they often draw on their own notions of citizenship and each parent’s view of public schools is also likely influenced by his or her larger view of government’s proper role in society. I recently completed a three-year study designed to seek a better understanding of these issues. In particular, I explored homeschoolers’ interactions with broader social institutions—especially public schools—and I examined the relationship between parents’ homeschooling decisions and their notions of democracy. This investigation brought to light several tensions reflective of larger conflicts faced by Americans. In a pluralistic society it is very difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at educational policies that are acceptable to all involved or that fully meet the needs of all students and families. It is often equally difficult for parents to steadfastly match their private decision-making to their public vision of schooling. In this article, I draw on democratic theory—and the categories of liberal, communitarian, and deliberative democracy—to highlight the tensions between the ideals that homeschoolers espouse and the implementation of these ideals in their daily lives. Some homeschoolers, notwithstanding their contrary choice for their own children, support a communitarian vision of the public schools. Other homeschooling parents voice a liberal critique of the “indoctrination” of public schooling, yet their children remain subject to their own indoctrination. And still others would support the public schools if those schools taught 4 these parents’ vision of morality and truth, but they condemn the schools for teaching contrary metaphysical views. This article explores those contradictions and offers some insights into how these inconsistencies surface in the broader discourse surrounding education in America.


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Methods Homeschooling parents do not tend to trust outsiders.25 For years, homeschooling existed on the edge of legality, with authorities from states and school districts often threatening and sometimes prosecuting these atypical parents (Arons, 1983; Gorder, 1990; McCarthy, 1992; Rakestraw & Rakestraw, 1990). In approaching this study, therefore, I carefully designed a procedure that would lead parents to feel comfortable sitting down with an outsider to discuss the connection between their views of democracy, their thoughts about the purpose of schooling in a democratic society, and the views that led them to their own schooling decisions. As an entrée into the broader homeschooling community, I made initial contact through various homeschooling associations and support groups.26 I then administered background surveys27 and, based on survey responses, I employed a “purposive sampling” design (see Merriam, 1988), selecting families that represented the widest possible variety of demographics and religious and political ideology. Case study methodology enabled me to engage in a detailed examination of homeschoolers in their unchanged, real-life social and political contexts (Yin, 1989). An embedded case study model allowed me to use parents’ democratic and educational philosophies as the primary unit of analysis and each family as a subunit of analysis (see discussion in Yin, 1989). Through extensive interviews with 26 homeschooling families (often with both parents) in Pennsylvania and Colorado, I explored how they conceive of democracy, the purpose of education, and the potentially conflicting roles of parents and the state in determining the form and substance of education. My interviews consisted of conceptual, open-ended questions about the parents’ underlying perceptions and theories regarding democracy and schooling, as well as questions about the implications of their ideas. When I asked these parents about their views of democracy and how to educate children for democracy, I probed into issues such as how they think society should make educational decisions, the potential role of public schools, and what should determine and define parents’ and states’ rights and obligations. While I interviewed some parents who took a “live and let live,” dismissive attitude toward the public schools, the vast majority took a strong, idealized stand either in favor of or against the public schools. Reconciling the Public with the Private Many homeschoolers, who I refer to as “civic-minded homeschoolers,” support public schools in both theory and practice, notwithstanding their contrary schooling choices for their own children. These homeschooling parents tend to actively support school bonds, to vote for candidates seen as champions of public education, and to rally behind school improvements that they view as educationally sound.

25 For a discussion of the sometimes underground nature of homeschooling, please see, for example, Byrne, 1999; McCoy, 1981; Hegener, 1988. 26 Twenty support groups in Pennsylvania and nine in Colorado. 27 Ninety-eight completed surveys were returned to me.


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One reform-minded superintendent of a wealthy, suburban district described to me the support he received from such homeschoolers when he pushed for progressive changes in his district’s schools, “[W]hen I was in trouble [with an anti-change school board] a couple of [homeschoolers] actually did come to the [school board] meetings to argue in my defense.” He went on to add that he valued this “really nice gesture” because, the homeschooling parents were not there to support him in his professional capacity relating to homeschooling, rather they came to “defend” him as the superintendent of the school district. They spoke in support of this superintendent because of his progressive reform ideas, even though those reforms would not affect them directly. Civic-minded homeschoolers such as these support a strong governmental role in public education. They see public schools as vital societal institutions that must be maintained. As one such parent readily acknowledged, “it’s just not possible for everybody to [homeschool].” For this reason alone, these parents reasoned, American society needs public schools. Accordingly, they advocated for these schools’ improvement. Moreover, moving beyond this practical focus on the immediate needs of their fellow citizens, these civic-minded homeschoolers also stressed the importance of public schools as an intrinsic good for broader society. They argued that, for the nation’s health and betterment, public education “has to be there.” They reasoned that the school system plays a vital and central role in American society, contending that without the public schools, communities would face exponentially growing social and economic problems. A homeschooling father emphasized that, for these reasons, the government simply must ensure an education for all of its citizens:

I think society has an obligation to provide a baseline of education if the goal is to make society function. Because I think without rules and education and development, it would be anarchy. I mean it would be a total mess. So, if society wants to continually improve and get along and function well together, it has to educate its own people.

Like this father, the civic-minded homeschoolers with whom I spoke stressed the importance of society establishing, supporting, and maintaining institutions that work to benefit all members. Their expressions about the good of public institutions echoed the views of communitarian democratic theorists: that these institutions need to be established to teach and pass on traits important to the community. Communitarianism holds that people, by nature, possess both a political and a social side and that communities should allow for personal formation through societal association (see Aristotle, 335BC; Rousseau, 1762; Sandal, 1982, 1988; and Taylor, 1984). In a communitarian society, people set and pursue communal goals for the sake of the common good, not the good of the individual (Aristotle, 335BC). A communitarian view of democracy promotes an education that teaches people to know and appreciate the community’s culture and institutions. It assumes a shared conception of what is good and works to equip children with the character traits and sense of identity required by this notion (Strike, 1991). Communitarian education promotes the community’s social and political institutions with the aim that individuals develop wants and desires consistent with the common culture. Otherwise, people will have goals that


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they cannot achieve within their society, and the institutions will seem oppressive (Smith, 1997). In this way, communitarian education initiates children into a society’s common vision. Yet, while civic-minded homeschoolers embrace the communitarian ideals underlying this theory, they chose to opt their own children out of the common educational experience they support. This focus on the importance of universal institutions is readily apparent in the following statement by a homeschooling mother, whose husband sat nearby nodding in strong agreement: “[J]ust because I haven’t chosen [to send my children to public school], I think it would be detrimental to my local society for me not to try to help facilitate [the learning of] those other children.” Another mother echoed this sentiment when she discussed the importance of thinking about all of the children a particular educational policy may affect, not only one’s own, [I]f your child has a particular need, you want to see that met. So you should be as open to dealing with other children and their needs…. [I]t’s…good that other children get their needs met because then they’re going to do better in school, they’re going to be happier in school. Your children are…in those classes with those other children. This group of homeschooling parents empathetically and repeatedly expressed the importance of ensuring that, as a society, we meet the needs of all our members. This notion of thinking about how the consequences of one’s actions might affect others stands in contrast to the classical liberal idea, expressed by many autonomy-minded homeschoolers (discussed in the following section of this article), of each person making choices based solely upon his or her own interests. Liberals advocate that personal prerogative constitutes the basis of a democratic society. In doing so, they emphasize familial decision-making over majority wishes. For them, the concept of democratic schooling is largely divorced from larger questions about how individuals’ choices impact broader civil society. Because these civic-minded homeschoolers perceive a need to care about (and for) the larger community, they express gratitude that the government takes on its educational role. “[I]t’s important,” explained one homeschooler, for the state “to make sure … that people are receiving an education.” Another homeschooling mother emphasized, “We’re called to care for our neighbors.” Therefore, she argued, it is important to support the schools through voting for funding increases and other educational ballot measures. Utilitarian rationales often complemented the civic-minded view. As expressed by one father: “[I]t’s a good thing for the state to want its citizens educated, mainly because who would fill the jobs without education? Who would fill the government without education? In order for the state to run, it needs educated citizens.” Because our society needs educated citizens in order to function in an orderly manner, these civic-minded homeschoolers felt that it served the government’s (as well as society’s) best interest to promote and maintain a public education system. Others among these civic-minded homeschoolers adopted a deficit view reminiscent of President Johnson’s New Society programs. One mother who fell into this latter category


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commented to me that, even though she did not think schools, in their present state, made for ideal learning situations, for those kids whose parents did not (or could not) provide a learning-rich environment, these schools provided a necessary and worthwhile resource.

If [the home]’s not going to be a kind environment with an educational focus, you can see there’ll be kids coming [to school] where it would be a…lifesaver for them. … And if you don’t see that [kind of learning going on] around you, if you’re … going to be watching TV 24 hours a day or whatever, …you’re going to grow up illiterate and you’re not going to be prepared for your life. … [S]o I think it actually is important to have public schooling.

For some children, these parents contended, schools provided the best, or the only decent, learning environment. But non-utilitarian views were also prominent. Pointing to education’s role in the functioning of a democracy, a mother opined that only a coercive and totalitarian government would fail to provide a means of teaching its citizens: “I would consider [providing an education] being responsible in terms of governing people. You can’t govern people who can’t read unless you don’t want them to read for other reasons…. [Education]’s your responsibility if you’re going to lead people.” This idea, that in order to maintain a free and democratic society a leader must ensure the education of their electorate, resonated in the comments of many of these families. Issues of inequality and fairness were also commonly raised as important motivations for public education. As one parent explained, “some parents just don’t have the means or the education to be able to [homeschool] their kids. Financially…some people may not have the means to send [their children] to private schooling.” In spite of this support, however, these civic-minded homeschoolers maintained that they provided a better education for their children than their children would receive in a public school, but they still ardently supported public schools. In fact, typical of parents in this group, the above-quoted mother stated that she may enroll her kids back in the public schools, should she, her husband, or her children decide that homeschooling no longer meets their needs. Moreover, they spoke with sorrow about the political pressures to decrease funding to, or even dismantle, the public school system. They sadly acknowledged the fact that only the financially secure really experienced a full range of choices about the type of education their children could receive. Commenting along this vein, an African-American mother referred to homeschooling as “the poor man’s private school.” These civic-minded homeschoolers nevertheless acknowledged that, although some exceptions exist, homeschooling does not serve as a truly viable option for resource-poor members of society. This understanding fueled their commitment to public education. Speaking of his desire to bring his “60’s values” to fruition in larger society, a homeschooling father explained his commitment to the public schools as part of his duty as a citizen and a human to help provide for those less fortunate.


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[F]or whatever reason, we do have “haves” and “have-nots.” And I do believe that it is to the benefit of the haves to facilitate the improvement of life for the have-nots. Or at least to make the effort…I do believe that those of us that have the privileges of wealth or ability and knowledge and the benefits of education, and not schooling necessarily, but of education, who think more and whose decision making is more cerebral than visceral, that it is in our best interest, as well as a value that I hold dear, to make that available to people who don’t otherwise have access to it.

Similarly, and less condescendingly, a mother emphasized that when making decisions, we must think about the consequences not only for ourselves, but also for those around us: “I think we can’t be self-centered and just think about ourselves. We live in a world, we live in a society, we live on a street. We have obligations to relate to each other and to relate to each other in a helpful…way.” In saying this, the homeschooling mother hinted at the perspective of deliberative democracy scholars, who believe that we should actively engage all stakeholders in the decision-making process, making sure that outcomes meet the needs of everyone whom the decision might impact. Deliberative democracy tries to take account of the complexity of pluralism (see Benhabib, 1996; Phillips, 1996; Smith, 1997). It depends upon all people affected by a decision having an equal say in its outcome (see Benhabib, 1994, 1996; Cohen, 1989; Gutmann, 1996; Gutmann and Thompson, 1996). This concern for supporting institutions that benefit broader society, whether or not the specific individual speaking would benefit directly, was voiced repeatedly by the civic-minded homeschoolers I interviewed. The deliberative democratic philosophy also was apparent in the comments offered by a homeschooling father’s description of the ideal governmental role, which he characterized as mediating between the diverse desires of its members and coming to a solution acceptable to all parties:

It says in the preamble to the Constitution that one of the roles of government is to provide for the common good. For me, this means two things: government holds the communal vision of what we all want for all of us, lest any part of us gets too caught up in our own immediate desires; and it means that we share a belief in synergy and the abundance mentality. … Government would support the collaborative spirit, not the competitive one. It would manage its own affairs, and facilitate those of others, with a mindset that says, “OK, you want this, he wants that…let’s figure out a way that both parties can get what they want. Until we do, nobody gets any of whatever we’re competing for.” In the later stage, government is like the collective conscience. It oversees the whole country, keeps its eye on the long view and, as I said earlier, holds the vision of the people so that we can continuously check our behavior against our goal to make sure that we’re in alignment.

This father believed that society should apply these same principles to education. The government should oversee, to make sure that people do not push merely for their own


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interests but the interests of all stakeholders, and then implement the resulting system to the good of all society. Part of this, he asserted, includes public schools. Bringing these deliberative democratic ideals to fruition, however, proves more difficult in practice than in theory. American history offers many examples of the inadequacy of merely creating institutionalized procedures and bare, de jure conditions of equality. Because of pre-existing inequalities in societal power relations, deliberative democracy’s foundational assumption of equality among political participants tends to crumble (Young, 1990). Even though many Americans strive for these ideals, in application the process is too often characterized by prejudice and excessive self-interest. (See Howe, 1997, for a discussion of deliberative democracy as applied to schooling.) Both communitarian democracy and deliberative democracy share a common public vision that embraces institutions such as public schools. Communitarians see the community binding citizens together for the sake of their development and for the sake of the common good (Aristotle, 1941). Although each person begins with uniquely individual circumstances and identity, people and families make decisions based on what is best for the community. Similarly deliberative democracy views reasoned deliberation among free and equal citizens—coming to a mutual decision as to the direction the community should go—as the necessary way to make collective decisions (see Benhabib, 1994; 1996; Cohen, 1989; Gutmann,1996; Gutmann & Thompson, 1996). Civic-minded homeschooling parents, as seen above, voice the community-consciousness element of these theories. However, while civic-minded homeschoolers support the ideal of community schools, communitarian democracy recognizes nothing, especially education, as beyond the control of the state. A society’s collective idea of what constitutes the common good provides the basis for community life, schooling, and the state. In its pure form, this view does not allow for individuals to choose their own “good” or to use their choices to form who they will become. And in a deliberative democracy, the community may decide that such individualist measures are not in the community’s best interest. Therefore, among other things, the choice to school at home would probably not exist in a society governed by either of these democratic philosophies. While civic-minded homeschoolers express the importance of public schools and government involvement in education, they want their children to experience something different (and, in their estimation, better) than what the public schools presently provide. The civic-minded homeschoolers I interviewed were therefore confronted with two interconnected tensions. The first tension is the one outlined above: they choose to educate their own children outside of this system established and supported by the community—a system they champion. The second tension pitted their desire to send their children to public schools against their belief that the practices and quality of those same public schools were far below and/or far different from their own strongly held ideas about education. For these parents, the homeschooling decision was simply compartmentalized separately from their support for public schools. As one mother explained, “Our decision is an


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individual decision. It’s not a decision to change the world or change the system.” Her husband fervently agreed. While they both valued the public schools, he said, their own children’s future came before the public institution. They reasoned that their personal homeschooling decision would not work to change what they saw as the shortcomings of public schools—which they actively tried to change through direct political involvement. For these and other civic-minded parents, homeschooling combined with active support of public schools provided the most satisfying resolution of these tensions. As a short-term solution, they provided the sort of education that they wanted for their own children; as a long-term solution, they advocated for a quality education for all children. Civic-minded homeschoolers generally express very strong and considered opinions about what constitutes an ideal education and what characterizes the best type of educational environment. As a result of these deep convictions, they desire a better learning environment for their own children and support the construction of a better learning environment for all children. Their concerns for education and for children underpin their decision to home-school and their support for public education. Interestingly, a similar argument can be made concerning homeschoolers who want to eliminate all public schools, since many such parents see public education as impairing societal liberty. It is to this second group that I now turn. Autonomy-minded Homeschoolers: Rejecting One Form of Indoctrination But Choosing Another The civic-minded homeschoolers described above challenge the stereotype of homeschoolers as determined to withdraw from broader society. In contrast, the following discussion of autonomy-minded homeschoolers—parents who want to dismantle the United States’ system of public education—may feed into this stereotype. But they should not. The autonomy-minded homeschoolers discussed below have simply adopted a philosophy that echoes the liberal28 position eschewing government involvement in education.29 Their focus is on the governmental role rather than societal participation. Liberalism dictates that all authority, including a state-run educational system, requires justification. People “own” themselves and consequently have the right to exercise self-determination with regard to their lives, learning, and labor (Locke, 1690). They voluntarily join together and have “rights and a conception of their lives prior to and independently of the ministrations of the state” (Strike, 1991, p. 430). Accordingly, liberals hold that the state must remain neutral in its conception of what constitutes “the good” so that people can pursue their own notions. A liberal view of democracy promotes an education that gives individuals the opportunity to explore and choose among a wide range of goods and life-styles. Autonomy-minded homeschoolers claim that public schools

28 Throughout this article, I use the term “liberal” in this classical sense. I do not employ the popular meaning associated with those on the leftwing of the political spectrum. 29 Many homeschooling and voucher advocates express this viewpoint (see Friedman, 1962; Richman, 1995; see also Chubb & Moe, 1990, and Coons & Sugarman, 1978, for arguments in favor of vouchers grounded in critiques of public school effectiveness). It should be noted, however, that a number of the anti-government homeschoolers decry vouchers for the same reasons they do not like the public schools—they see vouchers as yet another means of government control and intervention. 3 individuals’ choices impact broader society.


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do not (or can not) leave open these possibilities. Therefore, homeschooling serves as the means for all parents to pursue their particular vision of “the good.” Liberals also contend that personal prerogative constitutes the basis of a democratic society. Following this line of thinking, a prominent segment of homeschooling proponents loudly trumpets the importance of unfettered individual choice in education (e.g., Richman, 1995). In doing so, they emphasize familial decision-making over majority wishes. For them, the concept of democratic schooling is largely divorced from larger questions about how individuals’ choices impact broader society.30 That is, they have little concern about how parents’ homeschooling decisions might improve, damage, or otherwise effect institutional education.31 Ultimately, the opposition of autonomy-minded homeschoolers to state-run education follows the teachings of liberals such as Mill (1860), who feared that such schooling might indoctrinate students with an official viewpoint. Liberalism often finds its expression in the idea that state authority should be limited (Mill, 1860) or that individuals have rights against the state (Locke, 1690). The state exists only to protect rights and property, acting as a fair arbitrator between parties by relying on principles of universality and neutrality. Therefore, as Strike (1991) notes, liberalism faces the problem of finding a way to separate life into a public sphere, where the state can exercise authority, and a private sphere, where the state has no rights. For example, liberals would oppose state-mandated educational curricula and standards—reasoning that through the implementation of such, the state oversteps its bounds and enters the private sphere. Determined to maintain this public/private distinction, liberals tend to be wary of the state’s power to expand beyond its service as the protector of citizens’ liberties and become a threat to those same liberties. Consequently, they seek to hold the state accountable through a balance of power. The public/private distinction purportedly guarantees individual freedom by restricting political discourse to issues of common concern. Liberals dislike having too many things in the public sphere (e.g., a monopolistic educational system), because they fear that these institutions will encroach on distinct conceptions of the good life and accompanying virtues. Essentially, they are wary of the assimilating tendencies these institutions may bring about. In order to guard against this, they seek to protect value- and identity-pluralism by keeping these decisions within the private sphere (see Strike, 1991). Simply put, the liberal democracy championed by the autonomy-minded homeschoolers I spoke with revolves around a commitment to human freedom and to people’s fundamental equality. Liberalism assumes the existence of value-pluralism as well as differences among people’s goals, agendas, and means of bringing these various values to fruition. The philosophy is characterized by a desire to protect the freedom of individual citizens from the state and from the tyranny of the majority. Citizens, liberals believe, should be free to pursue their individual views of “the good life.” This includes the ability to make independent decisions about the education of their children. (See Ackerman, 1980; Dworkin, 1984; Locke, 1960; Rawls, 1971; and Strike, 1991). 30 See Kenway, Bigum, & Fitzclarence, 1993, and Fine, 1993, for a discussion of a similar ideology among other choice advocates. 31 Compare this to the thesis of Chubb and Moe (1990), who argue that pressures from an openly competitive system financed by the state would drive improvement in all schools.


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Yet, many autonomy-minded homeschoolers cannot find complete comfort within the theory of liberalism since they do not free their children from all indoctrination. They willingly, even zealously, indoctrinate their children with their own beliefs and invariably with the beliefs of their church.32 Thus, just as civic-minded homeschoolers ultimately made personal choices to ensure a given type and quality of education for their own children, these autonomy-minded homeschoolers compromised their larger vision of society in favor of their strongly held beliefs about their children’s values, behaviors, and politics. For instance, a devout Christian homeschooling mother, worried about the future godliness of her children, argued that public schools would teach things contrary to that goal:

[In] the public school system, they train these girls to go out and get a career. That’s more important than your family. And I think, in the Bible, God’s perfect will is for a wife to be home with her family. And, not that she shouldn’t be smart or know how to do things, but she shouldn’t [have that as her goal].

By placing a career-minded education above her daughter’s Christian character, the public schools became unpalatable to this mother. The school’s teachings and goals for her daughter, this mother expressed, were very different from her own. Another mother argued that as schools become more hostile to religious beliefs, more people will realize the schools’ anti-God agenda and withdraw their children, thus leading to the schools’ demise. These parents, she reasoned, would pursue alternatives such as homeschooling: “The more the public schools claim freedom from religion and restrict teachers, parents, and students, the more people will seek another option. The more politically correct the schools become, the more homeschooling numbers will rise.” The fear and concern expressed by these parents about the teaching of antithetical values in public schools mirrors in many ways the critique articulated by classical liberal democratic theorists. At the same time, these parents were actively involved in teaching their children their own beliefs. Bible study often constituted a regular part of their day and, along with prayer, provided a foundation for family life. At least once a week—and often several days a week—these families attended church. Clearly these parents had a specific idea of the “good” that they were trying to instill in their children. And they also had an excellent reason: these parents held the conviction that through instilling these religious beliefs in their children, they were saving their children from eternal damnation.

32 Although most autonomy-minded homeschoolers I talked with held quite strong religious views, not all homeschoolers who think the public schools should be dismantled are of a religious ilk. Some follow the libertarian line of thinking that any government involvement is unnecessary and dangerous to freedom, while others simply think market forces would bring about more efficient and better schools than a governmentallyrun system. While this particular section focuses on religious, autonomy-minded homeschoolers, it should not be taken as an indication that all autonomy-minded homeschoolers are religious. Other types of autonomyminded homeschoolers, e.g., those with concerns about political or other types of indoctrination, are discussed below.


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These parents were ardently outspoken against some forms of indoctrinating their children, but took their own indoctrinative lessons as a given. This points to an unavoidable dilemma faced by public schools. Although many teachers and schools work hard to accommodate students’ religious beliefs, such accommodation can only go so far. In addition to constitutional limitations, schools are faced with the logical limitation that accommodations favoring one set of beliefs will invariably conflict with another set of beliefs. Acknowledging this dilemma, however, does little to resolve it, and many of the autonomy-minded homeschoolers I spoke with found plenty of specific examples of shortcomings in the basic teaching of values. A father echoed the opinions of many of these dissatisfied parents when he complained that the value system taught by public schools “was simply this, and [my son] could articulate it at the time: If you can get away with it, it’s not wrong.” These parents clearly viewed the schools as threats to their children’s faith and principles. Moreover, autonomy-minded homeschoolers’ fears of indoctrination went beyond what public schools taught (or did not teach) on religious topics. Decrying the undermining of conservative values by what he considered left-wing forces within the public schools, a father told me, “When you come down to politics, kids going to public schools today, they’re being branded and stamped Democrats.” He went on to say that schools forced teachers to tow this party line and made sure they did not critically analyze the leftist agenda:

[If a teacher] start[ed] getting into [critical thinking, she] can be pulled down to the principal’s office for a little bit of discussion about being a team player. “We’re not going to get into critical thinking, we just want the kids to learn the curriculum. If they can learn the curriculum, we’ll be satisfied. So let’s not get too far afield.” Well, the curriculum is decidedly one-sided on the political spectrum.

He and other autonomy-minded homeschoolers opined that leftist political views characterized and controlled the public schools, and this fear of political indoctrination strongly influenced their homeschooling decisions. One father, frustrated by the fact that “people” often characterize homeschoolers as indoctrinators of their children, spun this accusation back to the schools:

[T]hey’re accusing us of brainwashing our kids. And saying, “… we don’t do brainwashing in the schools. We do moral relativism. We’re amoral. Okay? We’re not teaching them any one morality. We’re teaching all of them.” [The schools] are not teaching all of it at all. They’re not. They’re teaching a very leftist, nonreligious morality. [I]t’s just incredible. [I]t’s far more narrow than even [Fundamentalism]. It really is. … And it’s so nice and couched and phrased and all that stuff. It’s scary.

He argued the schools used their unique position—a captive audience, the ability to set the curriculum, and some authority over children—to indoctrinate America’s youth into


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thinking in certain ways and holding particular values. He saw this as hypocritical, unacceptable, and clearly beyond the role of schools. These concerns over indoctrination and the notion that public schools have an underlying agenda also surface in books and articles read by, and trumpeted throughout, this portion of the homeschooling community. In his book, Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families, Sheldon Richman encourages families to consider home- or private-schooling because he perceives the public schools as socialist, holding values that oppose the ideals of a democratic society. Richman argues that a non-liberal democracy is not really a democracy at all.33 A homeschooling parent I interviewed echoed Richman’s sentiment:

There are some socialist [aspects to public schools], I’ll prove it to you. The teachers don’t have individual contracts. They’re unionized. And unions are socialist. Plain and simple. You don’t get paid for how good you are, you get paid for how long you’ve been there.... It’s socialist.

These homeschoolers repeatedly underscored their fear and distrust of the public school system by invoking the idea of socialism. Further, they argued that the public schools forced these “socialist” values on the unsuspecting students who made use of their services. As firm believers in capitalism, many of these parents touted the idea that the market will provide what society needs, including charity for those who cannot afford to educate their children.34 While Richman and autonomy-minded homeschoolers offer a classical liberal

33 Although Richman’s organization is supported by some homeschoolers, it exists largely outside of the broader homeschooling movement. Some prominent homeschooling organizations, however, also expound messages that foster a similar anti-public-school sentiment. For instance, leaders of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) make similar claims. HSLDA is an advocacy organization established to “defend and advance the constitutional right of parents to direct the education of their children and to protect family freedoms” (http://www.hslda.org/hslda/). They provide their thousands of members with legal consultation as well as pro-actively advocate homeschooling on Capital Hill, in state legislatures, and with the media. While the HSLDA does not exclude from membership those who hold non-Christian beliefs, it is an overtly Christian establishment with an agenda dedicated to supporting the rights and duties of families as commanded by Biblical mandate. Michael Farris, president and founder of HSLDA, and Scott Woodruff, HSLDA attorney, state that it is “a potential or actual conflict of interest for the government to control education” and that “the extent of the conflict increases in direct proportion to the degree of governmental, and especially federal, control.” Based on its independence from government control, Farris and Woodruff conclude that homeschooling is, “[U]niquely situated to foster the continuation of our rich and honorable tradition of civil opposition, preserving the things we value most in a free society and eliminating the things that threaten the foundation of liberty” (1999, p. 35). In addition, Christopher Klicka, Senior Counsel of HSLDA and Executive Director of The National Center for Home Education (the lobbying and research branch of HSLDA) published a book entitled The Right Choice: The Incredible Failure of Public Education and the Rising Hope of Home-schooling, that further decries public schools. Other books and articles popular in this segment of the homeschooling community echo a similar sentiment (see, for example, Blumenfeld, 1985; Landis, 1995; Lehman, 1997). 34 Organizations such as the Separation of School and State Alliance have advocated and popularized these views—particularly the belief that the government should not, on any level, be involved with education. This Alliance is a prominent organization dedicated to abolishing government-run schools. (For more information, please see their website at: http://www.sepschool.org/) Other organizations that uphold and propagate these views include a Christian organization called “Exodus 2000,” a project whose stated purpose is “to trump the insidious anti-academic, pro-social control policies of Goals 2000 with the only option


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critique of government involvement in American public schooling, other proponents of liberal democracy cringe at the idea of giving parents a monopolistic role in forming the values and beliefs of their children.35 Children, they argue, require rearing that respects their freedom ultimately to choose their own conception of a good life and should therefore not be taught unconditionally to accept their parents’ views (see Bilow, 1990). These liberals hold that children should be taught from a more neutral curriculum that emphasizes the individual freedoms inherent in liberalism. From this perspective, even the otherwise-problematic state-run education has the benefit of keeping children from being overly influenced by the opinions of their own families. The parents in my study, in contrast, focused on aspects of liberal philosophy wherein the overwhelming concern is the indoctrination of an official viewpoint. These parents idealized the fact that they and other homeschooling parents autonomously choose the content and form of their children’s schooling. Because these choices depend solely on individual parents’ values and desires, a great diversity of opinions and beliefs is provided to the expanse of homeschooled children. Moreover, the homeschoolers who expressed liberal ideals viewed this discrepancy as a non-issue. Their vision of democracy includes their freedom to raise their children as they see fit, not their children’s freedom to be raised as the child may choose. Public schools, they argued, had too much influence on children’s thinking—stifling diversity of thought and drowning out “the truth.” They accused political powers within our society of having an agenda that was “filtering down into the public schools.” Accordingly, while autonomy-minded homeschoolers repeatedly noted their worries about indoctrination by the government, they expressed no comparable concerns regarding parents. Instead, these homeschoolers voiced a strong desire to teach their children what they, the parents, thought was true—religious, political, and otherwise. Metaphysical Elements: Favoring the Teaching of One’s Own Beliefs In the convictions of autonomy-minded homeschoolers and civic-minded homeschoolers there exists a tension between wanting their own beliefs (especially spiritual) taught and upheld and yet not wanting the same for others. This view conflicts with the pure forms of both liberal and communitarian democratic theory. Autonomy-minded homeschoolers reject the moral relativism of liberal democratic theory As discussed in the indoctrination section above, many homeschoolers who hold a liberal view of democracy decry the “official viewpoint” taught in public schools. Yet, many of

available to today’s families: the rapid withdrawal of their children and grandchildren from a corrupt public school system” (http://www.exodus2000.org/overview.htm) (For more information on Exodus 2000 see Caldwell, 1999; McCain, 1999; and the Exodus 2000 Project web page) and a similar movement, called Rescue 2010—run by the Citizens for Excellence in Education (CEE)—which touts “helping parents rescue their children from public schools to private Christian schools and home schools” as their primary mission (http://www.nacecee. org/). 35 For further discussion, see Aiken & La Follette, 1980; Gutmann, 1980; Wringe, 1981.


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them would not have the same problem with these schools if the “official viewpoint” taught was more closely in line with their own beliefs and convictions. Liberalism as a theory does not allow for such distinctions. As noted earlier, classic liberals fear indoctrination of all kinds—it does not allow for greater valuing of what any given set of parents considers “the truth.” Therefore, although autonomy-minded homeschoolers express views that closely mirror those espoused by liberal political theorists, liberalism falls short of explaining the full array of beliefs of a devoutly religious subset of autonomy-minded homeschoolers—particularly their rejection of what they call “moral relativism.” One father, a former pastor of a conservative Christian church, stated his conviction that the public schools had blatant anti-Christian leanings and, accordingly, taught his children “wrong” information. He wanted nothing to do with the public schools:

[Don’t] tell me I have got to go into a government run school that’s being run by people who are going towards amoralism or, not quite as bad, moral relativism. [Public schools] are more than happy to invite a Muslim in to teach about Islam and ... a Native American to teach about Native American religion…. [B]ut...there’s no way in the world they’ll let me as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to get up there and explain [Christianity]. No, no, don’t force me to put my children into a system like that. Absolutely no.

He argued that the government had no right to teach his children about metaphysical truth.36 He contended that schools had the aim of secularizing society, which he saw as far beyond the ideal role of schools and especially of the government. Although classical liberals would fully agree that the role of schools should not be to champion one religion over another, they would disagree with the details and motivation of this father’s complaint. Classical liberalism is ametaphysical, meaning that it does not involve itself with metaphysical issues—thus staking out a position that this father would likely disparagingly define as moral relativism. An education consistent with the tenets of classic liberalism would focus on creating citizens dedicated to justice and to acting justly (Strike, 1991), but it would not promote the religious convictions this father held as The Truth. Because many autonomy-minded homeschoolers see the world through a powerful religious, usually evangelical Christian, lens, they could not embrace this crucial tenet of liberal democratic theory. For them, indoctrination was wrong because of the particulars of the indoctrination. Consider the following statement from the earlier-mentioned anti-union homeschooling father, who is clearly more focused on the content of teachers’ messages than on the indoctrinative elements:

I would say that [homeschoolers] consider [democratic citizenship] far more important than [do] schools. Again, because you’ve got unionized teachers. …

36 While most autonomy-minded homeschoolers spoke in terms of religious truth, the broader phrase, metaphysical truth, referring to any teaching that concerns the nature of ultimate reality, more fully encompasses these parents’ concerns.


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[T]hey’ll teach union, union, union. … [T]hat’s not necessarily democracy…. So when you talk about democratic citizenship, …[without] homeschooling, I would contend that you’ll be starting to lose your democracy.

While liberal theorists would support the emphasis this father placed on the importance of dissent, they would not share his specific concerns about unions. Moreover, they would object just as strongly if the teachers indoctrinated an anti-union message. So, although these autonomy-minded homeschoolers co-opted the anti-indoctrination rhetoric of classical liberal theorists, they could not take these positions to their logical and (for them) distasteful conclusions. Civic-minded homeschoolers’ own value pluralism undermines their implementation of communitarian democratic theory Many of the civic-minded homeschoolers who I interviewed discussed the disjuncture between their educational ideals and public schools’ teachings. These concerns ranged from objections to the lack of morality included in instruction to objections to the standardized testing that they saw as driving schools’ curricula. Voicing the former concern, an evangelical Christian mother complained to me about the values, clearly contrary to her own, that she believed the public schools promoted:

I didn’t like [that the schools] teach [children] about sexual education…. I don’t think any child needs to know what we do when we’re married before they’re getting ready to get married…. [W]hy tempt before it’s time? … I want [my daughter] to know that there [are] absolutes. … I don’t want her to be out there lost. Because that’s where our society is—lost! They don’t know where they’re going. They don’t know what to judge by. ... How can you run a society [like that]? I don’t think this experiment has ever been tried before. Maybe some at the tail end of Rome, and Rome fell.

As a widow, this mother understood that not everyone can homeschool their children and that American society relies upon the public schools to ensure the continued availability of educational access for all children. However, she also contended that the schools needed to change in order to ensure America’s moral and physical survival. Based on this critique, this mother advocated for society-wide institutions that would promote and reflect her particular values. She spoke about the founding of our country with great yearning, offering a somewhat nostalgic, folk view of America’s inception that hearkened to a time in which all Americans supposedly shared a common set of “Christian” values and culture. In essence, this mother wanted a communitarian democracy with her Christian values at the core. Of course, other parents, including other homeschoolers, advocate the teaching of very different values. For instance, a homeschooling father expressed a similar view about dissatisfaction with schools’ pedagogy. In his view, however, the content of what schools teach was not the issue. Rather, he objected to how they teach: “It’s the process of schooling that is


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problematic, not the quality of the school, meaning instruction. It’s the competitiveness….” He explained his concern that schools encouraged competition over cooperation and that they portrayed learning as a competitive accomplishment. He wanted schools to present learning as a lifelong love that could lead to personal and societal growth. Along these same lines, a civic-minded mother, similarly disenchanted with the public schools’ competition and their failure to develop children’s interest in learning, spoke with me about her search for a progressive school for her son. She and her husband visited the local public school as well as all the private schools in the area. The local public school was, she expressed, very traditional and restrictive. She also offered a harsh critique of a local private school that billed itself as very progressive and child-centered and, in fact, stands as a model nationwide as an example of a good alternative school. She saw this school’s version of progressive education as a façade and ultimately concluded that none of her local schools provided the kind of education that she and her husband wanted for their child: “[W]e really considered [the self-declared alternative school]. But then it became apparent… it was just basically like all of the other schools. It just sort of has this kind of gloss of being progressive. It’s not really progressive.” After putting much time and energy into examining their various schooling options, the family finally decided that the only way to ensure a truly progressive education for their son would be to provide it themselves. The type of education valued and offered by her community did not meet the needs of this mother because she had a very different view of the ideal education. While she supported public educational institutions, she refused to utilize them unless they conformed with her strongly held pedagogical views. A corollary to this progressive objection to institutional education was voiced by a mother who feared that her son would be harmed by what she perceived to the stifling uniformity within schools’ expectations. “I can’t really picture sending him [to school] because I can’t picture compromising who he really…is,” she said. She worried that the school would impose habits or character traits on her son in order for him to succeed. In addition, although her local public schools were ranked among the best in Pennsylvania, she identified structures in those schools that brought back unpleasant memories of her own public school experience.

I just feel like I wasted so much of my own energy [while I was in school] being nervous all the time…. [V]ery early on, my first memory of reading is in first grade, realizing that I was in the slow group with the big red book and some of my friends had their own books at their desks. And that was first grade. And I very vividly remember that. And I don’t want that for him.

Although she ultimately did well, this mother’s education left her feeling stressed and defeated, and she did not want the same thing for her son. Another part of the progressive critique offered by some of these civic-minded homeschoolers focused on standards-based reforms. Several parents in my study mentioned the critiques of these policies published by education reformer Alfie Kohn


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(1999).37 These parents viewed with disdain curricula not tailored to the individual needs of students. They mourned these trends, particularly the emphasis on standardized tests, contending that already deficient public schools are now moving further in the wrong direction. One such parent condemned the lack of freedom given to teachers to instruct students as the teachers felt would best serve them: “Teachers have to meet so many requirements that they don’t have enough freedom to open up the classroom to just spending a day discussing things.” This mother further complained that large class size, combined with the rules and standards placed on classroom teaching, effectively preclude teachers from providing students with instruction catered to their individual needs and learning styles.

[T]he teacher’s got twenty-some-odd kids that she’s got to get to do a certain task. She doesn’t have time to sit down with each child and say, “You learn best musically so why don’t we do this, this and this. And you learn best analytically, so we should go in this direction.” She’s got to stand up and say, “This is the direction you head in. And this is how you get started…. And if you happen to grasp it, that’s great. And if you don’t, I don’t know what to say.”

This mother turned to homeschooling to ensure that she could meet the individualized learning needs of her two children after her daughter’s kindergarten teacher failed to meet her daughter’s needs in a busy, overcrowded classroom. Another mother empathized the undue pressures put on teachers by administrators who demand higher test scores. What followed from such mandates constituted, she maintained, a “complete waste of time.”

So then [the teacher has] got to teach the kids how to take this stupid test, so they spend a couple weeks doing that…. And, so what? [The standardized tests] meant the teachers were really good at teaching the children how to take the test? What is that an indicator of? Does that mean that children are happy and well-adjusted? …[No,] it means that they all remembered to use their number two pencils …

The movement toward curricula driven by standardized tests left this mother with the conviction that current political concerns forced schools down the wrong path. In spite of the strong support for the institution of public schools found among these civic-minded homeschoolers, they held a diverse range of views about how the schools should change. Accordingly, even among this small group of parents, the public schools could not meet the variety of expressed needs. For example, the widowed mother who voiced displeasure with the non-”Christian” nature of the public school curriculum wanted her values at the core of the school system. She desired a communitarian society where all people and institutions upheld her particular heartfelt convictions—beliefs starkly at odds with those of many other homeschoolers I spoke with. Conflicts among beliefs

37 In addition to The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards,” they mentioned Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes and No Contest: The Case Against Competition.


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would, of course, increase exponentially were one to also consider the much broader range of parents served, and potentially served, by the public schools. Determining the guiding principles for a communitarian society proves nearly impossible within a diverse population. Choosing from among the different visions of the “good” quickly devolves into arguments between various members asserting their opposing positions. In the process, the community vision becomes lost or mired. This points to a core problem with applying a communitarian model of education to a pluralistic society: communitarianism assumes a shared conception of the good and works to equip children with the character traits and sense of identity required by this notion (Strike, 1991). In its pure form, this view does not allow individuals such as these homeschoolers to choose their own “good” or to use their choices to form who they will become. As such, Americans, who generally hold to an ideal of freedom based upon individual autonomy, find this particular notion of community highly restrictive. In spite of the desire on the part of these civic-minded homeschoolers to promote public schools that approach instruction, curriculum, and/or the teaching of values in ways seen by them as beneficial, not all Americans (indeed, not all civic-minded homeschoolers) share their visions, making their communitarian ideal highly problematic. Without sufficient commonalities, those who do not hold to dominant views often find their actions constrained and institutions imposing (Taylor, 1984). Developing a collective “selfunderstanding” and assuming a common background and consensus simply does not allow for substantial differences between people or groups (Habermas, 1996). It ranks the norm over forms of dissent and ranks homogeneity over diversity. Consequently, those who do not share these same ideals would find a communitarian education to consist of propaganda and indoctrination. These practices demonstrate the “exclusionary and/or assimilationist tendencies” of the republican ideal (Baynes, 1992, p. 63). Perhaps most obviously, many parents with minority children argue convincingly that American schools often fail to take their interests and histories into account (see hooks, 1990; West, 1993). A growing number of parents, including some involved in my broader study, choose to homeschool for this very reason (also, see Aizenman, 2000; Llewellyn, 1996; Wahisi, 1995). Pluralism can create disharmony between individual aspirations and social institutions (see Strike, 1991). Feelings of isolation can occur when people try to create commonality amongst difference, as might occur in a communitarian democracy. This ideal requires a degree of consensus not found in pluralistic societies. The civic-minded homeschoolers I spoke with, who ironically represent those excluded from many societal norms, nonetheless embraced a form of communitarian vision. Although they found themselves outside mainstream beliefs and practices, they refused to give up on the public schools and they described a desire to see those schools reshaped around their own presently marginalized beliefs. These parents reasoned, in spite of their unhappiness with some aspects of public education, that the public schools provided a good and necessary service for our society—and that this service could, and should, be improved. So they pursued their Quixotic quest but also made the immediate decision to provide their own children with the education that they could not find in their schools.


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Of course, if any one of these parents does succeed in implementing his or her own communitarian vision, it will be at the expense of the many other parents with very different communitarian visions. Conclusion Just like these homeschoolers, many other Americans struggle with the schooling choices they make for their children. In taking advantage of public school choice, charter options, or vouchers, am I contributing to the educational stratification that I decry? Am I doing the same when I place my own child in a college-prep track? In sending my child to a private school rather than the poorly-funded and decrepit local public school, am I abandoning my commitment to public education? Do we, as American citizens, want our schools to indoctrinate children with any given set of beliefs and ideas? If not, what safeguards are reasonable or possible? Can I, in good conscience, send my child to a school that—whether through its designed curriculum or its hidden curriculum—teaches values directly at odds with my own? Ultimately, if I do not take advantage of my options to make advantageous choices for my child, am I sacrificing his or her future at the altar of my own selfish consistency? We live in an increasingly market-based educational system that demands of parents that they either make explicit choices or damn their own children to the remnants left behind by the choosers. As the American educational system enhances these choice options, it moves ever closer to the liberal ideal. But as seen in the struggles of the homeschoolers discussed in this article, that ideal presents powerful dilemmas for many parents—even those parents who otherwise seemed inclined toward embracing liberal democratic theory. These autonomy-minded homeschoolers as well as their civic-minded counterparts found that exercising educational options put their ideals for broader society into conflict with their practical, parental responsibility of making the best choices for their own children. According to the free market theory of scholars such as Milton Friedman (Friedman & Friedman, 1972), the private decisions made by these parents, grounded in what was best for their own children, should drive a better educational system. The study reported in this article does not empirically address this contention. But the democratic tensions highlighted by the experiences of the homeschoolers I studied do raise concerns about the consistency of that brave new market-based educational system with American’s broader democratic ideals. Parents will always make individual choices that benefit themselves and their families. The question for policymakers is whether, or to what degree, the American educational system should be structured to place those choices at its functional core. Within a choice structure driven overwhelmingly by private parental decisions, Americans may find that the civic-mindedness of the communitarian ideal has been sacrificed.

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Clive Belfield provides additional information on the demographics of home-schoolers and their students’ performance results based on SAT scores Document #4: Clive R. Belfield38, “Home-Schooling in the US January 2004,” (New York: National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education Teachers College, Columbia University, Occasional Paper No. 88) (Available at http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP88.pdf ) Abstract: This paper reviews recent evidence on home-schooling and home-based education in the US. Using various sources including state-level information and data on home-schoolers who took the SAT in 2001, we describe the characteristics of home-schoolers and analyze the motivation to home-school. We then evaluate home-schooling in terms of freedom of choice, efficiency, equity, and social cohesion. Throughout the evaluation, we note difficulties in identifying the treatment effect of home-schooling. On freedom of choice, we find that home-schooling may be highly liberating. On efficiency, we compare SAT test scores of home-schoolers with students in other types of school (noting the lack of evidence on home-school costs). There are serious methodological concerns in ascribing overall test score differences to home-school provision, including self -selection of test-takers and absence of controls for co-variates; but we do find relative differences between results for Verbal and Math tests for home-schoolers. Issues of equity in relation to home-schooling arise because families are now the ultimate determinants of a child’s welfare and prospects; we find relatively strong intergenerational academic transfers for home-schoolers. The research on social cohesion, which is mainly published in general media, reports positive effects but focuses entirely on the individual home-schooler and not broader societal impacts. We trace the consequences of this evaluation for policies on regulation, finance, and support services for home-schooling. 1. Introduction Of the 55 million school-aged children in the US in 2002, NCES (2001) estimated that approximately 800,000 to 1 million (1.6-1.8%) are being schooled at home.39 This figure—albeit imprecise—is considerably higher than the combined numbers of students in charter schools and voucher programs, reforms which have attracted considerably more academic

38 Acknowledgements The author appreciates: discussions with Hank Levin and colleagues at Teachers College; extensive comments from Pat Lines; research assistance from Chad D’Entremont and Pei-Winnie Ma; information from state Education Departments; and Drew Gitomer and the Educational Testing Service for making the SAT data available. 39 Most recent estimates are based on survey responses from the National Household Education Survey (NHES99), with the actual number of homeschool respondents of 270-285, a figure which is then aggregated to give a national estimate of 0.8-1.0 million. However, Isenberg (2002) argues that this figure may be an understatement by 0.1 million, because of how the NHES99 classifies siblings’ schooling. Also, the annual Gallup polls find 3% of families report that their eldest child is homeschooled. The Home School League Defense Association (an advocacy agency) estimates around 1.7-2 million home-schoolers in 2002 (see, www.hslda.org; earlier claims put the figure at 1.5 million in the mid-1990s, see McDowell and Ray, 2000).


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attention. Moreover, home-schooling is the ultimate in privatization: the education of children who home-school is typically privately funded, privately provided, and (almost fully) privately regulated. Essentially, home-schooling gives primacy to private interests in education over a broader public interest. Yet, it seems to be garnering broad-based support: whereas in 1985, only 16% of families thought home-schooling a good thing, by 2001 this figure had risen to 41% (Rose and Gallup, 2001, 46; see also Hammons, 2001). This development and increasing acceptance of home-schooling prompts many fundamental questions in relation to the organization of the US school system. As an alternative to public schooling, home-schooling may satisfy families with particular educational preferences (typically religious) or those who are disaffected by public ly-funded choices (see Stevens, 2001). Its growth may cast doubt on the efficiency of a schoolhouse operation, in that home provision is regarded as more effective (interview with Milton Friedman by Kane, 2002). Moreover, there are concerns about the public goods produced by home-schooling and the welfare of the children involved. Finally, home-schooling may have a strong economic impact on family expenditure patterns, time allocations, labor force participation, housing prices (near good schools), and preferences for public services. This paper offers a review of home-schooling and its potential implications for education policy reform. We begin by describing the characteristics of home-schoolers, drawing on information from recent surveys, reviews, and state data. We then review the factors motivating the choice of home-schooling relative to other schooling options. Next, we evaluate home-schooling using criteria set out by Levin (2002) of freedom of choice, efficiency, equity, and social cohesion. We conclude with a discussion of the policy instruments used to influence home-schooling and the implications for an education system with a sizeable home-schooling sector. To advance discussion of home-schooling across these 3 aspects, we introduce evidence from the highly selective cohort of home-schoolers who took the SAT in 2001. 2. The Home-Schooling Movement 2.1 Home-Schooling and Home-Based Educational Practices Home-schooling is a diverse practice (Petrie, 2000, 479; Stevens, 2001). It is no t a discrete and determinate form of education provision, particularly when contrasted with enrollment at a public school which has a formal governance structure and offers a definite pedagogy and standard curriculum, taught by a teacher as part of a regular instructional program fitted into the academic calendar. Indeed, home-schooling is sometimes lauded for not being “four-walls education”, with some families explicitly motivated by a desire to unschool their children (Stevens, 2001; on special educatio n, see Ensign, 2000). Other families may follow the formal approach of a school (e.g. with timetables or lesson plans). In general, the instructional mode of home-schooling appears to be characterized by its heterogeneity. Two useful distinctions are worth noting. One is between complete home-schooling and home-based education. The former occurs where there is no interaction between the


39

student and a school (although the student may draw on resources in the community). Home-based education occurs where the student draws on the resources of the school as desired (e.g. for specialist courses, sports, or extracurricular activities) or participates in a distance-learning program delivered by a school (e.g., an umbrella school). The latter approach is reasonably common: data indicate that 20% of home-school families sent their children to school for part of the day (NCES, 2001).40 The second useful distinction is the duration of home-schooling: although difficult to estimate, many home-schoolers do attend schools for a large period of their childhood (perhaps spending only 2 years home-schooling, see Lines, 2002; Isenberg’s (2002) data show similar durations, with home-schoolers enrolling in public schools by later grades, see also Rudner, 1999). Others may be home-schooled throughout childhood. Thus, the duration of home-schooling is likely to be bimodal, with 4 averages masking the distinction between short-term home-schoolers and those who are fully home-schooled. Home-schooling is also a diverse practice in terms of regulations and laws (for a legal history, see Buss, 2000; Somerville, 2001). Although legal across all states, as reviewed by the Home School Legal Defense Association, there are 9 states (including Texas) with little-to-no regulation, 14 states (including California) where regulation is low, 14 states with moderate regulation, and 11 states where regulation is relatively high (to include assessments and, possibly, inspections ; although these are rarely enforced). Home-schooling operations are also regarded differently across the states. Lambert (2001) reviews the legislation, finding state interpretations where operating as a home-school is classified in various ways, including: distinctly ‘not a private school’; possibly a private school or having affiliated status (depending on how the law is interpreted); a nonpublic school; or, in some cases, as a public school. These different operational characteristics will influence both the regulatory burden and the financing of home-schools. Such diversity is compounded by the lack of information either on how such regulations are enforced or on how legal statutes are applied. Bearing these measurement difficulties in mind, Table 1 reports on state-level estimates of home-school numbers across the 23 states where data are available (all states were scrutinized for data). These data show around 1.68% of students were being home-schooled, broadly corroborating other estimates (perhaps with downward bias where families must self - report home-schooling to their State Department of Education). States vary widely in the proportions of home-schoolers. They also show considerable variations in the proportions of home-schoolers in relation to those in private schools. Taking the average across the 23 states, the home-school sector is about one -fifth the size of the private sector (but in Arkansas and Montana, it is almost half the size).

40 Indeed, the NCES (2001) definition of home-schooling leaves open the possibility that the majority of a students’ education takes place in school. Home-schooling is identified where the child is being schooled at home and where any public schooling does not exceed 25 hours per week. The hourly threshold allows children who go to school three days per week to be classed as home-schooled. Throughout, we use the term ‘home-schooling’ to include those who may be undertaking home-based education.


40

2.2 The Characteristics of Home-schoolers These estimates of 0.8-1.0 million home-schoolers in the US represent a sizeable increase from the CPS and NHES96 figures for the early 1990s of 0.4-0.6 million (Bauman, 2002; for data on the growth in Florida and Wisconsin since the 1980s, see Isenberg, 2002; on earlier decades, see Knowles et al., 1992). Inevitably, a group this large will include families with 5 many different characteristics and motivations.41 Nevertheless, a better understanding of these household characteristics may assist in societal acceptance and support for home-schooling, as is desired by the families involved and their advocates (Lines, 2002). Early adopters of home-schooling have been described as either ‘ideologues’ or ‘pedagogues’ (Nemer, 2002): either they did not agree with what was taught in public schools or felt they could do a better job of educating their children themselves. As the population of home-schoolers grows, other characteristics can be identified. In contrast to public school families Lines (2002) describes home-schooling families as “more religious, more conservative, white, somewhat more affluent, and headed by parents with somewhat more years of education”; and a similar picture emerges from national and state-level data (e.g. Isenberg (2002) finds home-schooling correlated with status as an Evangelical Protestant in Wisconsin; see Rudner, 1999, Tables 2.2-2.9). The religiosity of home-schoolers clearly reflects a difference in preferences, but may also reflect the greater legal recourse families have in claiming religious freedom from public demands (on religion, see Mayberry et al., 1995). As well, it is plausible that home-schooling families are in the middle of the distribution of household incomes: when household income falls below a certain threshold, both parents must work; when it rises above a threshold, private schooling options can be financed more readily. Similarly, more educated parents are likely to feel more competent as educators of their child, but at a certain level of education these parents will be attracted to lucrative employment prospects.

41 Despite the large size of the home-schooling population there are still difficulties in obtaining samples of home-schoolers for quantitative research: home-schoolers do not readily respond to government surveys, and data from home school organizations’ membership lists may yield biased samples.


41

Table 1: Home-schooling Estimates by State Home-schoolers Home-schoolers as % of

Public School Students Home-schoolers as % of Private School Students

AK 724 0.54 11.58AR 12,474 2.78 46.82CA42 96,337 1.54 15.81CO 9,719 1.31 18.49DE 2,290 1.98 9.47FL 45,333 1.81 16.57KS 14,249 3.04 35.12KY43 6,208 0.94 9.40ME 4,595 2.17 26.74MI 1,033 0.06 0.60MN 14,610 1.73 16.16MT 3,788 2.49 45.41NH 4,319 2.04 20.43NM 6,487 2.05 33.70NV 3,903 1.10 30.38PA 23,903 1.32 6.96RI 493 0.33 1.97SD 2,723 2.15 27.80TN 20,203 2.15 23.87VA 22,021 1.89 22.40VT 1,700 1.71 15.71WA 11,699 1.16 15.20WI 21,288 2.42 14.90 Across 24 states

330,099 1.68 20.24

To augment this literature, the top panel of Table 2 reports data on the characteristics of students who took the SAT in 2001, according to school type.44 This data only relates to students who are college-aspirant, but it is useful in comparing home-schoolers who intend to go to college with school students with equivalent intentions. The home-school cohort is 6,033 (0.5% of all test-takers). As found elsewhere, home-schoolers tend to be white, with a first language that is English, and without a disability. However, whereas

42 CA uses the term ‘independent study (not adults)’. 43 Home-schooling sources: aFor KY, Houston and Toma (2003); for other states, email communications from state departments and state education department websites (URLs available from author). Home-schooling data are for most recent year (1999-2002). Public school source: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/tables/dt037B.asp; data for 2001. Private School source: NCES Digest, 2000, Table 64; data for 1999. 44 Home-schooling is now one of the options for school type in the SAT questionnaire (introduced accurately in 2001). Using the SAT data cannot address the issue of the variety of home-schooling practices, but respondents are unlikely to be wary of regulation or personal intrusion when taking the SAT (the test administrators are not government officials, and schooling is almost over when students take the test).


42

around half of all public students and two-thirds of religious school students profess a religious faith, the figure for home-schoolers is just above two-fifths. Yet, a high proportion of these home-schoolers are Baptists: their adherence rate is 17.7%, compared to 11.1% within the public schools. The middle panel of Table 2 shows family characteristics. Home-schoolers are very unlikely to have a mother who reports a high school education, but they are not strongly represented in the upper tail of the education distribution. Similarly, many home-schooling families are in the middle of the distribution of household incomes. Finally, the bottom panel of Table 2 shows county-level statistics for affluence and childhood deprivation, matched to the residence zipcodes. These data show home-schoolers are generally not from affluent counties, even compared to public school students, but they are less likely to live in areas of high child poverty.45 2.3 The Motivation to Home-School Although these descriptive data give some indication of the families’ motivation, the growth of home-schooling can also be related to social and structural phenomena (on the reasons parents give for home-schooling, see Bauman, 2002). The mother’s role is critical in the decision to home-school, and economic studies focus on her efficacy as a teacher and more formally on her time budget (Houston and Toma, 2003; Isenberg, 2002). Labor force participation propensities impact on the decision to home-school. So, whereas 20% of mothers whose children attend school do not work, the respective figure for home-schoolers is 50% (Isenberg, 2002). Other family -related factors may include a shift toward more intensive investments in fewer children (rather than extensive investment s in family size) and an increase in the heterogeneity of preferences for educational curricula, instruction, and pedagogy. Of policy interest is the relationship between home-schooling and other educational options, particularly given the cost of home-schooling relative to public schooling. (Currently, families who home-school do not receive public funds directly). A number of reasons for avoiding public schools—besides a preference for religious education—have been offered. (Similar arguments can be applied against private schools: Isenberg (2002) finds home-schooling is more common in non-metropolitan areas with fewer private schools). One is the inflexibility and lack of responsiveness of provision in the public sector, e.g. in districts which cover large populations, or in areas where funding increasingly comes from state sources. A second reason may be the greater conformity in public schools, where such 7 conformity fails to accommodate diverse preferences. A third reason (which has not been directly examined) is the increased pressure in public schools

45 Petrie (2001, 483-4) reviews the law across Europe, finding: 11 countries where home education has been accommodated historically; 5 countries which do not permit home education legally but allow exceptions; and 1 country (Austria) which has recently legalized home education. However, her review indicates that some countries may be reverting towards restrictions on home education. Similar patterns of family characteristics emerge from this international evidence (on Norway, see Beck, 2000; on Canada, see Arai, 2000), with reliogisity (Christian evangelical) an important characteristic. Although, again, the numbers are extremely difficult to estimate (in the United Kingdom, for example, home-school numbers are not recorded, Rothermel, 2002).


43

for standardized testing. Others may include: families’ perceptions that public school resources are insufficient; or that public schools are dangerous environments. More generally, the technology of education and schooling may be such that diseconomies of scale set in very early (or productivity growth is slow, relative to other industries). Thus, productivity at home-schooling may not be that much lower than productivity levels in school houses. There is reasonably strong evidence that school/district effectiveness is correlated with small size (Andrews et al., 2002) and few large-scale private school operators exist (Levin, 2001). Also, there are many advocates of smaller class sizes (Krueger, 1999) and demonstrated benefits from individualized tutoring (Rosé et al., 2003). (Home-schoolers may group together to increase ‘class sizes’ in some cases). Schools may also face informational costs and high transactions costs (especially when children’s safety is involved and when family preferences are varied or idiosyncratic). Home-schooling may allow for families to save on learning materials, uniforms, transportation costs, and contributions to the school; although these are substantial for private schools (e.g. fees), they may be non-trivial in public schools also. Finally, families may obtain some funds, e.g through a cyber/virtual charter school arrangement (Huerta and Gonzalez, 2003), tax credits, or donations from their (religious) community. Using cross-sectional district-level data across ten states (and panel data for one state, Kentucky), Houston and Toma (2003) model the choice to home-school relative to public school. They find evidence that home-schooling proportions are greater where the public school drop-out rate is higher and where public school expenditures are lower. The strongest impact was found for the standard deviation of incomes: greater heterogeneity in incomes (and presumably preferences for education) is associated with higher proportions of home-schooling. Public schooling was also more likely in more densely populated areas. (However, Houston and Toma (2003) report a number of contrary results: district-level average male income and female education levels were positively related to public schooling enrollment; no measure of religious preferences is found to be significant). In an extension, Houston and Toma (2003) model private school choice to home-school choice for the same datasets: home 8 schooling is preferred where more families are married and where male income levels are lower (whereas private schooling preferences are strongly correlated with the proportions of Catholics in the district).


44

Table 2: Characteristics of SAT-takers by School Type (%)46 Home

School Public School

Private - Independent School

Private - Religious School

Student characteristics: African American 2.70 10.10 3.84 5.69Asian 1.94 7.32 5.88 5.28Hispanic 2.45 7.95 3.05 8.17US citizen 78.12 83.39 61.55 82.70First lang. not English 1.33 6.52 3.40 3.68Disabled 4.36 6.47 7.73 6.50Male 46.88 45.24 52.66 49.70Religious faith (any) 41.80 52.51 36.79 66.69Religion: Baptist 17.70 11.08 5.08 6.52Religion: Hindu 0.15 0.60 0.70 0.25Religion: Jewish 0.60 2.09 4.90 2.06Religion: Lutheran 1.22 2.48 0.94 1.35Religion: Methodist 1.86 5.24 3.51 1.45Religion: Presbyterian 1.78 2.84 3.09 1.45Religion: Catholic 5.77 18.39 9.32 45.22 Mother’s education: High school 0.01 5.97 1.28 2.49BA / Graduate degree 32.94 30.86 38.65 38.31 Family income: <$20K 8 12 5 7$20K-$40K 28 22 12 17$40K-$60K 28 21 13 22$60K-$80K 17 18 13 23$80K-$100K 8 11 11 19>$100K 11 16 45 12 County-level data: Percent children in poverty in county

17.13 17.66 17.72 18.21

Average household income in county

$42,370 $43,380 $43,810 $43,960

Observations 6033 975,117 54,682 137,671

46 Source: ETS data, 2001; Small-area sample household Census, 1997. Population of test-takers, with exclusion of foreign nationals, missing income, ages 14-24.


45

To further identify the motive to home school, Belfield (2004) applies a multinomial logit model to the NHES99 dataset and the cohort of SAT test-takers (using individual-level data avoids the aggregation bias faced by Houston and Toma, 2003). Home-schooling propensities are modelled against public, private-religious, and private-independent schools. The results on family characteristics affirm the descriptions given above. Few community characteristics emerge (there is some indication of less home-schooling in the Northe ast, but no differences by urban/suburban area, by county poverty rate, or by ethnic composition of zipcode). In comparisons of the four school choices, home-schoolers appear to have characteristics that are intermediate between the public and private school sectors, e.g. on religion, maternal education, ethnicity, and maternal employment . In other words, these families—at least in terms of averages—appear more mainstream than the existing private school sector. However, such surveys cannot easily assess either the spread of responses (partly because of small sample sizes) or the intensity of characteristics (e.g. the degree of religiosity). 3. A Framework for Evaluating Home-schooling 3.1 Criteria for Evaluation Because home-schooling is the ultimate in education privatization, it prompts discussion which is strongly ideological: advocates and detractors may make claims that lack rigor, reflect only one position, or are based on partial evidence. One way to avoid this is to apply a comprehensive, established framework which has been used to evaluate other privatization reforms (see Levin, 2002). The framework has four criteria—freedom of choice; efficiency; equity; and social cohesion—each of which requires trade-offs to be made. 3.2 Freedom of Choice Clearly, home-schooling and home-based education represent an expansion of educational options in terms of the technology of schooling. Indeed, all aspects of the educational process—including access, administration, use of teacher and physical resources, and assessment—may be chosen openly by the family, such that the education market is greatly liberalized. Home-based education can combine instructional modes from home and school. (In contrast, private schools often appear technologically similar to public schools, see Benveniste et al., 2003). Such opportunities will be attractive to some parents, even for a short duration; and especially where families are able to negotiate with their public school for tailored homebased education. Also, if the broader purpose of education is to create a diverse society, then an array of choices may be socially desirable. Given that home-schooling families do not receive public funds (or receive fewer funds than with full-time enrollment), this independent choice has considerable persuasive power. However, the desire for choice cannot be regarded as the sole determinant: even when home-schooling is not publicly funded, the state has responsibilities (and expectations) regarding child-rearing, and these must also be acknowledged. Also, an education system that accommodates home-schooling (e.g. through customized programs) will favor some families over others. On current evidence, the families most capable of exercising such


46

choice for a reasonable duration are (typically) two-parent, middle-income families with mothers who are not in full-time employment. Thus, the demand for greater freedom of choice to home-school may not extend to the majority of the population. 3.3 Efficiency The criterion of efficiency can be investigated by looking at expenditures or resources used and the outcomes of home-schooling.47 From the home-schooling family’s perspective, absent irrationality, the practice must be optimal because it is a preferred choice. From the state’s perspective, a higher proportion of home-schoolers should result in savings where, as is currently the case in most states, home-schoolers do not receive public funds. However, this saving will be offset where: home-schoolers draw on public resources as part of a home-based education plan; home-school families can claim tax credits, tax deductions, and funding 10 through cyber/virtual charter schools; and where additional regulatory costs are incurred by the state. Limited information is available on these costs.48 Most studies therefore concentrate on the outcomes of home-schooling. Advocates contend that small class sizes, flexible instruction (without age-tracking), and dedicated parent-teachers should make home-schooling more effective than other forms of education (but, Cai et al. (2002) find home-school teachers use more controlling teaching styles; for a full treatment on home-schooling instruction, see Stevens, 2000). In rebuttal, educational outcomes may be skewed toward those on which the family has competence, and educational progress may be slow if there is no formative assessment or peer-pressure to learn (although home-school parents may exert more pressure or have higher expectations as a result of their supervision). In comparing outcomes from home-schooling against public schooling, three empirical issues arise. The first is the common concern over the endogeneity of school choice, that is different types of families choose the type of school that their children attend, and little can be inferred about the impacts of schools for students who do not attend them (Neal, 1997). The second is the need to distinguish the absolute performance of home-schoolers from the treatment effect of home-schooling. Given the above-median resources of many home-schooling families, academic performance should be high even if home-schooling itself is not differentially effective. Full controls for family background are needed, however, to identify a treatment effect. Finally, home-schoolers can often choose which tests to take and when to take them (and have parents administer them), introducing other biases.

47 Home-schooling may promote efficiency across the education system, in that it serves as a competition for public schools. However, competitive gains in the education sector are modest (Belfield and Levin, 2002), and there is not much evidence that home-schooling is a response to the quality of local public schools rather than to differential preferences and characteristics of parents. 48 For the family it may be possible to home-school without a high direct outlay: Rudner (1999, Table 12.2) finds the median expenditures on textbooks, lesson materials, tutoring and enrichment services, and testing is extremely low, at around $400 per year. However, the main cost to the family will be earnings forgone.


47

Practical difficulties also arise in obtaining data to identify home-schooling impacts. The ideal source would be state or district-level data in states where test information is required. However, review of the data available across nine states with ‘high regulation’ of home-schooling yields very limited information. In five such states (WA, UT, WV, PA, NY), home-school students are not required to take state assessments or their results are not recorded. This situation arises because: test assessment is often voluntary for these students; tests are administered at district-level and not available from state data; and test results may be returned to parents without being recorded.49 Ray (2000, 74-75) reviews mean homeschooling achievement levels from these sources, finding high performance by home-schoolers (see also Rudner, 1999; for a similar approach, Rothermel (2002) reports on the very high academic performance on standardized tests of a sample of 419 home-schoolers in the United Kingdom). However, even where averages are available, school choice endogeneity controls and family background controls cannot be applied, such that a treatment effect can be identified. Test score data from surveys is becoming available. Rudner (1999) reports average test scores for home-schoolers on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills or the Tests of Achievement Proficiency by 39,607 students from approximately 22,000 families. The findings only refer to the performance of home-schoolers and not to the treatment effect of home-schooling, because no adjustments for any family background characteristics are made and none of the endogeneity corrections are applied (see Welner and Welner, 1999). (Also, in some cases the test was applied in the home, raising issues in regard to test administration). Using raw averages, home-schoolers post very high scores (above those in public and private schools): the composite scaled scores of home-schoolers range from the 77th to 91st percentile rank across grades K-12; scores are higher in Reading, Language, Math, Social Studies, and Science. (Given selection into test-taking, however, these scores may not indicate how well the average home-schooler performs). The SAT may be useful: in reflecting final outcomes of schooling; in being applied in a standard manner under test conditions; and in that it is a high-stakes test, well-correlated with future college completion and earnings. However, data on individual SAT scores is unlikely to be indicative of the academic impact of home-schooling, for reasons given above. Rather, SAT results can be useful for looking at relative differences and in providing information on the sizes of possible biases. Table 3 shows the SAT scores of students according to school type from the 2001 test-takers. The first row shows the raw test score, unadjusted for selection effects and family background controls. The importance of endogeneity correction is evident from the bottom rows of Table 3: home-schoolers make up only 0.5% of all SAT test-takers, a proportion considerably below their representation in the student population and lower than any other school type. Observed home-schoolers’ scores are likely to be inflated: the negative correlation between test-taking proportions and test scores on the SAT has long

49 For example, in Virginia the Department of Education reports that it “does not compile data on the achievement of children who are taught at home due to the variety of methods available to parents to report such achievement to the local superintendent. No independent data or data generated by the Department of Education is available describing student performance on other assessments such as portfolios, tests administered by correspondence schools, or parent-developed tests” (Supts Memo. No. 140, August 1996).


48

been noted 12 (see Behrendt et al., 1986). (For raw scores, home-schoolers obtain high SAT-Total scores, with a mean of 1093; this is 0.4 (0.2) standard deviations above the public school (private religious school) scores, but 0.15 standard deviations below those in private-independent schools). This selection effect means that absolute scores are unlikely to be useful indicators. Nevertheless, it is possible to make some conclusions in relative terms. Notably, most of the home-schooling premium comes from higher SAT-Verbal scores and not the SAT-Math scores. (This distinction between Verbal/Reading and Math scores is also found in Rudner’s (1999) data). Insofar as there is a treatment effect (of indeterminate size) from homeschooling, it appears to be much greater for Verbal than Math. This discrepancy may reflect greater parental competence across the subject disciplines. Table 3 also reports scores with controls for family background (and a sizeable array of other covariates listed in the Table Notes, including the state-level SAT test-taking participation rate). After controlling for these co-variates, the predicted SAT-total scores for home-schoolers and private-independent school students converge toward the mean: the home-school premium over private-religious school students falls almost to zero.50 (Also, home-schoolers actually perform worse than would be predicted on SAT-Math). The differences between raw and predicted scores give some indication of the strength of covarying characteristics in explaining test-score differences.51 Finally, non-educational outcomes have also been considered. One such outcome is child health. Whereas schools undertake preventive health care services (e.g. screening for visual or hearing impairments, innoculation), these services are not regularly provided by pediatricians and so may be less accessible for home-schoolers (see Klugewicz and Carraccio, 1999). An important economic outcome relates to earnings: home-schoolers may graduate without a diploma that serves as a labor market signal, which in turn raises the costs of job search (although diplomas may be obtained through alternative assessment systems). Yet, this consequence will be offset where home-schoolers attend college, and where they do well on academic tests which are correlated with earnings. The efficiency of home-schooling varies considerably according to whether the family or state perspective is adopted. Given the positive correlation between family wealth and home-schooling, it is likely that families do incur high costs which may be worthwhile where the absolute educational outcomes of home-schoolers are also high (this high-cost and higheffect scenario is evident from cost-effectiveness studies of adult tutoring, see Levin et al., 1987). For states, the efficiency of home-schooling appears to depend in addition on what resources must be allocated to home-schoolers and whether any indirect financing burdens arise (e.g. on other public services).

50 As one approach to control for unobservable attributes correlated with the decision to home-school, the frequencies and estimations in Table 2 were performed with the sample restricted to Baptists. Broadly, the results are equivalent (details available from the author). 27 51 Lastly, evidence on achievement in nonclassroom-based cyber-charter schools may also be pertinent to evaluations of home-schooling. Using California data, Buddin and Zimmer (2003) show that students educated in this way have substantially lower test scores than either classroom-based charter schools or public schools.


49

Table 3: SAT Test-Scores by School Type 52 Home




SAT Total: Test score raw: Mean 1093.1 1012.6 1123.8 1055.6 (SD) (198.0) (205.6) (213.6) (196.2)Test score predicted:53

Mean 1054.5 1021.1 1064.4 1050.5 (SD) (80.0) (104.8) (92.7) (93.7) SAT Math: Test score raw: Mean 526.5 510.1 566.9 523.3 (SD) (106.6) (111.7) (113.6) (108.2)Test score predicted:

Mean 527.7 513.4 534.8 528.0 (SD) (42.3) (55.4) (49.2) (49.6) SAT Verbal: Test score raw: Mean 566.6 502.6 556.9 532.3 (SD) (108.9) (109.0) (118.3) (103.0)Test score predicted:

Mean 526.7 507.8 529.6 522.6 (SD) (39.2) (51.4) (45.2) (45.8) % of SAT test-takers

0.5% 83.1% 4.7% 11.7%

% of all students54 1.5% 89.4% 1.1% 8.0% Observations 6,033 975,117 54,682 137,671

52 Source: ETS data, 2001 53 Predicted test scores based on OLS estimation with SAT test score dependent variables and independent variables of: mother’s education (6); father’s education (6); gender; gradelevel; disability; first language not English (1); ethnicity (4); US citizen (1); religion (10); Higher Education Carnegie class in state; state-level fees; state requires tests; state-level SAT participation rate; state-level participation rate squared; county-level poverty rate; county-level household income; district-level public school percent local funding; district-level per-pupil expenditures in public school; district-level ratio of at-risk students; district-level ratio of instructional expenditures; county-level public school teacher-student ratios. Full specification available from author. 54 NCES Digest of Education and Private School Survey (www.nces.ed.gov).


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3.4 Social Cohesion As well as in terms of private academic benefits, home-schooling must also be evaluated in terms of the public benefits that are generated. Critics of home-schooling argue that it reduces the socially beneficial outcomes from schooling, both for home-schoolers and society at large (see Reich, 2002).55 It separates children from their peers, impairing ‘identity formation/choice’ and the appreciation of social values and norms if home-schooling becomes ‘indoctrination’ (see Buss, 2000). It may undermine the formation of such social norms; and in exiting the public system, home-schoolers may also undermine the voice needed to reform public schools such that they better accommodate families’ preferences (Lubienski, 2000). In rebuttal, home-schooling need not be an isolating experience: Isenberg (2002) finds around 50% of home-schoolers have siblings attending school; and home-schoolers may be rooted in a religious community. Home-schooling need not be incompatible with public values: some home-schooling parents would like public schools to teach communitarian values more intensely (see Stevens, 2001; Nemer, 2002). Also, where education is intended to create a diverse society, then a plurality of educational options should be promoted (Smith and Sikkink, 1999). The general public is ambivalent: being asked whether home-schooling promotes good citizenship, equal numbers agree as disagree (Rose and Gallup, 2001, 46). In a review on the social outcomes, Medlin (2000) finds generally supportive evidence on home-schoolers’ behavior: home-schoolers report being more mature and better socialized, participate in activities in their community, and socialize with children of different ages.56 However, this evidence may not be robust. There are many difficulties in evaluating socialization outcomes, especially from small samples of data drawn from an imprecisely defined population or from a convenience sample. Survey respondents (particularly parents) are likely to give socially desirable responses. Survey measures may be 14 imperfect constructs for socialization over the period of childhood, and survey instruments do not readily allow for comparison between home-schooling and other types of schooling, controlling for family background effects. Many studies report no comparison group and do not indicate whether the effects are substantively significant. Finally, much of the literature considers younger children. (There may also be issues of public ation bias: many studies are reported in sympathetic journals). Again, the possibility of adverse selection is a concern—those families that feel least inclined to integrate with the rest of society may be the most likely to opt out; and these families will not be easily detected in surveys. More fundamentally, almost all the relevant evidence on social cohesion focuses on the individual child, with very little information

55 Schools may be particularly important institutions for creating social cohesion: they are attended by all members of an age cohort; they are well-equipped to address the cognitive issues in relation to social cohesion; and they are ostensibly forums where debate and discussion is encouraged (see Carnegie Commission and CIRCLE, 2003). 56 See also Petrie (2001, 493-494). In contrast, based on a survey of pediatricians in Wisconsin and Maryland, Klugewicz and Carraccio (1999) find 51% of pediatricians thought home-schoolers were less mature than their peers (with only 9% finding them more mature). As with home-schooling treatment impacts, the same methodological challenges arise here: the average student will report high levels of socialization and civic engagement because of SES (as is found in studies of civic participation, see Belfield, 2003).


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about how home-schooling impacts on other members of society (and on taxpayer support for public education).57 Evidence from young children is unlikely to yield evidence about the externalities produced from home-schooling, for example. The salient relationship is between home-schooling, religiosity, and social cohesion: many argue for the separation of religion from public endeavors such as schooling to prevent laws being viewed through a theocratic rather than a democratic lens; however, others may argue that society should be forged as a “community of communities” where diverse religious affiliations play a role in societal development (Smith and Sikkink, 1999). 3.5 Equity Home-schooling should also be evaluated in terms of equity, an important motivation for state intervention in the education system. Several issues arise, largely as a consequence of the complete transfer of responsibility for a child’s education from the state to the individual family. First, home-schooling clearly weakens the opportunity for a community to guarantee or verify that children obtain a reasonable level of education or personal well-being. Summative assessments may be used to ensure that educational standards are being met, but evaluation of well-being is fraught. Generally, the average family’s incentives to care for their children are stronger than the state’s. There is also evidence that some public schools are dangerous, adversely impacting on children’s well-being (there were 1.5 million violent incidents in US public schools in 2000, Miller, 2003). From the parental perspective, therefore, home-schooling is associated with improved well-being for the child where the alternatives are dangerous. But, from society’s perspective parental preferences cannot be taken as given. Some families do abuse and neglect their children (Child Protective Services receives reports on 3 million children annually, of which over 1,000 involve fatalities, see ACF, 2003), and educational agencies play a significant role in identifying such occurrences. It may be possible to perform a form of calculus on the trade-offs of home-schooling on children’s welfare.58 But, no such calculus has been performed and it would be dogged by two difficult issues. The first is that of weighting the welfare of children who may be abused against the welfare of children who are denied the opportunity to be home-schooled. The second is that families who are prone to abuse may be most likely to opt out of schooling to avoid detection (another adverse selection effect). One solution is to allow home-schooling but with greater sanctions on abusive families and more extensive monitoring, yet the efficacy and efficiency of such an approach (including the high infrastructure costs) must be considered.

57 On the political backlash from home-schooling scandals in Spain and France, see Petrie (2001). On the antagonisms between parents, teachers, and school administrators within the education sector, see Lines (2002). 58 Somewhat optimistically, Petrie (2001, 493) suggests it is reasonably easy to identify children who were genuinely being home-schooled as opposed to those children who were simply playing truant.


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Second, although family resources are the main determinant of all children’s education, for home-schoolers they become almost the only determinant. Home-schooling may therefore entrench intergenerational attributes, such that highly educated or wealthy families transfer resources to their children most effectively. Educational inequalities and perhaps inequities will be perpetuated. Although these intergenerational transfers may extend to social networks, beliefs, and lifestyles, they can most easily be examined by comparing socio -economic status (SES) gradients on test scores across school types. These gradients should be steeper for families that home-school. Using the SAT data, these gradients are reported in Table 4. Splitting the cohort by school type, OLS estimation is applied to the SAT outcome measures. The effect size coefficients on socio -economic status by quintile are reported, relative to those test-takers in the lowest quintile. In all cases, being in a higher SES quintile is associated with a higher test score. SAT scores increase as SES increases, with evidence of stronger family background effects for home-schoolers. Those in the second quintile score 0.32 standard deviations higher than those in the bottom quintile, the largest of the differentials according 16 to school type. Across the four quintiles, both home-schoolers and private-independent school students show strong family background effects, relative to public and private religious school students. The effects are evident across Math and Verbal scores, but the Verbal gradients for home-school are steeper. Given the importance of children’s well-being and intergenerational effects, the equity of an education system with a sizeable home-schooling sector bears further scrutiny. Both beneficial and adverse consequences are possible, and some forms of home-schooling may generate significant positive externalities. However, evaluations based on the median home schooler may mask distributional issues, particularly for those children in families with few resources.


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Table 4: SAT Test-score Gradients by Socio-Economic Status by School Type59 Effect Size Premium Relative to SES Q1 (Lowest Quintile)

Home




SAT Total: SES Q2 0.32 0.16 0.21 0.14 SES Q3 0.38 0.26 0.36 0.24 SES Q4 0.60 0.47 0.62 0.45 SES Q5 0.63 0.52 0.70 0.47 SAT Math: SES Q2 0.12 0.08 0.09 0.07 SES Q3 0.14 0.12 0.16 0.11 SES Q4 0.25 0.22 0.29 0.22 SES Q5 0.27 0.24 0.31 0.22 SAT Verbal: SES Q2 0.20 0.09 0.12 0.07 SES Q3 0.24 0.14 0.20 0.13 SES Q4 0.35 0.25 0.33 0.23 SES Q5 0.36 0.28 0.38 0.25 Observations 6,033 975,117 54,682 137,671 4. The Impact of Home-schooling on U.S. Education 4.1 Designing Policies for Home-schooling Even if the rate of growth of home-schooling slows, the current size of the sector means that education policies need to address the demands of home-schoolers. To design policies for home-schooling, three interlinked instruments need to be considered (Levin, 2002). These are: regulations; finance; and support services for students. School regulations relate to durations of attendance in a school, teacher qualifications, curriculum content, reporting/approval, and testing/assessment. From a national review, states’ requirements on home-schoolers are often summarized in a relatively short document. The main regulation is that home-schoolers notify the state with a Declaration of Intent (these are often downloaded from state websites). Durations of schooling are intended to be equal to a school year (with monthly attendance records to be submitted by the parent), and the curriculum is also expected to correspond (at least in terms of core courses). Parents (or tutors) may be expected to have at least a GED (or college degree,

59 Source: ETS data, 2001; population of test-takers, with exclusion of foreign nationals, missing income, ages 14-24. OLS estimation as per Table 2. All effect sizes are statistically significant at p<0.05.


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but not necessarily in the subject of instruction). At present, regulations on home-schooling appear very open: almost no instructional mode appears to be proscribed. However, by law, the state has considerable latitude in regulating private schooling, and, in some cases this may extend to home-schooling. Lerner (1998, 373) concludes that such regulation will be defensible when it focuses on educational outcomes (where the state can claim a strong interest). For home-schooling, this means that—even without committing funds—states can impose reporting requirements and mandate test assessments; they might also perform on-site inspections. But, home-schoolers may more easily challenge regulations relating to inputs, such as attendance durations, curriculum content, teacher qualifications, and peer inputs.60 In conjunction with regulations, states and districts must also stipulate financing terms for home-schooling. Although funds for home-schooling are limited (and usually obtained indirectly), home-based students do draw on resources from public schools by ‘opting in’ when desirous. This raises policy questions as to what resources these students are entitled to and to what extent they should be allowed to negotiate terms with the public school (citing administrative inconvenience, some states may refuse access to public school resources, see Fuller, 1998). If home-schooling conveys positive externalities, then direct funding may be justifiable (e.g. through education tax credits or vouchers). In some states, home-schools can be classified as part of the public school system (thus entitling students to funds, e.g. for disabilities, see Lambert, 2001). However, the appropriate amount of funding may be difficult to estimate (absent reliable data on home-schooling costs), and with funding will also come pressure for more regulation. Finally, states must set out what support services are appropriate for home-schoolers. Typically, such services include transportation and information on available school choices and so the demands of home-schoolers in this respect may be small. (Although home-based education does involve transportation to school). Rather, home-schoolers may need support in accessing health services and educational counselling, as well as in identifying the resources available to them through the public system. Also, education officials must adopt policies for validating courses taken by home-schoolers who wish to enter the public school system. Yet, as Levin (2002, 164) points out, these policy instruments are only useful if implemented effectively. As noted above, test score accountability is irregularly enforced; and there appear to be obvious problems in forcing parents to administer tests or to take their children to a testing center, and in then designing programs for children based on such assessments. Establishing even a general regulatory framework may be complex: home-schooling is heterogeneous; difficult to classify; and expensive to monitor. States and districts may therefore face considerable difficulty in contriving policy instruments in regard to home-schooling. (For example, some states stipulate that home-school

60 Legally, home-schoolers have a strong defense against state regulations that force them to mix with other students: as Buss (2000, 1243) concludes, “whatever the state can do to control the content of classroom instruction, the state cannot control with whom children are educated. Parents are given authority over their children’s school associations, particularly along ideological lines.” However, state proscriptions in other domains may encourage associations.


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educational programs must be 180 days in length, but this stipulation cannot be enforced without monitoring).61 The status quo appears to be a bargain where home-schoolers receive no funds and little regulation is imposed; this serves home-schoolers and state/district officials tolerably well. But, it is debatable how well the taxpayer is being served by this arrangement; and as the numbers of home-schoolers rises, and where the opportunity to obtain funds (indirectly) increases, this status quo may be untenable. 4.2 The Future of Home-schooling Potentially, home-schooling could revolutionize education in the U.S.: instead of regimented, standardized provision delivered within a detailed set of rules and regulations, learning could be much more diverse, open, and flexibly tailored to a child’s requirements and responsive to his or her individual development. Some education will take place in a schoolhouse, but increasing proportions may not, as children become integrated into mo re adult social milieux. Although currently high-quality data is sparse, a consensus description of the home-schooling sector emerges; what is less clear are the consequences both for the individual student and for broader society. Undoubtedly, one result would be a rise in the amount of religious education children receive. As well, there could be strong economic repercussions, not only at the individual level but also in regard to financing of public services. But, the diversity of homeschooling is such that generalization is difficult; inference using averages is problematic where the distribution of home-schoolers’ characteristics is bimodal. For identifying treatment impacts, however, there is an opposite problem: home-school family backgrounds must be controlled for because these are on average more advantageous than for students in public schools. Any impacts will become more important if home-schooling grows. Such growth will depend on several factors. First, home-schooling epitomizes freedom of choice as to how education is provided; although full home-schooling is limited to families with substantial home resources, short-term or part-time home-schooling is an option for many. Families may appreciate such freedom. Second, where home-schooling appears to be effective for the individual (either academically or socially) then other families will adopt the practice. (How these families would identify the treatment impact is not obvious). Third, the growth of home-schooling may depend on social acceptance, which thus far appears to be increasing (albeit in somewhat of an evidentiary vacuum). Finally, home-schooling may interact with federal education policies as stipulated in ‘No Child Left Behind’ (NCLB). Home-schoolers may be liable in two ways: (i) home-based education does draw on public resources, some of which may be sourced at the federal level; (ii) some state laws classify home-schools as ‘public schools’. NCLB legislation has two components that may relate to home-schooling. One is the expectation that every class will have a ‘highly qualified’ teacher, yet it will be difficult to enforce this for home-schooling families. The second is that NCLB requires a considerable increase in testing

61 For example, regulations in Georgia state “The law only requires the program to operate the equivalent of 180 days.” But, to the question “Should officials of the local public school system attempt to monitor the curriculum, the test program, student assessment process, students records or instruction time of home study programs?” the answer is “No” (www.doe.k12.ga.us/schools/homeschools.asp).


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accountability (with tests through grades 3-8 in Reading and Math) to improve school quality. What sanctions might apply to home-schoolers who fail these tests is unclear. In summary, the growth of home-schooling will depend on federal, state and district policies in terms of regulation, finance, and support services; perhaps more influential will be how these policies are implemented or can be implemented.

REFERENCES ACF. 2003. Child Maltreatment, 2001. www.acf.hhs.gov Andrews, M, Duncombe, W and J Yinger. 2002. Revisiting economies of size in American education: are we any closer to a consensus? Economics of Education Review, 21, 245-262. Arai, B. 2000. Reasons for home-schooling in Canada. Canadian Journal of Education, 25, 204-217. Bates, VL. 1991. Lobbying for the Lord—the New Christian Right home-schooling movement and grass-roots lobbying. Review of Religious Research, 33, 3-17. Bauman, KJ. 2002. Home-schooling in the United States: Trends and characteristics. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10 (26). Beck, CW. 2001. Alternative education and home-schooling in Norway. Childhood Education, 77, 356- 359. Behrendt, A, Eisenach, J and WR Johnson. 1986. Selectivity bias and the determinants of SAT scores. Economics of Education Review, 5, 363–371. Belfield, CR. 2003. Democratic education across school types: Evidence from the NHES99. Working Paper, www.ncspe.org ______. 2004. Modeling school choice: Comparing public, private, and home-schooling enrollment options. Educational Policy Analysis Archives, April. ______ and HM Levin. 2002. The effect of competition on educational outcomes: A review of the US evidence. Review of Educational Research, 72, 279-341. Benveniste, L, Carnoy M, and R Rothstein. 2003. All Else Equal. Are Public and Private Schools Different? Routledge Falmer: New York. Buss, E. 2000. The adolescent’s stake in the allocation of educational control between parent and state. University of Chicago Law Review, 67, 1233-1289. Buddin, R and R Zimmer. 2003. A closer look at charter school achievement. Working paper, APPAM November 2003. Cai, Y, Reeve, J, and DT Robinson. 2002. Home-schooling and teaching style: Comparing the motivating styles of home school and public school teachers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 372-380. Carnegie Corporation and CIRCLE. 2003. The Civic Mission of Schools. www.civicyouth.org Ensign, J. 2000. Defying the stereotypes of special education: Home school students. Peabody Journal of Education, 75, 147-158. Fuller, DW. 1998. Public school access: The constitutional right of home-schoolers to “Opt in” to public education on a part-time basis. Minnesota Law Review, 82, 1599-1630.


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Hammons, CW. 2001. School@home. Education Next, Winter, 48–55. Houston, RG and EF Toma. 2003. Home-schooling: An alternative school choice. Southern Economic Journal, 69, 920-935. Huerta, L. 2000. The loss of public accountability? A home-schooling charter school in rural California. In B Fuller (Ed.) Inside Charter Schools: The Paradox of Radical Decentralization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ______ and M -F Gonzalez. 2003. Cyber and home school charter schools: How states are defining new forms of public schooling. Working Paper, www.ncspe.org Isenberg, E. 2002. Home-schooling: School choice and women’s time use. Working Paper, Washington University. Kane, PR. 2002. Interview with Milton Friedman. Working paper, www.ncspe.org. Klugewicz, SL and CL Carraccio. 1999. Home schooled children: A pediatric perspective. Clinical Pediatrics, 38, 407-411. Knowles, JG, Marlow, SE, and JA Muchmore. 1992. From pedagogy to ideology: Origins and phases of home education in the US, 1970-1990. American Journal of Education, 100, 195-235. 25 Krueger, AB. 1999. Experimental estimates of education production functions. Quarterly Journal of Economics, CXIV, 497-532. Lambert, SA. 2001. Finding the way back home: Funding for home school children under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Columbia Law Review, 101 , 1709-1729. Lerner, JS. 1995. Protecting home-schooling through the Casey Undue Burden standard. University of Chicago Law Review, 62, 363-392. Levin, HM, Glass, G, and GR Meister. 1987. Cost-effectiveness of computer-aided instruction. Evaluation Review, 11, 50-72. Levin, HM. 2002. A comprehensive framework for evaluating educational vouchers. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24, 159-174. Lines, P. 2000. Home-schooling comes of age. The Public Interest, 140 , 74–85. ______. 2002. Support for home-based study. Eric Clearinghouse on Educational Management, University of Oregon. Lubienski, C. 2000. Whither the common good? A critique of home-schooling. Peabody Journal of Education, 75, 207-232. McDowell, SA and BD Ray. 2000. The home education movement in context, practice, and theory: Editor’s Introduction. Peabody Journal of Education, 75, 1-7. Medlin, RG. 2000. Home-schooling and the question of socialization. Peabody Journal of Education, 75, 107-123. Miller, AK. 2003. Violence in U.S. Public Schools: 2000 School Survey on Crime and Safety . National Center for Educational Statistics, www.nces.ed.gov National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). 2001. Homeschooling in the United States: 1999. http://nces.ed.gov/


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Neal, D. 1997. The effects of Catholic secondary schooling on educational achievement. Journal of Labor Economics, 15, 98–123. Nemer, MK. 2002. Understudied education. Toward building a home-school research agenda. Working Paper, www.ncspe.org. Petrie, A. 2001. Home education in Europe and the implementation of changes to the law. International Review of Education, 47, 477-500. Ray, BD. 2000. Home-schooling: The ameliorator of negative influences on learning? Peabody Journal of Education, 75, 71-106. Reich, R. 2002. The civic perils of homeschooling. Educational Leadership, 59, 56-59. Rose, LC and AM Gallup. 2001. 33rd Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools. www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kimages/kpoll83.pdf Rosé, CP, VanLehn, K and NLT Group. 2003. Is Human Tutoring Always More Effective than Reading? Proceedings of AIED Workshop on Tutorial Dialogue Systems: With a View Towards the Classroom. Rothermel, P. 2002. Home-education: Aims, practices, and outcomes. Mimeograph, University of Durham. Rudner, LM. 1999. Scholastic achievement and demographic characteristics of home-school students in 1998. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 7, 8. Smith, C and D Sikkink. 1999. Is private schooling privatizing? First Things, 92: 16-20. Somerville, S. 2001. Legalizing home-schooling in America. A quiet but persistent revolution. Mimeo. Home-school Legal Defense Association, www.hslda.org Stevens, ML. 2001. Kingdom of Children. Culture and Controversy in the Home-Schooling Movement. Princeton University Press: Princeton. Welner, KM and K Welner. 1999. Contextualising home-schooling data. A response to Rudner. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 7, 13. 26 Eight years ago, the American School Board Association concluded that they should devote some attention to the growing number of parents opting out of the public schools. The following pair of articles appeared in their journal that year.

Document #5: Lawrence Harvey62, “Learning Without School,” American School Board Journal 188:8 (August 2001)

James and Bonnie Sturgis are the kind of parents any school would like to claim. He’s highly educated, has four degrees. She’s an energetic, stay-at-home mom who spends hours each week carting their four children to activities near their Palm Beach County, Fla., home.

62 Lawrence Hardy is an associate editor of American School Board Journal.


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They are involved parents, committed to their children’s education—just not committed to the public schools.

The Sturgises are home-schoolers, part of a growing movement that rejects many of the practices—and, at times, the very premises—of public education. Home-schoolers believe that parents are the best teachers, that family-centered education trumps the typical K-12 experience anytime, that only by separating themselves from a cumbersome and, some say, morally corrupt system can they retain control of their children’s lives.

In the past, the response of many school board members has been: “If they don’t want what we offer, let them go.” And on those occasions when home-schooled students asked to try out for the football team, play in the band, or enroll in high-level science classes, the response has often been “no.”

But that’s changing. More school districts are opening courses and extracurricular activities to home-schoolers, and the rhetoric is softening.

The district’s former policy toward home-schooling “wasn’t friendly at all,” says Renee Sessler, a board member for the Reynolds School District, near Portland, Ore. “It said, ‘We’re not going to do anything for you.’” Last year, the board opened physical education, music programs, and other activities and courses to home-schoolers.

Extracurricular activities have also been opened to home-schoolers in Palm Beach County and districts throughout Florida since a state law was passed in 1996. Now every school system in the state has a coordinator who handles relations between the district and home-schooling parents.

“I think, certainly, in the last five years or so there’s a different climate,” says Mike Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which advocates for the interests of home-schoolers and goes to court on their behalf. “Not everywhere, but it’s changing.”

Why the new attitude? For one thing, it’s good public relations. As any board member knows, it’s better to work with disillusioned parents than drive them farther away. And it’s good business to get a portion of the full-time equivalent funding for the period that home-schoolers are in school.

Perhaps most important is the recognition that home-schoolers are here to stay. Though their numbers are still relatively small (even using the most generous estimates, they account for less than 4 percent of the K-12 population), their message of distrust toward public education is echoed in a host of other recent challenges, from vouchers and charters to private school tax credits. Many board members say the best way to respond to these challenges is to face them head-on.

“I think if we can fix the education system, a lot of the home-schoolers will come back,” says Thomas E. Lynch, board chairman of the Palm Beach Public Schools.


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Resistance on both sides

Well, maybe. HSLDA’s members are divided on the issue of trying to gain access to public school programs. Some say that if they pay taxes, they should be able to receive services. Others insist that parents who spent years fighting for the right to remain separate should think twice about returning to the public schools for any services.

“This defeats the whole purpose of home-schooling, which is parental control of education,” says Yvonne Bunn, executive director of the Home Educators Association of Virginia, whose membership is made up largely of conservative Christians.

An essay on the group’s Web site is more adamant. “If we have taken the position as home-schoolers that government schools are bad for us morally, socially, and academically, how can we support a position that will help get kids back in the system part-time or anytime? We can’t sacrifice our children for sports, electives, or even academics.”

There’s resistance on the other side of the political spectrum as well. Not surprisingly, the National Education Association (NEA) takes a dim view of home-schooling, saying in a recently revised resolution that it “cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience.”

“Public education represents a slice of reality that goes beyond participation in 4-H activities, ballet classes and church socials,” NEA President Bob Chase said in a 1997 letter to The Wall Street Journal. “It is a preparation for the real world that all students will have to face whether they are leaving the security of a school or their parents’ home.”

The NEA resolution says that children should be taught at home only by certified teachers and that home-schooled students should not be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities provided by the public schools.

Participation in sports remains a flash point in many districts. In early June, for example, the school board in Penn Manor, Pa., near Lancaster, found itself divided over whether to allow home-schoolers to participate in interscholastic sports, according to the Lancaster New Era. Meanwhile, School Board President Willis Herr had the board’s solicitor draft a policy allowing home-schoolers to participate.

“When a family makes a determination that Penn Manor’s program is inappropriate for their children, I believe that they’ve made a determination on the whole of the program,” said Assistant Superintendent Donald Stewart, who is quoted in the newspaper. “I don’t think we should let them select what they want from the menu.”

But why not? ask people like Christine Fail, a pastor’s wife from southern Virginia who plans to home-school her two young children.

“We should have access to the services our tax dollars are paying for,” Fail says.

Some educators say practical problems must be considered. They say it’s unfair to open Advanced Placement and honors classes to home-schooled students, especially if full-time students are on a waiting list. How will teachers know if home-schooled students are


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prepared for these upper-level courses? And is it even fair to let them take such courses when they haven’t had to take the prerequisites required of regular students?

For security reasons, some schools are “closed campuses.” Students come at the beginning of the school day, and, in most cases, can’t leave until the day is over. Even if the logistics of coming and going could be worked out with home-schoolers, would it be fair to allow them privileges not enjoyed by regular students?

A grassroots movement

Home-schooling has been practiced in this country for centuries. Eleven presidents were home-schooled, advocates point out, as were Patrick Henry and Thomas Edison.

But it was during the 1960s that home-schooling became a true “movement.” Ironically, what is now a largely conservative Christian phenomenon got its biggest push from the left and the writings of John Holt, who advocated “unschooling” in the face of what he considered an authoritarian and bureaucratic system of government-run schools.

“It wasn’t until the mid-1980s when Christians really exploded on the scene,” says Brian D. Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute in Salem, Ore.

There are still secular home-schoolers, to be sure. Some would place themselves on the left side of the political spectrum, while others would call themselves libertarians. Some, according to Pat Lines, a Washington State researcher who has studied the issue for the U.S. Department of Education, are home-schooling “underground.” They do not notify their school district and want minimal contact with the government.

Lines recalls an interview with a Michigan home-schooler for a survey several years ago. At some point, she said the survey was for the Department of Education.

“I continued talking, and my eyes were on the paper,” Lines says. “And when I looked up, he was gone. ... He left me in mid-sentence.”

Underground or “out of sight” would not be the words that come to mind after a visit to the Home Educators Association of Virginia state convention in June or the Florida association’s convention the previous month. The Virginia meeting attracted about 6,000 people; Florida’s had almost 10,000.

Home-schooling is obviously growing, but just how fast? Statistics are imprecise, but a report last fall by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)said the number of home-schoolers increased from an estimated 287,000 to 402,000 in 1994 to between 515,000 and 757,000 in 1996, the latest year for which statistics were available. (A greatly expanded report was expected to be released by NCES in late July. ) Ray says his more recent surveys of home-school associations and government data put the number of home-schoolers much higher, somewhere between 1.5 million and 1.9 million.

Data collected for the Home School Legal Defense Fund provide demographics and academic statistics. Sixty-six percent of the fathers of home-schooling children and 57 percent of the mothers have at least a bachelor’s degree. This compares with 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively, for the adult population in general.


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Fifty-four percent of home-schooling families earn $50,000 or more, compared with 32 percent of families in the general population. More than a third have four or more children, versus about 6 percent of families nationwide. More than 97 percent of the home-schooling couples are married; and minorities make up just 6 percent of the home-schooled children, compared to 33 percent in the public schools.

The 1999 survey for HSLDA, which is based in Purcellville, Va., also contains statistics on academics and related information. For example, just 35 percent of home-schoolers watch two or more hours of television a day, compared with 75 percent of children nationwide. Statistics also show home-schoolers outscoring public and private school students at all grade levels on standardized tests, although some researchers say a more accurate study would compare the home-schoolers with children who fit their socioeconomic profile.

Home-schooling is now legal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In some states, such as Texas, that right was underscored by a court decision. In others, a law was passed by the state legislature. In Oklahoma, the right to home-school is written into the state constitution.

States also vary considerably in how strongly they regulate home-schooling. According to a 1997 HSLDA survey eight states had “low regulation”—no state requirement for home-schooling parents to initiate contact with the state. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia had “moderate regulation,” requiring notification of norm-referenced test scores or other proof of student progress; and 13 states had “high regulation,” with provisions such as requiring that curriculum be approved by the state.

Recent attempts to pass laws requiring home-schoolers to take state tests in Maine, Michigan, and Minnesota have been fought vigorously by HSLDA and been derailed, according to Rich Jefferson, the group’s director of media relations.

A class of one

With 2,400 documented home-schoolers out of a student population of 155,000, Palm Beach County has one of the higher percentages of home-schooled students in Florida. Beth Gillespie, the district’s coordinator for home-schooled students, helps them enroll in activities and connect with local home-schooling associations.

In Palm Beach County, home-schooled students can take an academic course if it relates to an extracurricular club they have joined (Spanish for the Spanish club, for example). Many home-schooled students also take courses at the Florida Online High School. About a quarter of the school’s statewide enrollment is made up of home-schooled students, a school spokeswoman says.

Why do the parents home-school?

“It’s as many reasons as you can imagine, and then some,” Gillespie says. “We have traveling actresses. We have Olympic hopefuls and home-education students whose parents are in the military and travel but have a Palm Beach County address.”

Many others, like the Sturgis family, home-school for philosophical and religious reasons. A former director at a small Christian preschool, Bonnie Sturgis remembers the first time


63

she considered home-schooling, about 12 years ago. Her oldest son, Daniel, was then 4 years old and an only child.

“I thought, ‘How neat!’” says Sturgis, an outgoing person with a cheerful voice. “It would be a small teacher/student ratio because at the time there was just one child. Why should someone else have so much fun?”

Sturgis turned to the Palm County Schools last year, when her younger son, Joshua, then in the fifth grade, became “tongue-tied” and started having speech problems. The district’s speech therapist was glad to help and did not mind that the children were home-schooled. “They were very easy to work with, very welcoming to my son,” Sturgis says.

During the day, Sturgis teaches her sons and two daughters—Grace, 10, and Sarah, 8. Joshua is now 12. Daniel, now 16, takes classes at Palm Beach Atlantic College—a Christian school—and receives help in math at night from his father, James, who has two degrees in civil engineering and degrees in chemistry and law.

The curriculum is infused with a fundamentalist Christian world view. The Sturgis children learn creation science at home and are taught that evolution is a theory—a theory that can be disproved scientifically, Bonnie Sturgis says. She recalls that when Bill Nye (PBS’s “Science Guy”) appeared on television saying something that conflicted with their beliefs, one of her daughters piped up, “Yes, but ...”

Like other home-schoolers across the country, Bonnie and James Sturgis have joined co-ops with other parents to help teach various subjects. The children participate in sports and physical education activities through the Saints, a private Christian group that offers activities to home-schooled students living along the southeast Florida coast. Daniel is now one of the coaches.

Home-schooling “is very family-centered,” Sturgis says. If her children were in school, they would get out at 3 or 4 p.m., then go to activities and do their homework. “The family doesn’t see them until eight o’clock at night,” she says.

But it’s not all family. Like other home-schooling parents, she is quick to address the issue of socialization—something critics call a drawback to home-schooling (see sidebar below). She says people are amazed with Daniel because he talks easily with adults, as well as people his own age and younger children.

“They’re not in a bubble by any means.”

Sacrificing for change

Even critics of home-schooling say they admire the sacrifices some parents make for their children. In Leon County, near Tallahassee, home-education coordinator Phyllis Porter says she’s seen a change in the way the district regards home-schoolers.

“A lot of this comes with education and seeing these folks as doing a valuable service,” Porter says of the shift in attitude in her district, where almost 900 of the district’s 33,000 students are home-schooled. “Ninety percent of these folks are really grounded in what they’re doing—philosophically grounded. They believe that they can control what’s being


64

taught, when it’s being taught. They want a different education. ... They believe in what they’re doing.”

National statistics might indicate that home-schoolers are generally better off than most of the population, but the home-schoolers in Palm Beach County are anything but rich, says Anne Mejeur, who heads the Florida Parent Educators Association for Palm Beach and Martin counties. She says that’s partly because one parent has chosen to stay home with the children.

“They drive clunker cars. They don’t have cable TV,” Mejeur says. “... They do without because they care about their child’s welfare.”

The popular image of Palm Beach County is of luxurious hotels and multimillion-dollar beachfront estates. But that’s not the whole story, for the county is really quite diverse, says Lynch, the school board chairman.

The rich, if they have children, send them to private schools. Of the 155,000 students left in the public schools, more than 60 percent receive subsidized lunches. If a district loses enough higher-performing students—and if the majority of students who remain are difficult to teach—then it will begin losing good teachers as well, Lynch says.

Public schools will probably never attract the parents of the wealthiest children. But there’s another group Lynch would also like to have—one composed of highly educated, dedicated parents who care intensely about their children’s education: the home-schoolers. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to get them back?

To do so, Lynch says, the district must stay focused on improvement.

“The best thing to do is—let’s look at whatever’s…wrong with the system,” Lynch says. “And let’s fix it.”

Writing from the perspective of someone involved in post-secondary education, Rebecca Talluto raises the issue of accountability for home schooled students—the issue around which the Combs lawsuit turned.

Document #6: Rebecca Talluto63, “Accountability for Home-Schoolers,” American School Board Journal 188:8 (August 2001)

Home-schooled students and their parents increasingly are seeking access to various public school programs. These students also are applying to colleges and universities. Many states have regulations and laws that govern home-schooling, but others do not. In an age of standards and accountability, this lack of regulation raises some troubling issues.

63 Rebecca Talluto is the dean of educational services at Brevard Community College, Titusville (Fla.) campus. She also is a doctoral student in educational leadership at the University of Central Florida, Orlando.


65

As these students enter our colleges and public school classrooms, we need to ask some hard questions about the relationship between home-schooling families and the public schools. The most important question: Are we as educators and school leaders doing enough to make sure home-schooled students are getting the best education possible?

A double standard

I began to ask questions about home-schooling several years ago. As a community college administrator in Florida, I work with the state’s dual-enrollment program, which allows high school students to take college-level classes free of charge. These classes meet requirements both for high school graduation and for college degrees. Home-schooled students can also take these classes.

All students taking dual-enrollment classes on the college campus are required to submit a form signed by their high school guidance counselor and principal, that verifies that the students are in at least the 10th grade and meet the minimum GPA and test score requirements. The form also lists the classes the school is allowing the students to take. As long as the guidance counselor and principal sign the form, we can register the students for classes--no problem.

The process for home-schooled students is different. Most do not have transcripts or a guidance counselor who can verify their grade level. Instead, they must submit a notarized affidavit that says they are at least sophomores. Their parents, in lieu of a high school guidance counselor and principal, sign a form from us stating that the student meets minimum GPA requirements. And this is where a problem often shows up: When we explain this form to the parents, they usually reply that they do not keep grades. Then they go ahead and sign the form, assigning their child a 4.0 GPA.

This practice makes me uneasy. In one breath the parents say that they do not keep GPA records for their child, but in the next breath the child has a perfect 4.0 average. It strikes me as unfair that students enrolled in public and private high schools have to prove they meet minimum requirements, while home-schooled students can potentially make up a GPA and even have a friend notarize a form stating that they are in the appropriate grade level.

My uneasiness does not stop with the dual-enrollment double standard, however. Public school students who wish to attend my community college must meet the state’s high school graduation requirements, but home-schooled students need only present a notarized affidavit stating that they have fulfilled those requirements. I wonder how many notaries actually read the Florida home-schooling law (Statute 232.02[4]) and review the students’ completed curriculum before they sign such an affidavit.

The more I have learned about my state’s home-schooling requirements, in fact, the more troubled I have become. All of this has made me wonder: Who is responsible for ensuring that home-schooled students are completing the educational requirements that their public and private school counterparts are completing? What measures of accountability are in place for the parents of home-schooled students?


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Varying state laws

These questions prompted me to review some state statutes related to home-education programs. I found a wide range of requirements placed on such programs. Some states have well-defined requirements; others, such as Texas and Oklahoma, permit home-schooling but do not regulate it.

My own state of Florida has many regulations for home-schooling families. Parents or guardians must maintain a portfolio of any educational activities, writings, worksheets, or other materials. This portfolio must be available for review by the superintendent of schools. The parent must also select a method of evaluation and file a copy of the evaluation annually in the superintendent’s office.

Note that Florida’s home-schooling families have some alternatives when it comes to oversight of the student’s education. The student’s educational portfolio can be evaluated by a certified teacher, who forwards final results to the superintendent, or the student can take a nationally normed achievement test administered by a certified teacher. Other alternatives include having the student take a state assessment test administered by a certified teacher or evaluated by anyone holding a teacher’s license or by any other valid measurement agreed upon by the parent and the county school superintendent.

Evaluation results must be reviewed by the superintendent, who must notify the parent or guardian in writing if progress has not been achieved. The home-schooled student then has a year to improve and be reevaluated. The superintendent has ultimate responsibility for ensuring that home-schooled students meet educational requirements.

Other states have similar requirements. In Ohio, parents of home-schooled students must send the superintendent an academic assessment for the student’s previous year. If the assessment shows the student is not demonstrating “reasonable proficiency,” then the parent must develop a remediation plan. If the student does not improve after remediation, the superintendent must hold a due process hearing and can then require that the student enroll in a school that meets requirements of the Ohio Administrative Code.

Virginia’s home-schooling laws are almost identical to those in Florida and Ohio. Parents of a home-schooled student must provide the superintendent with evidence of the student’s achievement. They must submit the student’s scores on tests approved by the state board of education showing that the student ranked in at least the fourth stanine. (Stanine is a technical term for any of nine groups in which standardized test scores are often ranked.) Or, they can submit another assessment, which the superintendent will review and use to determine if the student is getting an adequate education. If the superintendent determines that the education is not adequate, the home-school program will be placed on probation for a year. If the student fails to made adequate improvement, the superintendent can remove the student from the home-school situation.

Tennessee, Connecticut, Illinois, and Massachusetts have similar laws stating that superintendents or school boards have the responsibility to review home-education programs and discontinue those that fail to properly educate the students enrolled in them.


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These states have clear guidelines regarding home education-students and the procedures that must be followed if these students are not performing up to par. Other states, such as South Dakota, North Carolina, Maine, Hawaii, Georgia, and Arkansas, require that home-schooled students participate in the same standardized testing that their public school counterparts take. And still others, as I mentioned earlier, do not specify any guidelines for oversight of the home-education program or evaluation of the student’s learning.

A second look

It is obvious that many states, Florida included, have fairly strict guidelines regarding home-education programs. However, after my brief experience with home-schooled students at my community college, I wonder just how effective these guidelines are. Sure, a state can require standardized testing or give superintendents the ultimate responsibility for home-schooled students, but just how closely do superintendents or school districts monitor the progress of home-schooled students? I wonder how many home-schooled students are taking their standardized tests at their own kitchen table. I am sure most home-schooling parents would monitor their children’s tests very closely.

I am also sure some would not.

It’s not unusual for school boards and administrators to consider home-schooled students outside the school system, and therefore not their responsibility. But given the increase in home-schooling--and the inconsistency in its regulation--I suggest that school leaders take a second look at this attitude. It might be time for school boards to review their districts’ plan for evaluating home-education programs. All of your students--those who learn in classrooms and those who learn at home--would benefit.


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Lawrence Rudner delves more deeply into the question of how well home schooled students perform on external measures of their performance.

Document #7: Lawrence M. Rudner64, “Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998,” Education Policy Analysis Archives 7:8 (1999).

By current estimates, there are between 700,000 and 1,200,000 students enrolled in home schools in the United States. Further, by all accounts, the movement has been growing steadily over the past few years (Lines, 1998). Yet, there is very little scientific literature concerning the population of home school students or even large samples of home school students.

This study describes the academic achievement levels and some basic demographic characteristics of a large sample of students and their families. While the academic levels of home school students are described in terms of public and private school norms, this study is not a comparison of home schools with public or private schools. Such comparisons would be fraught with problems. Home-schooling is typically one-on-one. Public schools typically have classes with 25 to 30 students and an extremely wide range of abilities and backgrounds. Home school parents are, by definition, heavily involved in their children’s education; the same, unfortunately, is not true of all public or private school parents. Home schools can easily pace and adapt their curriculum; public and private schools typically have a mandated scope and sequence. The list of differences could continue.

This study seeks to answer a much more modest set of questions: Does home-schooling tend to work for those who chose to make such a commitment? That is, are the achievement levels of home school students comparable to those of public school students? Who is engaged in home-schooling? That is, how does the home school population differ from the general United States population?

64 Dr. Rudner is with the College of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, College Park. He has been involved in quantitative analysis for over 30 years, having served as a university professor, a branch chief in the U.S. Department of Education, and a classroom teacher. For the past 12 years, he has been the Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation, an information service sponsored by the National Library of Education, U.S. Department of Education which acquires and abstracts articles and manuscripts pertaining to educational assessment, evaluation, and research; builds and maintains on-line databases; publishes articles and books; and provides a wide range of user services. Dr. Rudner holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (1977), an MBA in Finance (1991), and lifetime teaching certificates from two states. His two children attend public school.

This report was supported with a grant from the Home School Legal Defense Association, Purcellville, Virginia. The opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the Home School Legal Defense Association.


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Methods Bob Jones University Press Testing and Evaluation Service provides assessment services to home school students and private schools on a fee-for-service basis. In Spring 1998, 39,607 home school students were contracted to take the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS; grades K-8) or the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency (TAP; grades 9-12). Students were given an achievement test and their parents were asked to complete a questionnaire entitled “Voluntary Home School Demographic Survey.” A total of 20,760 students in 11,930 families provided useable questionnaires with corresponding achievement tests. The achievement test and questionnaire results were combined to form the dataset used in this analysis. This section provides descriptions of the achievement measures, the questionnaires, the Bob Jones University Press Testing and Evaluation Service, and the procedures used to develop the dataset. Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) Home schooled students in Grades K-8 took the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) Form L, published by Riverside Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Houghton Mifflin. Developed by University of Iowa professors, the tests were designed and developed to measure skills and standards important to growth across the curriculum in the nation’s public and private schools. The ITBS reflects more than 50 years of test development experience and research on measuring achievement and critical thinking skills in Reading, Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, Science, and Information Sources. The scope and sequence of the content measured by the ITBS were developed after careful review of national and state curricula and standards, current textbook series and instructional materials, and research (Riverside, 1993). All items were tried out and tested for ethnic, cultural, and gender bias and fairness prior to the development of the final form of the tests. Data on a nationally representative sample of public and private schools were collected in 1992 and used to form the initial national norms. The norms were updated in 1995 by Riverside. This study used these 1995 spring norms. Tests of Achievement and Proficiency (TAP) Home schooled students in Grades 9-12 took the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency (TAP), Form L, also published by Riverside Publishing Company. The TAP was designed and developed to measure skills and standards important to growth across the high school curriculum. Like the ITBS, the TAP scope and sequence were developed after careful review of national and state curricula and standards, and current textbook series and instructional materials. Developed as an upward extension of the ITBS, the specifications, format, and design of the TAP tests are similar to that of the ITBS. TAP is fully articulated with the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) Form L (Riverside, 1993).


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Background Questionnaires Background questionnaires were designed by the staff of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). Questions were determined by reviewing the questions in previous surveys, prioritizing them, and selecting only those that were most germane to the objectives of the study. Where possible, questions and responses were made to match those used by the U.S. Census, U.S. Department of Labor and the National Assessment of Educational Progress to facilitate comparisons of home school students with students nationwide. HSLDA designed the survey to be much shorter than previous survey instruments. They also sought to pose all questions in an objective format, rather than a constructed response format. In keeping with this approach, HSLDA worked with National Computer Systems to design forms to be computer scanable, thereby removing the need for manual data processing. Bob Jones University Press Testing and Evaluation Service The Bob Jones University (BJU) Press Testing and Evaluation Service is the largest and oldest of four organizations providing home school families access to standardized achievement tests. The Testing Service began offering the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and Tests of Achievement and Proficiency in 1984. In subsequent years they added other helpful tools including practice materials, a personality inventory, and diagnostic tests. In 1993, the Stanford Achievement Test series was added as BJU Press assumed the testing that the Home School Legal Defense Association had been providing for its members. Since that time, a full range of writing evaluations (grades 3-12) and a career assessment have been added to the growing number of evaluation tools offered by the Testing Service. Just as home school families were the impetus behind the start of the Testing Service, home school families continue to be the largest sector utilizing the service. However, there are also a number of private schools that have chosen to use the services provided. Testing is provided for students throughout the United States and Canada, as well as many foreign countries. The BJU Press Testing and Evaluation Service sends testing materials to qualified testers who administer the tests and return them to the Testing Service for scoring. The results are then returned to the parent. Many parents test primarily for their own information to verify that their home schooled students are progressing academically at a normal pace. Other parents use the results to meet a state testing requirement or to provide documentation when they choose to return their students to a public or private school setting.

Data Generation Procedures The following steps were followed to produce the data set:


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1. Parents contracted with Bob Jones University to be administered the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills or the Tests of Achievement Proficiency (39,607 students in probably 22,000 families).

2. Bob Jones certified test administrators, many of whom were the students’ parents. 3. BJU sent questionnaires and answer forms to the test administrators. 4. Tests and questionnaires were returned to BJU. BJU bundled the tests and sent

them to Riverside Publishers for machine scoring. BJU bundled the questionnaires and sent them to National Computer Systems for scanning. Unlike in previous studies, the parents did not know their scores ahead of time.

5. Electronic copy of the 23,415 test results and 23,311 questionnaire results were sent to the author of this report. These sets were merged to provide 20,900 cases with matching identification numbers. In order to weight by state public school enrollment, 140 cases with missing state data were dropped. A total of 20,760 students formed the initial dataset used in the study. After we formed the dataset with 20,760 students, we asked for the remainder of the 39,607 achievement test scores. We were informed that it would not be possible to disaggregate the remaining home school students from students in private schools also contracting testing services.

Characteristics of Home School Students and Families This section provides a description of home school students and their families based on the 20,790 respondents to our questionnaire. The distribution of students by state, gender, age, race, parent marital status, family size, mother’s religion, parent education, family income, television viewing, money spent on educational materials, and other demographic characteristics are identified and, where possible, compared to national figures. State As shown in Table 2.1, respondents came from each of the fifty states. Several states, including Ohio, Georgia, and Virginia, have exceptionally high representation given their size. This is probably due to the fact that these states require testing of home school students. To reduce the effects of these and other overrepresented states, the data were weighted in all subsequent analyses by the number of public school students in each state. While we would have preferred to weight by the number of home schooled students in each state, such data are not available for all 50 states (Lines, 1998).


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Table 2.1 Participating Home

School Students Classified by State

State Freq. Percentof sample

AK 61 .3% AL 181 .9 AR 42 .2 AZ 201 1.0 CA 815 3.9 CO 810 3.9 CT 54 .3 DC 17 .1 DE 28 .1 FL 860 4.1

GA 1547 7.4 GU 10 .0 HI 112 .5 IA 234 1.1 ID 28 .1 IL 451 2.2 IN 533 2.6KS 319 1.5 KY 163 .8 LA 551 2.7

MA 343 1.6 MD 196 .9 ME 109 .5 MI 523 2.5

MN 794 3.8 MO 361 1.7 MS 25 .1

State Freq. Percent of sample

MT 112 .5 NC 972 4.7 ND 100 .5 NE 126 .6 NH 176 .8 NJ 324 1.6

NM 189 .9 NV 53 .3 NY 942 4.5 OH 2484 11.9 OK 382 1.8 OR 67 .3 PA 532 2.6 PR 8 .0 RI 32 .2 SC 579 2.8 SD 27 .1 TN 322 1.5 TX 1126 5.4 UT 35 .2 VA 1608 7.7 VI 2 .0

VT 59 .3 WA 787 3.8 WI 246 1.2

WV 92 .4 WY 40 .2


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Student Age and Gender

Table 2.2 shows the distribution of the respondents by gender and age. About 50.4% or 10,471 of the respondents were females; 49.6% (10,319) were males. These figures are comparable to that of the population of 3 to 34 years old enrolled in school (see U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1998, Table A-2). Some 51.4% of school enrollees nationally are male. The percentages are comparable at all age levels.

Table 2.2 Participating Home School Students

Classified by Gender and Age

Age at time of testing (in years)

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Females 507 879 1148 1318 1301 1248 1049 936 774 516 264 119

56.1

% 51.7% 50.2% 49.2% 52.4% 50.6% 47.2% 50.5% 50.7% 51.0% 49.3% 57.5%

Males 397 820 1141 1360 1181 1216 1174 918 754 495 271 88

43.9

% 48.3% 49.8% 50.8% 47.6% 49.4% 52.8% 49.5% 49.3% 49.0% 50.7% 42.5%

Total 904 1699 2289 2678 2482 2464 2223 1854 1528 1011 535 207


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Student Grade

Home school student grade placement was identified by their parents, presumably based on the grade level of the instructional materials. That grade was used by BJU to determine the test levels and used in this report as a grouping variable. Tables 2.3 shows the distribution of respondents and the nation by grade. There is a large difference in the proportions of high school (grades 9-12) home school students and the nation. Compared to the national data, a relatively small percentage of home school students are enrolled in high school. Possible reasons for this lower participation for high school students may be the relative newness of the home school movement, early graduation from high school, and possibly a desire on the part of some home school parents to enroll their children in a traditional high school. The distributional differences for students in grades 1 through 8 are minor.

Table 2.3 Home School Students Classified

by Grade with Percents and National School Percents

Grade

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Home school

7.4% (1504)

10.6% (2153)

14.1% (2876)

12.9%(2625)

12.6%(2564)

11.9%(2420)

10.3%(2087)

8.8%(1801)

5.7% (1164)

3.8% (775)

1.6%(317)

0.3%(66)

Nation65 9.1% 8.8% 8.9% 8.7% 8.6% 8.7% 8.7% 8.4% 9.0% 7.9% 7.1% 6.3%

65 National data: US Census, 1997b, Table 254.


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Student Race

Table 2.4 shows the racial distribution of home school students in 1998 and for the students enrolled in elementary and secondary public and private schools nationally in 1994. The distributions are quite different. The vast majority of home schooled children are non-Hispanic White. The largest minority groups for home school students (not shown in the table) are American Indians and Asian students who comprise some 2.4% and 1.2% of the home school students, respectively.

Table 2.4 Racial Distribution of Home School Students

And the Nation, in Percents

White (not Hispanic)

Black (not Hispanic)

Hispanic Other

Home school 94.0% 0.8% 0.2% 5.0%

Nationwide66 67.2% 16.0% 13.0% 3.8%

66 (National data: USDE, 1996; Indicator 27)


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Marital Status

The great majority of home school students are in married couple families. In contrast, only 72% of the families with at least one child enrolled in school nationwide are in married couple families (Bruno and Curry, 1997, Table 19).

Table 2.5 Home School Students

Classified by Parents’ Marital Status

Marital Status

Frequency Percent

Divorced 80 0.7% Single (never married) 44 0.4 Married 11,335 97.2 Separated 131 1.1 Widowed 55 0.5 Missing data 16 0.1

11,661 100.0%


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Children at Home

Table 2.6 shows the distribution of children in home school families and families with children under 18 nationwide. On average, home school students are in larger families. Nationwide, most families with school-age children (79.6%) have only 1 or 2 children with a mean of about 1.9 children per family. Most home school families (62.1%) have 3 or more children with a mean of about 3.1 children per family.

Table 2.6 Home School Families Classified

by Family Size with National Comparison

Home School Families Nationwide67

Number of Children

Percent Number of Children

Percent

1 8.3% 1 40.8%

2 29.6 2 38.8

3 28.6 3 14.3

4 18.6 4 or more 6.1

5 8.4

6 3.9

7 or more 2.6

67 National Data: US Census, 1997a, Table 77


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Mother’s Religion

We asked the home school families to identify the religious preference of each student’s mother by selecting from a list of 27 religions. As shown in Table 2.7, the largest percentage of mothers identified themselves as Independent Fundamental, Baptist, Independent Charismatic, Roman Catholic, Assembly of God, or Presbyterian. The religious preference of the father was the same as that of the mother 93.1% of the time.

Table 2.7 Home School Students

Classified by Mother’s Religion

Frequency Percent

Independent Fundamental 5,119 25.1% Baptist 5,072 24.4 Independent Charismatic 1,681 8.2 Roman Catholic 1,106 5.4 Assembly of God 838 4.1 Presbyterian 772 3.8 Reformed 685 3.4 Other Protestant 500 2.5 Pentecostal 459 2.2 Methodist 420 2.1 Lutheran 353 1.7 Other Christian 2,213 10.9 Other 1,572 6.2

Total 20,790 100.0%


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Parent Academic Attainment

As shown in Table 2.8, home school parents have more formal education than the general population. While slightly less than half of the general population attended or graduated from college, almost 88% of home school students have parents who continued their education after high school.

Table 2.8 Distribution of Home School Students and Students Nationally

Classified by Parent Academic Attainment

Percent

Did not finish high

school

High school

graduate

Some college,

no degree

Associate degree

Bachelors degree

Masters degree

Doctorate

Home school fathers 1.2% 9.3% 16.4% 6.9% 37.6% 19.8% 8.8%

Nation males68

18.1 32.0 19.5 6.4 15.6 5.4 3.1

Home school mothers 0.5 11.3 21.8 9.7 47.2 8.8 0.7

Nation females

17.2 34.2 20.2 7.7 14.8 4.5 1.3

68 National data: U.S. Census (1996; Table 8)


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Family Income

National data on family income are available for 1995. As shown in Table 2.9, home school families span all income levels. On average, home school families have a higher income level than do families with children nationwide and all families nationwide. The median family income level for home school families in 1997 is about $52,000. The median income for families with children in 1995, nationwide, was about $36,000.

Table 2.9 Distribution of Family Income for Home School Families,

Families with Children Nationwide, and All Families Nationwide by Income Levels, in Percents.

Home school

Families with

children All

families69

Less than $10,000 0.8% 12.6% 10.5%

$10,000 to $14,999 1.5 8.0 8.5

$15,000 to $19,999 2.2 6.1 6.8

$20,000 to $24,999 3.9 7.6 8.4

$25,000 to $29,999 4.9 7.5 7.8

$30,000 to $34,999 8.5 7.5 7.6

$35,000 to $39,999 8.1 7.1 7.0

$40,000 to $49,999 16.0 11.3 11.0

$50,000 to $74,999 32.5 18.4 18.1

$75,000 and over 21.6 13.8 14.3

69 National data: Bruno and Curry (1997, Table 19)


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Television Viewing

The National Assessment of Educational Progress collects information on the television viewing habits of fourth-graders. Home school fourth-graders and fourth-graders nationally differ markedly in terms of television viewing. Home school students rarely watch more than 3 hours of television per day; nearly 40% of the students nationwide watch that much television.

Table 2.10 Fourth-grade students Classified by Hours of Television Viewing

Percent of students

6 or more hours

per day

4 to 5 hours

per day

2 to 3 hours

per day

1 hour or less per day

Home school 0.1% 1.6 33.1 65.3

Nationwide70 19.0% 19.5 36.4 25.1

70 National data: NAEP Math 1997


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Computer Use

The Condition of Education provides a tabulation of the percent of students nationwide who report using a computer by frequency of use for 4th, 8th, and 11th graders in 1996. At each grade level, the distribution of computer use in 1998 by home school students is different from that of the nation in 1996. At each of these three grade levels, much larger percentages of home school students never use a computer. At the fourth-grade level, a much larger percent of home school students use a computer every day.

Table 2.11 Computer Use among Home School Students and

Students Nationwide in Grades 4, 8, and 11, in Percent

Grade 4 Grade 8 Grade 11

Home school Nationwide71

Home school Nationwide

Home school Nationwide

Never

28.2% 11.4% 37.1% 23.3% 40.5 % 16.0%

Less than once a week 29.4 16.3 28.9 29.2 28.9 34.2

Several times a week 21.6 62.5 18.0 30.7 17.5 31.8

Every day 20.8 9.9 16.0 16.7 13.1 18.1

71 National Data: Snyder and Wirt, 1998, Indicator 3.


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Money Spent on Educational Materials

The amount of money spent in 1997 on home school education for textbooks, lesson materials, tutoring and enrichment services, and testing ranged from less than $200 to more than $2000. As shown in Table 2.12, the median amount of money spent was about $400.

Table 2.12 Home School Students Classified by Money Spent

On Home School Education in 1997

Amount Frequency Percent

<$200 3,718 17.9%

200-399 7,035 33.8

400-599 4,467 21.5

600-799 1,962 9.4

800-999 985 4.7

1,000-1,599 1,630 7.8

1,600-1,999 247 1.2

>2,000 411 2.0

Missing 336 1.6

Total 20,790 100.0%

Other Demographic Characteristics Compared to the nation, a much larger percentage of home school mothers are stay-at-home mothers not participating in the labor force. Some 76.9% of home school mothers do not work for pay. About 86.3% that do work do so part time. Nationwide, in 1996, only 30% of married women with children under 18 did not participate in the labor force (US Dept of Census, 1997a, Table 632). A very large percentage of home school parents are certified to teach. Some 19.7% of the home school mothers are certified teachers; 7.1% of fathers. Almost one out of every four home school students (23.6%) has at least one parent who is a certified teacher. Only 7.7% of the respondents were enrolled in a full-service curriculum program, i.e., a program that serves students and their parents as a “one-stop” primary source for textbooks, materials, lesson plans, tests, counseling, evaluations, record keeping, and the


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like for the year’s core required subjects such as language, social studies, mathematics, and science.

Academic Achievement

The complete batteries of The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency (TAP) were used to assess student achievement in basic skills. The ITBS was used for home school students in Grades K-8; the TAP for students in grades 9-12. Almost all students took Form L; a handful took parallel Form K. Achievement test batteries like the ITBS and TAP are a collection of tests in several subject areas that have been standardized and normed. Norms for all tests within these test batteries are based on the same group of students at each grade level. Such norms allow students to be compared with other students and groups to be compared with other groups. The primary purpose of the ITBS and TAP is to assess the academic achievement of students in public and private schools. Consequently, much of the test development effort is devoted to identifying the content to be covered by these batteries. Riverside Publishers follow a four step process: 1) content specifications, 2) editorial review, 3) pilot testing, and 4) national norms development and updating. The first and most critical step is developing content specifications and writing test items. This step involves the experience, research, and expertise of a large number of professionals representing a wide variety of specialties in the education community. Specifications are developed which outline the grade placement and emphasis of skills. These specifications draw heavily on an analysis of textbooks, research studies, nationally developed subject matter standards, and national curriculum committees. Once the items have been developed and pilot tested, the final forms of the tests are developed and administered to large standardization samples to gather normative data and to develop scales. The spring standardization sample for the 10 levels of the ITBS consisted of approximately 137,000 students from public schools, Catholic schools and private non-Catholic schools. The public school sample was stratified to assure adequate representation based on geographic region, district enrollment, socioeconomic status of the district. The Catholic school sample was stratified on geographic region and diocese enrollment. The non-Catholic private school sample was stratified on region and school type. The spring standardization sample for the four levels of the TAP consisted of approximately 20,000 students stratified on the same variables. National norms were developed based on the combined weighted distributions of all three school types: public, Catholic and non-Catholic private. Catholic/private school norms were developed based on the combined weighted distributions of the latter two groups. For simplicity, the combined public, Catholic and non-Catholic private school norms are referenced in this report as national norms or public/private school norms.


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The data from the standardization sample are used to develop a variety of reporting scales, such as percentiles and grade equivalent scores. The analyses in this report rely primarily on the Developmental Standard Score (DSS) scale developed by Riverside Publishers. The DSS is a number that describes a student’s location on an achievement continuum that spans grades K through 12. Table 3.1 shows the median DSS and median age that corresponds to each grade level in the national standardization sample. The DSS scale shows that the average annual growth in DSS units decreases each year.

Table 3.1 Median Developmental Scaled Scores72 and Median Age for the

ITBS/TAP Spring National Standardization Sample

Grade

K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

DSS 130 150 168 185 200 214 227 239 250 260 268 275 280

Age 6.1 7.2 8.2 9.3 10.2 11.2 12.2 13.2 14.2 15.2 16.2 17.2 18.1

This same DSS scale is used for all tests and levels of the ITBS and TAP. The main advantages of the DSS are that it mirrors reality well, spans all grade levels, and provides a quasi equal interval scale which has a variety of attractive statistical properties. Most importantly, DSS scores can be compared to each other and can be meaningfully averaged.

The main disadvantage of DSS scores is that they have no built-in meaning. Reference points are needed to interpret DSS scores. “Grade level” is one possible reference point. A DSS score of 170 in reading, for example, is about equal to the typical reading score for second-grade students in public and private schools in the spring of the year. A more refined reference is the percentile score that corresponds to each DSS score. The 170 in reading, for example, corresponds to the 54th percentile of second graders. That is, this score is better than the score received by 54 percent of the second graders using the 1995 spring norms.

The reader should note that while all tests of the ITBS/TAP have the same median DSS score at each grade level, the distributions within each subject area vary. A DSS score of 310 for a tenth grader in reading, for example, corresponds to the 87th percentile. A DSS score of 170 in mathematics for a tenth grader would place the student at the 79th percentile.

72 Source for age medians: Drahozal (1998, personal communication)


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Percentiles are always defined in terms of a grade level. This can be problematic when analyzing data for home school students. In this study, 24.5% of the home school students were one or more grades above the grade usually associated with that student’s age (see Table 3.2). A strong case can be made that rather than using the percentile corresponding to the enrolled grade, as we did in this study, one should use the percentile associated with the student’s nominal grade, i.e., the grade usually associated with the student’s age. The argument is that a 10-year-old home school student enrolled in 5th grade should be compared to his age peers in 4th grade. The counter argument is that the percentiles already consider the fact that students are not always in their nominal grade since the standardization sample had students above and below grade level. We initially analyzed the data both ways. Rather than expose our analysis to criticism, we chose to take the more conservative route by employing the enrolled grade.

While very meaningful, percentiles do not provide a complete picture of a student’s or group’s academic performance. In this study, we used grade equivalent scores as an additional reference point for interpreting DSS scores. A grade equivalent score approximates a child’s development in terms of grade and month within grade. A DSS reading score of 170 can be viewed as the typical DSS score earned by students in the ninth month of the second grade or a GES score of 2.9. Just as the percentile associated with a DSS scores varies by subtest, so do the properties of GES scores vary across subjects.

Grade Equivalent Scores are particularly useful for estimating a student’s developmental status in terms of grade. But, these scores must be interpreted carefully. An GES Score of 6.3 in reading for an 9 year old in the 3rd grade, for example, clearly indicates that the third grader is doing well. This does not, however, mean that the third grader belongs in the 6th grade. It only means that the third grader can read as well as a sixth grader.

The usual interpretation of a Grade Equivalent Score of 6.3 for a third grader is that this third grade student can read third grade material as well as a sixth grader can read third grade material, not that he or she can read sixth grade material. The DSS of the ITBS/TAP, however, is unique. The DSS scales were developed by administering the same special scaling test to students in grades K-3, another common scaling test to students in grades 3 to 9, and another to students in grades 8-12. Thus, in the scaling study, the third graders did take the same test as the sixth graders in each subject area.

Grade Placement

Home school students are able to progress through instructional material at the student’s rate. Thus, it is easy for home school students to be enrolled one or more grades above their public and private school-age peers. To evaluate the frequency of advanced placement, we compared students’ enrolled and nominal grades. The enrolled grade was identified by the parents and used to determine the ITBS/TAP level. The nominal grade is the public school grade in which the student would normally be enrolled in based on the child’s month and year of birth.

As shown in Table 3.2, almost one fourth of the home school students (24.5%) are enrolled one or more grades above their nominal grade. While comparable figures


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nationally do not exist, one research director in a large school district estimated that less than 5% of their students are enrolled above grade level.

Table 3.2 Home School Students Classified

by Discrepancy between Enrolled and Nominal Grade

Enrolled minusNominal Grade

Frequency Percent

-2 58 0.3%

-1 1,019 5.1

0 13,931 69.8

+1 4,637 23.2

+2 199 1.0

+3 58 0.3

Percentages do not sum to 100% due to a small percentage of students outside this range.

Overall Achievement

Table 3.3 shows the median scaled score (DSS score) for home school students on the Composite with Computation, Reading Total, Language, Mathematics Total with Computation, Social Studies, and Science subtest scores by grade. The corresponding percentiles shown in the table are the within grade percentile scores for the nation that correspond to the given scaled scores. For example, home school students in Grade 3 have a median composite scaled score of 207 which corresponds to the 81st percentile nationwide. The median home school student in third grade out- performs 81% of the third graders nationwide. As an additional comparison, we provide the national median for each grade in the last column. By definition this is the 50th percentile of students nationwide.


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Table 3.3 Median Scaled Scores (corresponding national percentile)

by Subtest and Grade for Home School Students

Grade N Composite Reading Language Math Soc. Stud. Science National

Median

1 1504 170 (91) 174 (88) 166 (82) 164 (81)

166 (80) 164 (78) 150 (50)

2 2153 192 (90) 196 (89) 186 (80) 188 (85)

189 (81) 195 (86) 168 (50)

3 2876 207 (81) 210 (83) 195 (62) 204 (78)

205 (76) 214 (83) 185 (50)

4 2625 222 (76) 228 (83) 216 (67) 220 (76)

216 (68) 232 (81) 200 (50)

5 2564 243 (79) 244 (83) 237 (69) 238 (76)

236 (71) 260 (86) 214 (50)

6 2420 261 (81) 258 (82) 256 (73) 254 (76)

265 (81) 273 (84) 227 (50)

7 2087 276 (82) 277 (87) 276 (77) 272 (79)

276 (79) 282 (81) 239 (50)

8 1801 288 (81) 288 (86) 291 (79) 282 (76)

290 (79) 289 (78) 250 (50)

9 1164 292 (77) 294 (82) 297 (77) 281 (68)

297 (76) 292 (73) 260 (50)

10 775 310 (84) 314 (89) 318 (84) 294 (72)

318 (83) 310 (79) 268 (50)

11 317 310 (78) 312 (84) 322 (83) 296 (68)

318 (79) 314 (77) 275 (50)

12 66 326 (86) 328 (92) 332 (85) 300 (66)

334 (84) 331 (82) 280 (50)

It is readily apparent from Table 3.3 that the median scores for home school students are well above their public/private school counterparts in every subject and in every grade. The corresponding percentiles range from the 62nd to the 91st percentile; most percentiles are between the 75th and the 85th percentile. The lowest percentiles are in Mathematics Total with Computation subtest (labeled Math in the tables); the highest in Reading Total. While the grade-to-grade increase in national medians is 13 DSS points in the lower grades, the annual increase for home school students is about 16 points. These are exceptional scores and exceptional grade-to-grade gains.


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As shown in Table 3.4, the same superiority of median scaled scores holds when comparing home school students to students enrolled in Catholic/Private schools. The Catholic/Private school percentiles corresponding to median scaled scores range from the 53rd percentile to the 89th percentile; most are between the 65th to 75th percentile. In every area and every grade, the median scores for home school students exceed the median scores of students enrolled in Catholic/Private schools.

Table 3.4 Median Scaled Scores of Home School Students

(Corresponding Catholic/Private School Percentile) by Subtest and Grade

Grade Composite Reading Language Math Soc. Stud. Science

1 170 (89) 174 (86) 166 (80) 164 (80) 166 (73) 164 (75)

2 192 (88) 196 (84) 186 (74) 188 (81) 189 (81) 195 (85)

3 207 (74) 210 (74) 195 (55) 204 (71) 205 (69) 214 (80)

4 222 (72) 228 (72) 216 (58) 220 (69) 216 (56) 232 (76)

5 243 (71) 244 (72) 237 (60) 238 (68) 236 (60) 260 (82)

6 261 (71) 258 (71) 256 (58) 254 (65) 265 (72) 273 (77)

7 276 (72) 277 (77) 276 (63) 272 (70) 276 (68) 282 (73)

8 288 (72) 288 (75) 291 (65) 282 (68) 290 (68) 289 (67)

9 292 (63) 294 (70) 297 (61) 281 (56) 297 (63) 292 (59)

10 310 (71) 314 (81) 318 (71) 294 (57) 318 (72) 310 (66)

11 310 (63) 312 (72) 322 (69) 296 (56) 318 (67) 314 (63)

12 326 (74) 328 (81) 332 (71) 300 (53) 334 (74) 331 (72)

The relationship between median composite scaled scores for home school students, Catholic/Private school students, and the nation is shown in the Figure 1. At each grade level, the test performance of Catholic/Private school students is above the national performance levels, especially in the higher grade levels. Also at each grade level, the performance of home school students is above the performance levels of students enrolled in Catholic/Private schools. The differences between these groups are considerable. For example, the median score for 7th graders nationwide is 239; for Catholic/Private school students the median is 257; for home school students the median is 276. Another way to look at this chart is to examine the grades corresponding to a given composite score. A composite scale score of 250, for example, is typical of a home school student in Grade 6, a Catholic/Private school student in Grade 7 and students nationwide in the later stages of grade 8.


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Figure 1. Academic Achievement of Home School, Catholic/Private and the Nation’s Students

The Grade Equivalent Scores (GES) corresponding to the median DSS scaled scores for home school students are shown in Table 3.5. These GES scores indicate the performance levels of home school students in terms of student grade placement nationwide. The median composite scaled score for fourth-grade home school students, for example, is 217. This is comparable to the median score expected of students nationwide in the ninth month of fifth grade. Compared to students nationwide, the median fourth-grade home school student test performance is 1.1 grade equivalents above his public/private school peers. By 8th grade, the median performance of home school students on the ITBS/TAP is almost four grade equivalents above that of students nationwide. Similar trends hold for all subject areas. The reader should recognize that the grade equivalent scale tends to magnify differences at the high school level and that the percentile scale is more meaningful in these higher grades. While 50% of eighth grade home school students have scores that are 4 grade equivalents above the public school median, so do some 20% of eighth grade students in public schools. The revealing statistics are the percentiles which are consistently high across grade levels and subject areas.


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Table 3.5 Median Scaled Scores (corresponding Grade Equivalent Scores)

by Subtest and Nominal Grade for Home School Students

Grade Composite Reading Language Math Soc. Stud.

Science NationalMedian

1 170 ( 2.9) 174 ( 3.1) 166 ( 2.6) 164 ( 2.6)

166 ( 2.7) 164 ( 2.6) 150 ( 1.8)

2 192 ( 4.1) 196 ( 4.5) 186 ( 3.8) 188 ( 4.0)

189 ( 4.0) 195 ( 4.5) 168 ( 2.8)

3 207 ( 5.1) 210 ( 5.5) 195 ( 4.4) 204 ( 5.2)

205 ( 5.1) 214 ( 5.8) 185 ( 3.8)

4 222 ( 6.2) 228 ( 6.9) 216 ( 5.9) 220 ( 6.4)

216 ( 5.9) 232 ( 7.3) 200 ( 4.8)

5 243 ( 8.3) 244 ( 8.3) 237 ( 7.6) 238 ( 7.7)

236 ( 7.6) 260 ( 9.8) 214 ( 5.8)

6 261 (10.1) 258 ( 9.6) 256 ( 9.4) 254 ( 9.1)

265 (10.4) 273 (11.6)

227 ( 6.8)

7 276 (11.9) 277 (12.0)

276 (11.9) 272 (11.3)

276 (11.9) 282 (12.5)

239 ( 7.8)

8 288 (12.9) 288 (12.9)

291 ( - ) 282 (12.5)

290 ( - ) 289 ( - ) 250 ( 8.8)

9 292 ( - ) 294 ( - ) 297 ( - ) 281 (12.4)

297 ( - ) 292 ( - ) 260 ( 9.8)

10 310 ( - ) 314 ( - ) 318 ( - ) 294 ( - ) 318 ( - ) 310 ( - ) 268 (10.8)

11 310 ( - ) 312 ( - ) 322 ( - ) 296 ( - ) 318 ( - ) 314 ( - ) 275 (11.8)

12 326 ( - ) 328 ( - ) 332 ( - ) 300 ( - ) 334 ( - ) 331 ( - ) 280 (12.8)

(The - sign indicates the scaled scores are beyond the effective range for GES conversion.)

The grade equivalent score comparisons for home school students and the nation are shown in Figure 2. In grades one through four, the median ITBS/TAP composite scaled scores for home school students are a full grade above that of their public/private school peers. The gap starts to widen in grade five. By the time home school students reach grade 8, their median scores are almost 4 grade equivalents above their public/private school peers.


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Figure 2. Home School Students Compared to the National Norm Group in Grade Equivalent Units

Years of Home-schooling

Almost half of the respondents (47%) indicated that they have been home schooled for each grade prior to their current grade, i.e., their entire academic life. Table 3.6 shows that students who are home schooled for their entire academic life do better than students who have been home schooled for only a few years (F academic life =108.2; df=1,9750; p<.01). There is also a significant interaction between grade and years home schooled (F=7.4; df=9,9750, p< .01), indicating that the effectiveness of home-schooling varies with the student’s grade. The differences are most meaningful starting in Grade 6.

[All F ratios reported here are from a two-way analysis of variance with composite scaled scores as the dependent measure, grade as a blocking variable, and one independent variable. Because the students are within families, the dataset was trimmed by randomly selecting one child from each family. Had the full dataset been used, the variance of the children within a family would have been artificially smaller than the variance of among children in the population of inference. This would have increased the risk of Type I error, showing significance when significance may not be so. To assure adequate cell sizes, the analyses were also restricted to Grades 1 through 10. A statistically significant difference only means that there is evidence of a difference in population values. The difference may be small and not meaningful. “n.s.” is used to indicate not significant.] One reviewer questioned whether this significant difference was due to life-long home-schooling or was life-long home-schooling serving as a proxy for parent education or income. The correlation of life-long home-schooling and whether either parent has a college degree is .12, indicating there is some, but not a great deal of overlap between these variables. The correlation with income level was .02, indicating no relationship. Thus, whether a student is home schooled his or her entire life appears to be significantly related to achievement.


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Table 3.6 Composite Scale Score Mean, Standard Deviation and Corresponding

Percentile by Number of Grades Home Schooled and Grade

Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Home schooled entire academic life

Mean 170 195 208 224 244 265 278 291 300 314

sd 12 16 17 20 23 23 25 26 27 23

N 479 743 863 608 552 444 319 242 159 100

%ile 92 95 85 81 82 85 83 84 83 86

Home schooled some grades

Mean 168 192 206 222 241 256 270 282 288 299

sd 11 15 18 20 24 26 27 30 30 32

N 221 428 616 666 681 688 628 608 436 287

%ile 90 92 82 79 79 78 77 78 73 75

Difference 2 3 2 2 3 9 8 9 12 15

[The percentiles (%ile) shown in this and the following tables are the within-grade percentiles corresponding to the mean composite scale scores, differences and ranges refer to differences in and ranges of mean composite scale scores, sd refers to standard deviation, N is the number of students within each cell.]


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Enrolled in a Full-Service Curriculum

There is no significant difference in the mean composite scaled scores of home school students enrolled in a full-service curriculum and home school students not so enrolled. As shown in Table 3.7, the means are quite close at all grade levels (F enrollment=.24; df=1,9750; n.s.).


Percentile by Full-service Curriculum Status and Grade

Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Not enrolled in a full-service curriculum

Mean 170 194 207 223 243 260 272 284 291 302

sd 12 15 17 20 23 25 26 29 30 31

N 646 1109 1361 1214 1145 1042 847 771 495 320

%ile 92 94 83 80 81 81 79 79 76 78

Enrolled in a full-service curriculum

Mean 167 199 209 220 241 256 272 286 289 306

sd 13 17 18 21 24 29 31 30 30 28

N 54 63 118 60 89 89 101 79 100 67

%ile 89 97 86 76 79 78 79 80 74 81

Difference 3 -5 -2 3 2 4 0 -2 -2 -4


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Student Gender

There are no significant differences in the achievement levels of male versus female home school students (F for gender=.01; df=1,9750; n.s.). As shown in Table 3.8, the means are virtually identical at all grade levels.

Table 3.8 Composite Scale Score Mean, Standard Deviation

and Corresponding Percentile by Grade and Gender

Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Males

Mean 170 195 208 223 243 260 271 285 288 303

sd 12 15 18 19 23 25 26 30 33 33

N 355 576 749 639 600 597 479 428 294 181

%ile 92 95 85 80 81 81 78 80 73 78

Females

Mean 169 193 207 223 242 260 274 284 293 303

sd 12 16 17 21 24 25 26 28 26 28

N 345 595 730 634 634 535 469 422 302 206

%ile 91 93 83 80 80 81 80 79 77 78

Difference 1 2 1 0 1 0 -3 1 -5 0


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Money Spent on Educational Materials

There is a significant difference in the achievement levels of home school students depending on the amount of money spent per child on educational materials including textbooks, lesson materials, tutoring, enrichment services, and testing (see Table 3.9). At almost every grade level, students in families spending $600 or more outperform students in families spending less than $200 (F for money spent=41.1; df=3,9585; p <.01). There is also a significant interaction between grade and money spent (F=2.7; df=27,9585; p <.01) indicating that the amount of money spent on education makes a bigger difference at the higher grade levels. The correlation between money spent on educational materials and income is significant (r=.24, p <.01), indicating that this effect may be due to family characteristics rather than expenditures.


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Percentile by Money Spent on Educational Materials per Student and Grade

Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

$600 or more

mean 171 195 208 227 245 264 278 289 298 307

sd 11 16 17 21 23 25 25 30 27 32

N 152 236 408 329 317 306 289 260 226 147

%ile 93 95 85 84 83 84 83 83 81 81

$400-599

mean 169 196 211 222 245 261 271 286 291 306

sd 13 15 17 19 22 25 26 25 31 30

N 160 286 376 263 268 253 261 179 105 69

%ile 91 96 88 79 83 82 78 80 76 81

$200-399

mean 171 194 206 220 241 257 270 280 284 299

sd 12 16 18 20 23 25 26 30 32 29

N 252 438 456 469 410 375 249 281 186 119

%ile 93 94 82 76 79 79 77 76 70 75

$199 or less

mean 166 191 203 222 238 258 265 285 284 299

sd 11 15 17 20 26 24 27 28 25 30

N 130 163 219 204 220 186 137 122 74 45

%ile 87 91 78 79 76 80 73 80 70 75

Range 5 4 8 7 7 7 13 9 14 8


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Family Income

There is a significant difference in the achievement of home school students based on family income. As shown in Table 3.10, students in higher income families consistently have higher mean composite scaled scores (F for income = 79.1; df=3,9186; p < .01). There is also a significant interaction of income and grade (F =2.6; df=27,9186; p<.01). Achievement differences due to income are more pronounced for students in higher grades.

Table 3.10 Composite Scale Score Mean, Standard Deviation and

Corresponding Percentile by Family Income and Student Grade

Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

$70,000 or more

mean 173 196 211 225 247 264 278 292 301 306

Sd 10 15 16 20 23 24 25 28 27 29

N 188 300 370 350 296 300 226 202 139 80

%ile 95 96 88 82 85 84 83 85 84 81

$50,000 -69,999

mean 169 195 209 224 243 261 274 287 293 306

Sd 11 15 17 18 23 24 23 26 29 34

N 165 285 407 352 316 293 239 214 135 109

%ile 91 95 86 81 81 82 80 81 77 81

$35,000 -49,999

mean 169 193 206 222 241 258 270 281 292 305

sd 12 16 19 21 21 23 26 27 30 30

N 164 266 327 251 269 262 264 212 141 96

%ile 91 93 82 81 79 80 77 81 76 80

$34,999 or less

mean 167 192 204 218 237 255 262 276 278 297

sd 14 17 17 21 24 28 29 32 30 31

N 149 232 304 245 276 228 178 181 148 66

%ile 89 92 79 74 75 77 70 73 65 74

Range 6 4 7 7 10 9 16 16 13 9


99

Parent Certification as a Teacher

To determine whether there is a difference in achievement for students in households where at least one parent holds a state issued teaching certificate, we analyzed the data for the 7,607 students with at least one parent that has a college degree. As shown in Table 3.11, the achievement levels across groups are remarkably similar. Controlling for grade and parent education level, there is no significant difference in the achievement levels of home school students whose parents are certified and those that are not (F for certification=2.9; df=1,7587; n.s.).


Percentile by Parent Teaching Certificate and Student Grade

Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

At least one certified parent

Mean 172 196 212 225 245 268 278 289 299 308

sd 11 16 15 20 21 21 24 24 25 31

N 183 293 342 285 290 245 243 208 137 88

%ile 94 96 89 82 83 87 83 83 82 82

Neither parent certified

Mean 171 195 210 225 246 263 276 291 299 309

sd 12 15 16 19 22 24 25 25 28 27

N 396 688 840 734 661 616 470 412 281 195

%ile 93 95 87 82 84 83 82 84 82 83

Difference 1 1 2 0 -1 5 2 -2 0 -1


100

Parent Education Levels

The National Assessment of Educational Progress has consistently shown marked differences in the performance levels of students nationwide as a function of parent’s educational level. Similar differences appear in the performance levels of home school students. As shown in Table 3.12, at every grade level, children of college graduates out perform children whose parents do not have a college degree (F=566.4; df=2,9744; p < .01). There is also a significant interaction between grade and parent education (F=8.7; df=18,9744; p < .01), indicating that the effect of parent education is more pronounced in some grades. It is worthy to note that, at every grade level, the mean performance of home school students whose parents do not have a college degree is much higher than the mean performance of students in public schools. Their percentiles are mostly in the 65th to 69th percentile range.


Percentile by Parent Education and Student Grade

Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Both parents have college degrees

Mean 178 196 212 228 249 268 278 296 306 314

sd 11 15 15 19 21 22 25 22 24 26

N 367 640 706 567 535 501 420 325 206 137

%ile 98 96 89 85 86 87 83 88 87 86

One parent has a college degree

Mean 172 194 208 222 242 260 275 285 293 304

sd 13 15 16 19 22 24 24 25 28 29

N 212 341 477 451 417 361 293 297 212 147

%ile 94 94 85 79 80 81 81 80 77 79

Neither parent has a college degree

Mean 161 187 196 212 231 245 260 268 271 288

sd 10 16 17 19 25 25 28 34 27 33

N 121 191 297 255 285 270 233 231 177 104

%ile 79 87 67 66 68 67 69 66 59 67

Range 17 9 16 14 17 23 18 28 35 26


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Television Watching

It was pointed out above that home school students spend significantly less time watching television than do the general population of school-age students. Like the nation as a whole, increased amounts of television viewing for home school students is associated with lower achievement test scores. Table 3.13 shows that at every grade level, there is a steady decline in achievement as the amount of television viewing increases (F for televison viewing =142.5; df=3,9685; p <.01). The interaction of grade and amount of television viewing is also significant (F=5.5; df=27,9685; p <.01). The effects of television on achievement are more pronounced with students in higher grades.

Table 3.13 Composite Scale Score Mean, Standard Deviation and Corresponding Percentile

by Amount of Television Viewing Each Week and Grade

Grade 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

No Television

mean 166 199 213 227 251 271 281 294 308 307

sd 13 15 15 19 22 24 26 25 27 27

N 81 164 165 161 172 140 117 107 102 64

%ile 87 97 90 84 88 89 86 86 88 81

1 hour or less

mean 171 196 208 225 245 263 274 288 298 308

sd 12 15 17 20 22 23 25 29 25 29

N 355 554 795 650 586 525 453 369 225 186

%ile 93 96 85 82 83 83 80 82 81 82

2 hours

mean 169 191 205 219 238 253 268 279 278 299

sd 11 15 18 20 23 26 27 27 31 29

N 186 325 380 333 333 309 237 241 182 92

%ile 91 91 81 75 76 75 75 75 65 75

3 hours or more

mean 169 187 203 216 233 252 269 275 281 280

sd 11 17 17 20 26 27 28 31 29 35

N 75 121 136 117 135 155 140 130 86 43

%ile 91 87 78 71 70 74 76 72 67 60

Range 5 12 10 11 18 19 13 19 30 28


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Summary of Major Findings

Major findings: Demographics

• Home school parents have more formal education than parents in the general population; 88% continued their education beyond high school compared to 50% for the nation as a whole.

• The median income for home school families ($52,000) is significantly higher than that of all families with children ($36,000) in the United States.

• Almost all home school students (98%) are in married couple families. Most home school mothers (77%) do not participate in the labor force; almost all home school fathers (98%) do work.

• Home school students watch much less television than students nationwide; 65% of home school students watch one hour or less per day compared to 25% nationally.

• The median amount of money spent annually on educational materials is about $400 per home school student.

• The distribution of home school students by grade in grades 1-6 is consistent with that of all school children. Proportionally fewer home school students are enrolled at the high school level.

Major findings: Achievement

• Almost 25% of home school students are enrolled one or more grades above their age-level peers in public and private schools.

• Home school student achievement test scores are exceptionally high. The median scores for every subtest at every grade (typically in the 70th to 80th percentile) are well above those of public and Catholic/Private school students.

• On average, home school students in grades 1 to 4 perform one grade level above their age-level public/private school peers on achievement tests.

• The achievement test score gap between home school students and public/private school students starts to widen in grade 5.

• Students who have been home schooled their entire academic life have higher scholastic achievement test scores than students who have also attended other educational programs.

• There are no meaningful differences in achievement by gender, whether the student is enrolled in a full-service curriculum, or whether a parent holds a state issued teaching certificate.


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• There are significant achievement differences among home school students when classified by amount of money spent on education, family income, parent education, and television viewing.

Discussion Incorporating the largest sample ever used to study home school students and their families, this study is a rich source of information concerning their demographics and achievement. It clearly shows that home school students and their families are a select population. Family income and education levels are well above national averages. The family structure is traditional with married couples as parents, several children, father as bread winner, and a stay-at-home mother. A large percent of home school students have a parent that has held a state-issued teaching certificate. Home school families do not spend a great deal of money on educational materials and tend not to subscribe to pre-packaged full-service curriculum programs. In spite of the large size of this assessment, there are notable limitations to this study. Foremost, home school students and their families are not a cross-section of the United States population. The act of home-schooling distinguishes this group in terms of their exceptionally strong commitment to education and children. There are major demographic differences between home school families and the general United States population. Further, it should be noted that it was not possible within the parameters of this study to evaluate whether this sample is truly representative of the entire population of home school students. The content of the Riverside tests is another major limitation of this study. While home schools teach the basic skill areas of reading, mathematics, social studies, and science, they do not necessarily follow the same scope, sequence, or emphasis as traditional public and private schools. The primary focus of many home schools is on religious and moral values. Home schools can and do place a greater emphasis on study skills, critical thinking, working independently, and love of learning. Public and private schools usually select the Riverside test due to its close alignment with their curriculum; home schools select the test primarily out of convenience. We were conservative in our analysis of achievement test results. Even though some 25% of home school students are enrolled in an advanced grade level, we used current grade placement rather than the age appropriate grade placement when determining percentiles and grade equivalents. When looking at test scores, we chose the composite score with mathematics computation, even though mathematics appears to be a weaker subject for older home school students. As a result, we have probably underestimated home school academic performance levels. Even with our conservative approach, the achievement levels of the home school students in this study are exceptional. Within each grade level and each skill area, the median scores for home school students fell between the 70th and 80th percentile of students nationwide and between the 60th and 70th percentile of Catholic/Private school students.


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For younger students, this is a one year lead. By the time home school students are in 8th grade, they are four years ahead of their public/private school counterparts. Our results are consistent with previous studies of the achievement of home school students. A 1990 national home-schooling survey of 1,516 families in the United States noted that, on average, home education families have parents with greater formal education, more children, and higher family income (Home School Court Report, 1990). Two-parent families were the norm and they were predominantly Christian. The average age of the children was just over eight years--a majority of the children had never attended public or private schools. There were equal numbers of male and female students. On standardized achievement tests, the home-schooled students performed at or above the 80th percentile on national norms in reading, listening, language, math, science, social studies, basic battery, and complete battery scores. Calvery et.al. (1992) compared the achievement of Arkansas home schooled and public schooled students in grades 4, 7, and 10 using 6 subscales of the MAT-6. Home schooled students scored higher than their counterparts in reading, mathematics, language, total basic battery, science, and social studies at grade 4 and grade 7. They also scored significantly above public school means for grade 10 in reading, mathematics, total basic battery, science, and social studies, but scored significantly lower in language. Ray (1997) analyzed demographic and achievement data from 5,402 home school students in 1,657 families. While Ray used a different approach to analyze achievement data, he noted exceptionally high average achievement levels and that students with long histories of being home schooled had higher achievement scores. Home school students did quite well in 1998 on the ACT college entrance examination. They had an average ACT composite score of 22.8 which is .38 standard deviations above the national ACT average of 21.0 (ACT, 1998). This places the average home school student in the 65th percentile of all ACT test takers. These comparisons between home school students and students nationwide must be interpreted with a great deal of caution. This was not a controlled experiment. Students were not randomly assigned public, private or home schools. As a result, the reported achievement differences between groups do not control for background differences in the home school and general United States population and, more importantly, cannot be attributed to the type of school a child attends. This study does not demonstrate that home-schooling is superior to public or private schools. It should not be cited as evidence that our public schools are failing. It does not indicate that children will perform better academically if they are home schooled. The design of this study and the data do not warrant such claims. All the comparisons of home school students with the general population and with the private school population in this report fail to consider a myriad of differences between home school and public school students. We have no information as to what the achievement levels of home school students would be had they been enrolled in public or private schools. This study simply shows that those parents choosing to make a commitment to home-schooling are able to provide a very successful academic environment.


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REFERENCES

ACT, Inc. (1998). The 1998 ACT High School Profile Report--National Data. Iowa City, IA. Available on-line: http://www.act.org/news/98/98data.html

Bruno, Rosaline and Andrea Curry (1997). Current Population Reports. Population Characteristics: School Enrollment--Social and Economic Characteristics of Students: October 1995 (update).Available on-line: http://www.census.gov/prod/2/pop/p20/p20-492u.pdf

Calvery, Robert; and Others (1992). The Difference in Achievement between Home Schooled and Public Schooled Students for Grades Four, Seven, and Ten in Arkansas. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association (21st, Knoxville, TN, November 11-13, 1992).

Day, Jennifer and Andrea Curry (1998). Current Population Survey (CPS) for the Nation. United States Census Bureau. Available on-line: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/school.html

Drahozal, Edward (1997). Validity Information for the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and Iowa Test of Educational Development (ITED), Forms K, L, M. Riverside Publishing Company, working draft.

Home School Court Report (Dec. 1990). A Nationwide Study of Home. Available from ERIC Document Reproduction Service ED381725.

Hoover, H.D., N. Hieronymous, D.A. Frisbie, S.B. Dunbar (1996). Catholic/Private Norms: ITBS. Itasca: IL: Riverside Publishing Company.

Lines, Patricia (1998). Home-schoolers: Estimating Numbers and Growth. Technical paper.

Ray, Brian (1997). Home Education Across the United States. Purcellville, VA: Home School Legal Defense Association. Available on-line: http://www.hslda.org/media/statsandreports/ray1997/index.stm

Riverside Publishing Company (1994). Riverside 2000 Integrated Assessment Program, Technical Summary. Chicago: Riverside Publishing Company.

Scannell, D.P, O.M. Haugh, B.H. Loyd and C.F. Risinger (1996). Catholic/Private Norms: TAP. Itasca: IL: Riverside Publishing Company.

Snyder, Thomas and John Wirt (1998). The Condition of Education, US Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics.

US Census Bureau (1996). Educational Attainment in the United States March 1996 (Update). Available on-line: http://www.census.gov/prod/2/pop/p20/p20-493u.pdf

US Census Bureau (1997a). Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1997. Available on-line: http://www.census.gov/prod/3/97pubs/97statab/labor.pdf

US Census Bureau (1997b). Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1997. Available on-line: http://www.census.gov/prod/3/97pubs/97statab/educ.pdf

US Department of Education (1996). Youth Indicators, Washington, DC: National Center for Educational Statistics.

US Department of Education (1997). National Assessment of Educational Progress, 1996 National Mathematics Results. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.


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The Welners (Keriane Welner was the author of Document #3 above) voice some skepticism about the sample Rudner used in his research, suggesting that these students are not necessarily representative of home-schoolers as a group.

Document#8: Kariane Mari Welner73 and Kevin G. Welner74 “Contextualizing Home-schooling Data: A Response to Rudner,” Education Policy Analysis Archives (1999) At a time when most educational researchers pay little or no attention to the home-schooling movement, we appreciate Dr. Rudner’s (1999) work as well as the decision of EPAA to give that work a platform. Although Rudner’s article does not vary far (either in methodology or in findings) from much of the body of the home-schooling research already in print (e.g., Gustavsen, 1981; Mayberry, 1987; Ray, 1990, 1997; Wartes, 1988), keeping this research current and expanding the sample size contributes greatly to the limited assortment of currently-published studies. We believe that the questions asked of the data in this study are important; these issues need to be further explored. However, the data that Rudner analyzed are derived from only one section of the home-schooling population. And here lies the article’s weakness: it fails to explain this limitation in a way that adequately alerts readers. While we do not disagree with Rudner’s tentative conclusions concerning home-schoolers’ performance on standardized tests, we do think there is a need to offer several cautions to the readers of this study. The data employed in this study were taken from parents who used the Bob Jones University (BJU) standardized testing program. Rudner’s article only briefly, and inadequately, addresses the fact that this may not be a cross-section of the home-schooling population: “...it should be noted that it was not possible within the parameters of this study to evaluate whether this sample is truly representative of the entire population of home school students” (this quotation is from the article’s “Discussion” section). Rudner does not explain the relevance of this potential limitation as regards the demographic and achievement information that constitute the heart of these analyses. Nor does he offer the obvious reason why the BJU data may not be representative of the larger population: The University’s image, at least partially deserved, is of racial intolerance and religious orthodoxy. Accordingly, some of Rudner’s conclusions (e.g., that home-schoolers are overwhelmingly white and Christian) should instead be read as limitations on some of his other conclusions (concerning, e.g., median income, marital status, and achievement levels on standardized tests). A related caution, which we would have liked Dr. Rudner to have offered, is that the data base drew a non-random, two-percent sample (even by the most conservative estimates)

73 Kariane Mari Welner is a doctoral candidate at UCLA. Her specializations include home-schooling and issues of sociology and democracy in education. 74 Kevin G. Welner is a visiting researcher and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. His specializations include program evaluation and educational policy issues, particularly those concerning organizational change and school law. His personal homepage is at http://www.gse.upenn.edu/welner/


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of the home-schooling population.75 Given that Rudner’s sample involves 20,760 students, this sample then constitutes anywhere from 1.28% to 2.08% of the home-schooling population. Because the sample was biased in favor of a population associated with BJU, extrapolations from that data are very unreliable. Yet Dr. Rudner, in his abstract, states that his article seeks to answer the following questions: Does home-schooling tend to work for those who chose to make such a commitment? That is, are the achievement levels of home school students comparable to those of public school students? Who is engaged in home-schooling? That is, how does the home school population differ from the general United States population?

Notwithstanding these broadly worded questions, we note that Rudner acknowledges the fact that his data are not derived from “a controlled experiment” and must be understood within that context. Yet his acknowledgment fails to detail the broader context—namely those issues associated with BJU. He also fails, when setting forth these questions that he seeks to answer with this data, to heed his own warning about its limitations. Contrary to his stated aim, this data simply cannot be used to reliably compare home-schoolers’ achievement levels with those of the general population or to describe the demographics of home-schoolers. In addition to our concerns about the generalizability of Rudner’s conclusions, we are concerned that Rudner’s relative neglect of issues surrounding the selected sample will serve to perpetuate the common view of home-schoolers as a narrow and easily-defined section of the American population. Because of his omission, only those readers who already know about the full scope of home-schoolers or about BJU’s image could raise this red flag. Importantly, the media’s coverage of the release of Rudner’s study portrayed his conclusions as descriptive of the broader home-schooling population (see Archer, 1999; Cook, 1999; Mathews, 1999; Schnaiberg, 1999; Toomer-Cook, 1999). We found only one article that even mentioned, albeit briefly, the ill fit between the home-schooling population described by Rudner and the home-schooling population in the area (south Florida) served by the newpaper (Nazareno, 1999). Home-schoolers’ Diversity Notwithstanding the picture painted by the data presented in Rudner’s article, today’s home-schooling families represent a diverse sampling of the American population. Although many home-schoolers remain white and middle-class, the recent upsurge in

75 Patricia Lines conservatively estimates the number of home schooled children at approximately 1 million (Lines, 1998). Less conservative appraisals among home-schooling associations and researchers place the number of home schooled students at more than 1.2 million students (Hawkins, 1996; Kennedy, 1995; Ray, 1997). Newsweek recently estimated that number at 1.5 million (Kantrowitz & Wingert, 1998), a figure that the Home School Legal Defense Association —the sponsor of Rudner’s study—also circulates in its literature. Others estimate that the number is as high as 1.6 million (see Yarnall, 1998).


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home-schooling has drawn people from all ethnic and class groups (Knowles, 1988; Nazareno, 1999; Wahisi, 1995). Ideologically, parents who home school represent a similarly broad cross-section of American society (Knowles, 1988). While in its recent resurgence home-schooling began as a trend among fundamentalist Christians with primarily religious motivations, home-schoolers now represent a wide array of values and political mores (Bolick, 1987; Mayberry, 1987; Van Galen, 1988). As such, home-schoolers are no longer an easily defined segment of the population.76 Rudner’s article, therefore, would have been more comprehensive and accurate had he acknowledged existing research demonstrating that his sample was not representative of the broader population. Not All Home-schoolers Give Tests In contrast to what is presented in Rudner’s data, there exists a large and growing portion of the home-schooling population that does not administer standardized tests to its children.77 While some home-schoolers employ the “school at home” methodology that Rudner’s questions allude to, replete with curricula and testing, other home-schoolers avoid these practices. These parents, often referring to themselves as “unschoolers,” follow the philosophy of the late John Holt (see Holt 1981; 1983; 1989). They often choose to home school in order to avoid what they view as the restrictiveness of set curricula and testing (Franzosa, 1991). They believe in allowing a child’s natural curiosities to set the scope and pace of education, even if it means waiting a long time before the child expresses interest in a particular topic (Wartes, 1988a). Feeling that the manner in which schools teach is not the way that children learn, they often view standardized testing as a part of the misguided system that they have left behind, and they put great effort into avoiding such testing in their children’s education (Common & MacMullen, 1986; Gibbs, 1994). Notwithstanding the important role that this segment of the home-schooling population plays within the larger movement, its existence is not noted in Rudner’s article.

Bob Jones University The data Rudner analyzed was derived exclusively from parents who used the testing services of Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian institution located in Greenville, South Carolina. The university prohibits interracial dating and marriage between its African-American and white students. Prior to 1971, African Americans were banned outright from attending the university (White, 1982). These racial policies were the subject of highly-publicized litigation before the United States Supreme Court in

76 There are also many resources directed at home-schoolers that are not characterized by the demographics provided by Rudner (see the following web pages: “Bnos Henya Project: Jewish Orthodox Home-schooling”; “Al-Madrasah Al-Ula: The Magazine for Muslim Home-schoolers”; “Native American Home school Association Web Site”; and “Pagan Home school Page”). 77 Of course, if they are required to do so by law, then they comply with the state’s requirements (these requirements for home-schoolers vary from state to state). However, these parent engage in the testing merely to satisfy their legal obligation, not because they believe testing to be an educationally worthwhile practice.


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1983, concerning the question of whether the University, given its explicit racially discriminatory policies, could maintain its “501(c)(3)” tax-exempt status (Bob Jones University v. United States, 1983; White, 1983). Importantly, the University’s racial views are anathema to many Americans, whether they be Christian or non-Christian, fundamentalist or non-fundamentalist. While many parents using the BJU testing service may not share the University’s convictions, many other families have no doubt chosen not to employ the services of BJU precisely because of BJU’s racial stance. The racial distribution of Rudner’s home schooled students showed 0.8% African American and 0.2% Hispanic. These statistics become much more meaningful when grounded in an understanding of the data source. BJU’s religious orientation may also have prompted many home-schoolers to shun a relationship with the University’s testing service. The BJU web pages trumpet its Biblical grounding, noting that the University is “both orthodox and fervent in its evangelistic spirit” (see the Bob Jones University Website, http://www.bju.edu/aboutbju/history/). The religious distribution of Rudner’s home schooled students showed almost 58% Independent Fundamentalist, Baptist, or Independent Charismatic and only 6% non-Christian. These statistics, too, become much more meaningful when grounded in an understanding of the data source. The Article’s Perspective Dr. Rudner is an accomplished scholar in the field of assessment. Using this expertise, he has testified on behalf of home-schoolers represented by the funder of this study, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). We wish to acknowledge the contributions of the HSLDA in blazing a trail for the legal rights of home-schoolers. However, it is also important to note that the HSLDA is an advocacy organization. Moreover, while the HSLDA does not exclude from membership those who hold non-Christian beliefs, it is an overtly Christian establishment with an agenda dedicated to supporting the rights and duties of families as commanded by Biblical mandate. We recognize that Dr. Rudner may have little or no experience with the home-schooling population outside of this Christian context and therefore might not be aware that many home-schoolers do not fit within the segment of the population who would consider employing the services of BJU. Like many Americans, Dr. Rudner may have simply taken for granted that the home-schooling population remains very narrow. When an analysis is inaccurately premised on the assumption that home-schooling is a phenomenon that is almost exclusively limited to conservative Christian parents, there is less reason to question the representativeness of a sample drawn from BJU. In understanding this article’s perspective, we also note that the HSLDA funded this study, at least in part, as a vehicle for gaining political support on behalf of home-schoolers. Toward this end, the organization distributed copies of the study to members of Congress. Michael Farris, the president of HSLDA, explained that he “hope[s] that [the study] will help judges and public policy makers make better decisions about our freedom” (Billups,


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1999). We share this goal as well the belief that legislation concerning home-schooling is best based on a complete understanding of the home-schooling population. Accordingly, the following section presents a reconsideration of some of Dr. Rudner’s findings in light of the source of his database. The Article’s Conclusions As a general matter, we suggest that the data from Bob Jones University add to our understanding of the particular home-schooling population served by BJU and raise interesting questions about the broader home-schooling population. But we would stop far short of drawing the more universal conclusions trumpeted by the HSLDA. Consider, for example, Dr. Rudner’s analysis of demographic information, concerning the high levels of formal education obtained by home-schooling parents and the high median income of home-schooling families. We caution against drawing firm conclusions from this data, particularly the analysis concerning median family income. Not all states require children to take standardized tests (and those that do generally provide a way for parents to take the tests without cost to the family). Consequently, those families who elect to pay a testing service may be in a higher income bracket than those who do not. Moreover, a 1990 survey of Maine home-schoolers revealed that 70% of respondents had an annual pretax income of less than $35,000 (Lyman, 1993). While this Maine study also had many limitations, it nonetheless raises the question of the generalizability of Rudner’s findings. The analyses concerning home-schooling parents’ level of formal education, computer use by students, and the amount home-schooling parents spend on school supplies could be tied to this income data and influenced by these same factors. Also, with regard to expenditure on school supplies, additional issues are raised (e.g., whether the parents have supplies from an earlier child and whether they can borrow supplies from a friend or family member). Rudner also found that 98% of home-schooling students in the BJU data base live within married couple families. This statistic should, we contend, have been presented within a context explaining the conservative nature of BJU and its view of divorce as unbiblical. Further, given the view held by most conservative Christians that a woman’s primary commitment is to her husband and her children, Rudner conclusion that 77% of home school mothers in this data base do not participate in the labor force is, we believe, also better understood within the BJU context.78 Rudner notes that home schooled students watch much less television than do most students nationwide (with 65% of home schooled students in the BJU data base watching one hour or less per day compared to 25% nationally). But again, conservative Christians

78 It is true that generally, in order to home school, one of the parents must possess the ability to remain at home throughout the day, thus allowing that parent to teach and supervise the children. However, home-schooling parents may have jobs permitting them to also supervise their children —either through a flexible schedule, a home-based business, or a job allowing for on-site supervision of their children—with the result that both parents become part of the labor force.


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tend to have strong moral objections to the quality of television programming—much more so than the general population. Accordingly, it may be a certain set of moral standards rather than home-schooling that drives this result. The article further states that the “primary focus of many home schools is on religious and moral values.” But, while many home-schoolers do see this as their primary focus and purpose, many do not—recall the “unschoolers” described above. Van Galen (1988) describes a group of parents, whom she labels as “Pedagogues,” whose motivation is decidedly secular. These parents: ... teach their children at home primarily for pedagogical reasons. Their criticisms of the schools are not so much that the schools teach heresy, but that the schools teach whatever they teach ineptly.... While diverse in other aspects of their lives, they share a respect for their children’s intellect and creativity and a belief that children learn best when pedagogy taps into the child’s innate desire to learn (p. 55). While these parents may have religious beliefs, the reason they chose to home school was not religiously motivated, and the focus of these home schools is not the teaching of “religious and moral values.” Other demographic characteristics that Rudner ascribes to home-schoolers could also be a result of the population sampled, a possible conflation of almost his exclusively Christian population with the trait of home-schooling. For example, it may be simply that Christian families are larger than those in the general population, not necessarily that most home-schooling parents have more children. Likewise, the fact that almost one in four home schooled students in this study have a certified teacher as a parent may also be tied to the overwhelmingly Christian population, since many young Christian women see teaching as one of the few appropriate areas of employment and as a field where they can develop skills useful in both family and church life. Finally, as mentioned previously, the fact that the demographics reported by Rudner showed an almost exclusively white, Christian population could also be an artifact of the data source. As Dr. Rudner noted, family income is strongly correlated with children’s test scores. However, we do not know whether the general population of home-schoolers has the same high level of income as the families in the BJU data base. Further research is needed to demonstrate whether or not this difference in test scores would hold up if a lower income sample of home-schoolers were tested. That said, we do believe that home schooled students can attain a significant benefit from the one-on-one learning experience, and this could be a powerful factor in driving higher test scores.79 Rudner concluded by stating that “these comparisons between home school students and students nationwide must be interpreted with a great deal of caution,” and that “the reported achievement differences between groups do not control for background differences in the home school and general United States population and, more importantly, cannot be attributed to the type of school a child attends.” Some researchers,

79 Further, many important forms of knowledge, which home-schooling parents may emphasize in their children’s education, may not be assessable by standardized tests.


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in fact, would say that the test scores have nothing to do with how the children were schooled and simply show the results expected for children that come from this demographic group—households that are overwhelmingly white, well educated, two-parent, and middle class (see Coleman et al., 1966; Ogbu, 1987). This is not to say that these parents did not do a good job teaching their children, it is only to say that a comparable sample within the public or private schools may have scored just as well. Our Conclusions The actual analyses conducted by Dr. Rudner are important. Our critique is offered as a cautionary supplement, rather than as an objection, to his contribution. We feel that a more thorough explanation of the data’s source and context helps us to build a better understanding of America’s home-schooling population.

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Hawkins, D. (1996). Home school battles: Clashes grow as some in the movement seek access to public schools. U.S. News & World Report, 120(6), 57

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Lines, P. (1998, Spring). Home-schoolers: estimating numbers and growth. National Institute on Student Achievement, Curriculum, and Assessment, Office of Education Research and Improvement: U.S. Department of Education.

Lyman, I. (1993). Better off at home? National Review, 45(18), 62-63.

Mahan, B. M. & Ware, B. J. (1987). Home-schooling: Reasons parents choose this alternative form of education and a study of attitudes of home-schooling parents and public school superintendents toward the benefits of home- schooling. Master’s Project, University of Dayton. ERIC Document No. ED286624.

Mathews, J. (1999, March 24). A home run for home-schooling: Movement can point to high test scores in national study. The Washington Post, p. A11..

Mayberry, M. (1987). The 1987-1988 Oregon home school survey: And overview of findings. Home School Researcher, 4(1), 1-9.

Native American Home school Association Web Site: Saving Our Culture For Our Children Through Our Children

Nazareno, A. (1999, March 24). Home schools effective, group says after study. The Miami Herald.

Oakes, J. (1985). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Ogbu, J. U. (1987). Variability in minority school performance: A problem in search of an explanation. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 18(4), 312-334.

Pagan Home school Page. Available at: http://members.aol.com/Barbooch/index.html.

Ray, B. (1990). Home schools: A synthesis of research on characteristics and learner outcomes. Education and Urban Society, 21(1), 16-31.

Ray, B. (1997). Strengths of their own: Academic achievement, family characteristics, and longitudinal traits. Salem, OR: National Home Education Research Institute Publications.

Rudner, L. M. (1999). Scholastic achievement and demographic characteristics of home school students in 1998. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 7(8). [online]. Available at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n8/.

Schnaiberg, L. (1999, March 31). Study finds home-schoolers are top achievers on tests. Education Week, 18(29), 5.


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Shepherd, M. S. (1986). The home-schooling movement: An emerging conflict in American education [abstract]. Home School Researcher, 2(1), 1.

Toomer-Cook, J. (1999, March 24). Home-schoolers are making the grade, national study says. Deseretnews.com.

Van Galen, J. (1987). Explaining home education: Parents accounts of their decisions to teach their own children. The Urban Review, 19(3), 161-177.

Van Galen, J. (1988). Ideology, curriculum, pedagogy in home education. Education and Urban Society, 21(1), 52- 68.

Wahisi, T. T. (1995, October). Making the grade: Black families see the benefits in home-schooling. Crisis, 102(7), 14-15.

Wartes, J. (1988). The Washington home-school project: Quantitative measures for informing policy decisions. Education and Urban Society, 21(1), 42-51.

White, E. (1982, October 20). Racial policies, religious rights square off as high court hears tax-exemption case. Education Week.

White, E. (1983, June 1). Court bars tax breaks for discriminatory schools. Education Week.

Williams, D. D., Arnoldson, L. M., & Reynolds, P. (1984). Understanding home education: Case studies of home schools. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, New Orleans.

Yarnall, L. (1998, October 29). Online businesses tap home-schooling market. New York Times, v. 148, p. D1.

Writing in The New American, which describes itself as the “flagship magazine” of the John Birch Society, Isabel Lyman raises some of the concerns of government intervention into home-schooling that surfaced in the Combs case in Pennsylvania. Beware, she cautions, of “zealous state officials.” Document #9: Isabel Lyman80, “Keeping Home-schooling Private,” The New American 19:8 (September 2003). Home-schoolers have been vigilant in protecting their rights, rising to the occasion when they discover threats to clamp down on their activities.

“There’s no place like home” has become the mantra of successful home-schoolers. By most measures—scholastic, social, economic—the modern home-schooling movement is a triumph. The actual undertaking requires initiative, patience, and, in many cases, financial sacrifice. But this grand educational adventure continues to work because resourceful home-schoolers have largely been left alone.

Unfortunately, it is the “home alone” aspect that scares opponents, who waste precious human resources criticizing this successful private-sector, parent-managed endeavor. Meanwhile, thousands of ill-supervised children have languished, decade after decade, in public schools. 80 Isabel Lyman is the author of The Home-schooling Revolution (2000).


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Rob Reich, a Stanford University assistant professor of political science, is one such critic. In a paper entitled “Testing the Boundaries of Parental Authority over Education: The Case of Home-schooling,” Reich states, “I argue that at a bare minimum one function of any school environment must be to expose children to and engage students with values and beliefs other than those they are likely to encounter within their homes. Because home-schooling is structurally and in practice the least likely to meet this end, I argue that while the state should not ban home-schooling it must nevertheless regulate its practice with vigilance.”81

This attitude is seen in the resolution passed by the Representative Assembly of the National Education Association (NEA). Last July, at their annual summer convention, the NEA passed Resolution B-69, which states that “home-schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience.”

But the NEA cannot begin to inflict the same kind of damage on home-schoolers as can zealous state officials. Phonics specialist and home-schooling advocate Samuel Blumenfeld has observed: “Today the law is not being used to force delinquents and truants into the schools, but to harass and regulate home-schoolers…” In Blumenfeld’s home state of Massachusetts, Kim and George Bryant, home-schooling parents, endured a seven-hour standoff with police officers and social service employees merely because the Bryant children—teenagers Nicholas and Nyssa—declined to take a standardized test ordered by the Department of Social Services.

Revolt in the Constitution State

Like minutemen of old, home-schooling families must also be ready to fight unexpected assaults on their rights. For example, last year in Connecticut, home educators challenged the Act Concerning Independent Instruction, which contained a tedious list of new mandates, including ones requiring home-schooling parents to possess a high school diploma, as well as have their individual curriculum plans scrutinized by school superintendents.

The Hartford Courant reported that state Rep. Cameron Staples (D-New Haven), the act’s sponsor, championed this proposal because in Connecticut “the only law on home-schooling requires parents to let local school districts know that they plan to teach their children at home.” Apparently, this approach was too laissez faire for the lawmaker, and one wonders what Staples would do if he were in Oklahoma, where there is no requirement for parents to initiate contact with the state if they choose to home school their children.

Staples and his ilk, however, were probably not expecting scores of parents to challenge his clumsy attempt to increase home school regulations. Diane Connors, president of the Connecticut Home school Network, sent an e-mail to parents and other concerned citizens, alerting them to the public hearing regarding the bill. Her dispatch was wildly successful. On March 4, 2002, over 1,000 people—many coming from the Legislative Office building in Hartford—attended the hearing to voice their opposition to the House

81 [Reich’s article is Document #9 below.]


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version of the act (H.B. 5535). According to Connors, only one Connecticut superintendent showed up to support the legislation.

Summarizing the prevailing sentiment against the bill, home-schooling parent John Paradis was quoted in the Courant as explaining, “We have removed our kids from the public schools because we think the public schools are not educating our students properly. This [the bill] puts their education back in the hands of the public schools.”

Legislators didn’t ignore the outcry. On March 22, 2002, H.B. 5535 died, missing the deadline for receiving a favorable vote.

Big Sky Showdown

Even though no evidence exists indicating that state regulation improves home-schoolers’ performance, legislators continue their campaigns to control and restrict home education. This year, another showdown—like the one in Connecticut—occurred in Montana.

State Senator Don Ryan (D-Great Falls) sponsored Senate Bill No. 276. If the legislation passed, it would have required home-schoolers to take state assessment tests to measure academic competency. Even though Montana is a state with an undemanding existing home-schooling law and where home-schoolers had outperformed public school students on national standardized tests, the responsible were to be penalized. Ryan, employing the emotional language of left-wing children’s rights advocates, said he was concerned about protecting at-risk children from “inadequate” or “abusive” parents.

On February 12, 2003, hundreds of Montana home-schoolers, alerted by phone and e-mail chains by another attentive parent (Steve White, the legislative liaison for the Montana Coalition of Home Educators), converged on the capitol in Helena to lobby against the bill. The arguments the Senate Education Committee heard ranged from the unfairness of testing home-schoolers on material they had not studied, to being held to higher standards than their lower-performing public school counterparts, to concerns about state infringement on teaching religious beliefs.

The hearing lasted a record four hours, and nearly 500 Montana citizens signed the hearing registry as opponents of the bill. Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) lawyer Dewitt T. Black wrote in an e-mail alert that “over 50 people testified against it.” Only one person—Senator Don Ryan—spoke in favor. The education committee voted 9-1 to “postpone indefinitely,” insuring that S.B. 276 was dead on arrival.

Never-Ending Battles

J. Michael Smith, president of HSLDA, notes that his organization lobbied against a cache of bad bills during the 2002-03 school year. “We had nine states where there were specific threats to home school freedom that we lobbied: Montana state assessment test required for home schools; North Dakota state assessment test; Nevada state assessment test; Wyoming state assessment test; California habitual truants would be treated as educational neglect; Texas would have required registration of home-schoolers; Colorado habitual truants would be treated as educational neglect; Louisiana attempted to do away with private school exemption for home-schoolers; and Virginia wanted home-schoolers to pass


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the standards of learning tests given to public school students. None of these bills were successfully passed.”

Clearly, some state legislators are trying to regulate a nonexistent problem. These lawmakers are trying to hinder, not help, the vast majority of home-schoolers. They are also unprepared to deal with the fierce opposition and almost zero public support that their meddling produces.

The only assistance state lawmakers can offer home educators is to deregulate home-schooling—eliminate cumbersome laws and not introduce new, costly legislation. Some states are catching on. The opening of a story from the Oakland Tribune was pleasantly surprising: “Just nine months after declaring home-schooling largely illegal, the California Department of Education recently reversed its position, pronouncing the practice as essentially none of the state’s business.” The California Department of Education, in fact, has begun referring interested parties to statewide home-schooling organizations to receive their information.

Frederic Bastiat, the 19th-century French economist, could have been writing about deregulating home-schooling when he opined, “It [the law] can permit this transaction of teaching-and-learning to operate freely and without use of force....” Perhaps more American legislators will get the message: Home-schooling works best when it is left alone.

Rob Reich makes the argument that “home alone” is not the optimal setting for producing citizens for a democratic society.

Document #10: Rob Reich82, “The Civic Perils of Home-schooling,” Educational Leadership 59:7 (April 2002).

Home-schooling may satisfy parents’ desire to customize education for their children, but such customization reflects a consumer mentality in education and potentially dilutes active democratic citizenship.

Just 10 years ago, educating a child at home was illegal in several states. Today, not only is home-schooling legal everywhere, it’s booming. Home-schooling is probably the fastest-growing segment of the education market, expanding at a rate of 15 to 20 percent a year (Lines, 2000a). More children are home schooled than attend charter schools. More children are home schooled than attend conservative Christian academies.

And it’s not just left-wing unschoolers and right-wing religious fundamentalists who are keeping their children at home. Taking advantage of the Internet and other new technologies, more middle-of-the- road suburbanites are home-schooling, too. Time and Newsweek have featured home-schooling on their covers. The U.S. Congress passed a

82 Rob Reich is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ethics in Society, and, by courtesy, Education, Stanford University, 417 Galvez Mall, Department of Political Science, Stanford, CA 94305; [email protected]. He is also a senior research associate for the Aspen Institute Program on Education in a Changing Society.


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resolution in 1999 declaring the week of September 19 to be National Home Education Week. Home-schooling has gone mainstream.

In response to the rise of home-schooling, policymakers and public school administrators and teachers need to consider what makes home-schooling so popular. Chief among the many reasons to home school is the ability to customize a child’s education at home.

Customizing Education at Home

The ability to custom-tailor an education for their children is often the motivation for parents to home school. No other education arrangement offers the same freedom to arrange an education designed for an individual student; in home schools, parents are responsible not only for selecting what their children will learn, but when, how, and with whom they will learn. In this sense, home-schooling represents the apex of customization in education.

But is this customization always a good thing? From the standpoint of the parents who choose to home school, it surely is; they wouldn’t be doing it otherwise, especially in light of the considerable energy and time it requires of them. But considered from the standpoint of democratic citizenship, the opportunity to customize education through home-schooling isn’t an unadulterated good. Customizing education may permit schooling to be tailored for each individual student, but total customization also threatens to insulate students from exposure to diverse ideas and people and thereby to shield them from the vibrancy of a pluralistic democracy. These risks are perhaps greatest for home-schoolers. To understand why, we need first to understand more about the current practice of home-schooling.

Home-schooling Today

Home-schooling is more than an education alternative. It is also a social movement (Stevens, 2001; Talbot, 2001). In 1985, approximately 50,000 children were being educated at home. In 2002, at least 1 million children are being home schooled, with some estimates pegging the number at 2 million, an increase of 20- or 40-fold. (It’s symptomatic of the unregulated environment of home-schooling that precise figures on the number of home-schoolers are impossible to establish.) Depending on the estimate you choose (Bielick, Chandler, & Broughman, 2001; Lines, 2000a), home-schoolers account for 2–4 percent of the school-going population.

Home-schooling parents are politically active. Former Pennsylvania Representative Bill Goodling, the former chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, has called home-schoolers “the most effective education lobby on Capitol Hill” (as cited in Golden, 2000). Home-schoolers have established both local and national networks for lobbying purposes and for offering curricular support to one another. Several national organizations, led by the Home School Legal Defense Association, promote home-schooling. Even the former Secretary of Education, William Bennett, is a fan—he has created a for-profit company called K12, the purpose of which is to supply curricular and testing materials to home-schoolers.


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But who home schools, and why? Two main groups of home-schoolers have emerged, both of which raise difficult questions about customization.

The larger of the groups is the Christian right. Although home-schooling has become a much more diverse enterprise in the past 10 years, its strength as a social movement and the majority of its practitioners are conservative Christians. Precise data are scarce, but researchers tend to agree that whereas home schools of the 1970s “reflected a liberal, humanistic, pedagogical orientation,” the majority of home schools in the 1980s and 1990s “became grounds of and for ideological, conservative, religious expressions of educational matters” (Carper, 2000, p. 16). Today, most parents choose to educate their children at home because they believe that their children’s moral and spiritual needs will not be met in campus-based schools.

Those who educate their children at home for religious reasons often object to the secular bias of public schools. By keeping their children at home, they seek to provide a proper religious education free from the damning influences of secularism and pop culture. These home-schoolers wish to avoid the public school at all costs.

The second group practices a different kind of home-schooling. They seek partnerships with public schools to avail themselves of resources, support, guidance, and extracurricular activities that they could not otherwise obtain or provide at home. For these parents, some participation in public schools is desirable.

Various mechanisms have emerged to allow home schooled students to connect on a partial basis with the public school system. In California, for example, approximately 10 percent of the charter schools serve students whose primary learning is at home (Lines, 2000b). Other districts have set up “virtual” academies online to aid in the enrollment of home-schoolers. Still other school districts permit students to attend some classes but not others and to participate in extracurricular activities (Rothstein, 2002). Finally, a few public school districts have set up home-schooling resource centers, staffed by public school teachers and professional curriculum developers, that home-schooling parents can use at their convenience.

Democratic Citizenship and Customization

Each kind of home schooler—the family who teaches the child solely at home and the family who seeks some inter-action with the public school system—is practicing customization in education. For the first, parents can tailor the education environment to their own convictions and to their beliefs about what their child’s needs and interests are. For the second, parents can select the aspects of the public system they and their child want, creating an overall program designed for their child.

What’s to worry about either kind of customization? Let me put the matter quite simply. Customizing a child’s education through home-schooling represents the victory of a consumer mentality within education, suggesting that the only purpose that education should serve is to please and satisfy the preferences of the consumer. Education, in my view, is not a consumption item in the same sense as the food we select from the grocery store.


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Many home-schoolers would surely protest here that their energetic efforts to overcome numerous obstacles to educate their children at home are motivated by a desire to shield their children from rampant consumerism and to offer their children a moral environment in which they learn deeper and more important values. No doubt this is true.

But my point is not that home-schooling parents are inculcating in their children a consumer mentality. My point is that many home-schooling parents view the education of their children as a matter properly under their control and no one else’s. They feel entitled to “purchase” the education environment of their children from the marketplace of learning materials, with no intermediary between them and their child. The first kind of home schooler actually does purchase learning materials for the home. The second kind of home schooler treats the public school system as a provider of services and activities from which parents choose what they want, as if it were a restaurant with an extensive menu.

And this attitude is the crucial point. Home-schooling is the apogee of parental control over a child’s education, where no other institution has a claim to influence the schooling of the child. Parents serve as the only filter for a child’s education, the final arbiters of what gets included and what gets excluded.

This potentially compromises citizenship in the following ways:

• In a diverse, democratic society, part of able citizenship is to come to respect the fact that other people will have beliefs and convictions, religious and otherwise, that conflict with one’s own. Yet from the standpoint of citizenship, these other people are equals. And students must learn not only that such people exist, but how to engage and deliberate with them in the public arena. Thus, students should encounter materials, ideas, and people that they or their parents have not chosen or selected in advance.

• Citizenship is the social glue that binds a diverse people together. To be a citizen is

to share something in common with one’s fellow citizens. As the legal scholar Sunstein (2001) has argued, a hetero-geneous society without some shared experiences and common values has a difficult time addressing common problems and risks social fragmentation. Schooling is one of the few remaining social institutions—or civic intermediaries—in which people from all walks of life have a common interest and in which children might come to learn such common values as decency, civility, and respect.

• Part of being a citizen is exercising one’s freedom. Indeed, the freedoms that U.S.

citizens enjoy are a democratic inheritance that we too often take for granted. But to be free is not simply to be free from coercion or constraint. Democratic freedom requires the free construction and possible revision of beliefs and preferences. To become free, students must be exposed to the vibrant diversity of a democratic society so that they possess the liberty to live a life of their own design.

Because home schooled students receive highly customized educations, designed usually to accord with the preferences of parents, they are least likely in principle to be exposed to materials, ideas, and people that have not been chosen in advance; they are least likely to share common education experiences with other children; and they are most likely to


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have a narrow horizon of experiences, which can curtail their freedom. Although highly customized education for students may produce satisfied parents as consumers, and even offer excellent academic training to the student, it is a loss from a civic perspective.

Civic Perils

I do not argue that home-schooling undermines citizenship in all cases. On the contrary, I have elsewhere defended the practice of home-schooling, when properly regulated (Reich, 2002). Many home-schooling parents are deeply committed to providing their children with an education that introduces them to a great diversity of ideas and people. And for those home-schoolers who seek partnerships with public schools, their children do participate in common institutions with other children. I do not intend to condemn home-schooling wholesale, for I have met many home schooled students who are better prepared for democratic citizenship than the average public school student.

My claim is about the potential civic perils of a home schooled education, where schooling is customizable down to the tiniest degree. Customization, and, therefore, home-schooling, seem wonderful if we think about education as a consumption item. But schooling, from the time that public schools were founded until today, has served to cultivate democratic citizenship. And though this may be a largely forgotten aim, as many have argued, we should not allow a new consumer mentality to become the driving metaphor for the education of children.

REFERENCES

Bielick, S., Chandler, K., & Broughman, S. (2001, July 31). Home-schooling in the United States: 1999 (NCES 2001-033). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Carper, J. C. (2000, April). Pluralism to establishment to dissent: The religious and educational context of home-schooling. Peabody Journal of Education, 75(1, 2), 8–19.

Golden, D. (2000, April 24). Home-schoolers learn how to gain clout inside the beltway. Wall Street Journal, p. A1.

Lines, P. (2000a, Summer). Home-schooling comes of age. Public Interest, 140, 74–85.

Lines, P. (2000b, April). When home-schoolers go to school: A partnership between families and schools. Peabody Journal of Education, 75(1, 2), 159–186.

Reich, R. (2002). Bridging liberalism and multiculturalism in American education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rothstein, R. (2002, January 2). Augmenting a home-school education. New York Times, p. B11.

Stevens, M. (2001). Kingdom of children: Culture and controversy in the home-schooling movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Sunstein, C. (2001). Republic.com. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Talbot, M. (2001, November). The new counterculture. Atlantic Monthly, 288(4), 136–143.


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Brian Ray is something of a one-man band in the field of home-schooling. He is the founding president of the not-for-profit National Home Education Research Institute and has himself conducted much of the research sponsored by the institute and available on its Web site. His work should be read as that of an advocate, and not that of a disinterested academic. Dr. Ray modestly describes his research as “cutting edge.” Document #11: Brian D. Ray83, Home-schooling Grows Up: Socialization? No problem! (Washington, DC: Home School Legal Defense Association, 2003) (Available at http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/Home-schoolingGrowsUp.pdf) Every parent who home schools has been through the drill: “Oh, you home school. Aren’t you concerned about your child’s socialization?” Even Time magazine picked up on the question: “Home-schooling may turn out better students, but does it create better citizens?” (“Seceding from School,” Time, August 2001.) Home-schooling parents have known the answer for years: “No problem here!” But critics demand proof. Today, the first generation of home schooled students has “grown up,” and there are enough home school graduates to begin to see how they are succeeding in their homes, in their work, and in their lives. In 2003, the Home School Legal Defense Association commissioned the largest research survey to date of adults who were home educated. Conducted by Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute, the study surveyed over 7,300 adults who were home schooled. Over 5,000 of these had been home educated at least seven years, and the statistics in this synopsis are based on their responses. The results confirm what home-schoolers have thought for years: “No problem here.” Continuing education: Can they get into college? The end of formal home-schooling is not the end of the educational road for most home school graduates. Over 74% of home-educated adults ages 18–24 have taken college-level courses, compared to 46% of the general United States population (Table 1). Note that nearly half (49%) of the respondents in this study were still full-time students and many of these had not yet received their degrees, possibly resulting in lower numbers of earned degrees actually reported by home-schoolers. Even so, home school graduates hold their own when compared to the general U.S. population.

83 Dr. Brian D. Ray is president of the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI). He holds his Ph.D. in science education from Oregon State University. NHERI conducts basic datagathering research; serves as a clearinghouse of information for researchers, home educators, attorneys, legislators, policy makers, media, and the public at-large; and provides speaker services on various topics. NHERI also publishes research reports and the unique, academic, refereed journal Home School


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Table 1: Educational attainment of the home educated and the general population ages 18-24 (This age range consisted of 78.6% of the respondents in this study)

N O

NOTE: Total does not equal 100 due to rounding errors from original data source. Can they get a job? Sure! Since the phenomenon of home-schooling is found in many settings, each reflecting the uniqueness of a particular family, it is not surprising to find home school graduates engaged in a wide variety of occupations (Table 2).

84 Source: United States Census Bureau (2003, March 21). Educational attainment of people 18 years and over, by metropolitan and nonmetropolitan residence, age, sex, race and Hispanic origin: March 2002. Retrieved 8/27/03 online. 85 Other = Less than high school, high school graduate, voc/tech program but no degree, and voc/tech diploma after high school.

Home educated (%)

General US84 (%)

Some college but no degree 50.2 34.0 Associates degree 8.7 4.1 Bachelor degree 11.8 7.6 Grad or professional but no degree

2.4 0

Master’s degree 0.8 0.3 Doctorate (Ph.D., Ed.D) 0.0 0.0 Professional degree (MD, JD)

0.2 0.05

Other85 25.8 53.8


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Table 2. Occupations of the home educated.86 Number of

respondents % of respondents

Full-time student 2573 49.0 Other 417 7.9 Homemaker, home educator 383 7.3 Professional 1 (e.g., accountant, RN, artist)

359 6.8

Office worker 313 6.0 Technical (e.g., computer programmer, draftsperson)

232 4.4

Service worker (e.g., hair stylist, janitor) 179 3.4 Owner small business/restaurant, contractor

129 2.5

Manager 127 2.4 Professional 2 (e.g., minister, doctor, college teacher)

103 2.0

Sales 91 1.7 School teacher (but not college) 82 1.6 Tradesperson (e.g., baker, mechanic, carpenter)

80 1.5

Laborer 68 1.3 Military 68 1.3 Protective service 21 0.4 Farmer, farm manager 14 0.3 Operator of machines 8 0.2 Total

5247 100.0

Involved in their communities Home school graduates are active and involved in their communities. Seventy-one percent participate in an ongoing community service activity (e.g., coaching a sports team, volunteering at a school, or working with a church or neighborhood association), compared to 37% of U.S. adults of similar ages (Table 3). Eighty-eight percent of the home school graduates surveyed were members of an organization (e.g., such as a community group, church or synagogue, union, home school group, or professional organization), compared to 50% of U.S. adults.

86 [Data in table reordered by number of respondents.]


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Table 3: Activities in local community and style of living.87 % of

Home Educated

% of U.S.

Adults Have you read any books (in English) in the past six months? 98.5 69 Read a newspaper at least once a week. 60.6 82 Read one or more magazines on a regular basis. 100 89 Watch national news on TV or listen to national news radio almost every day.

42.1 64

Read national news online almost everyday. 29.5 NA88 Do you participate in any ongoing community service activity, for example, coaching a sports team, volunteering at a school, or working with a church or neighborhood association?

71.1 37

Are you a member of any organization, like a community group, church or synagogue, union, home school group, or professional organization?

88.3 50

Attended religious services once a month or more. 93.3 41 Politics and government are too complicated to understand. 4.2 35 Own family has no say in what federal government does. 6.2 44 A person should be allowed to make a speech against churches and religion.

91.5 88

A book most people disapprove of should be kept out of a public library. 40.8 36 A person should be able to make a speech against using taxes to feed people or to pay for medical assistance.

95.9 NA

Could write a letter to government official that clearly states his/her opinion.

98.4 94

Could make a comment or statement at a public meeting.89 96.5 88 Knows how to use the internet. 99.6 37 Uses the internet at home for e-mail. 94.3 NA Uses the internet at home for school research or courses. 73.9 NA Uses the internet at home for information search. 91.4 NA Used a public library or public library program in the past month.90 68.5 32 Used a public library or public library program in the past year. 90.3 56

87 Source for U.S. comparative data, unless noted: Nolin, Mary Jo, Chapman, Chris, and Chandler, Kathryn (1997). Adult civic involvement in the United States: National Household Education Survey [NHES].Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Publication number NCES 97-906. Retrieved online 7/21/03 http://nces.ed.gov/pubs97/97906.pdf; used their findings for adults ages18–39 for comparison purposes 88 NA = Data not available from this study. 89 In this study, a response of either “yes” or “it depends . . .” were considered a “yes” response. It is unclear in Nolin, Chapman, and Chandler which responses were considered “yes.” 90 Source for this row and the next: United States Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2001, June 2). National Household Education Survey of 1999 Data Files,Adult Education Survey, NHES:99. Retrieved 8/21/03 online http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000079.


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Civic affairs: engaged citizens Only 4.2% of the home school graduates surveyed consider politics and government too complicated to understand, compared to 35% of U.S. adults (Table 2). This may account for why home school graduates work for candidates, contribute to campaigns, and vote in much higher percentages than the general population of the United States (Figures 2 through 7). For example, 76% of home school graduates surveyed between the ages of 18–24 voted within the last five years, compared to only 29% of the relevant U.S. population (Figure 7). The numbers of home school graduates who vote are even greater in the older age brackets, with voting levels not falling below 95%, compared to a high of 53% for the corresponding U.S. populace. Interestingly, the three participants in the age-55–69 category were also more civically active than their peers nationwide (but the sample size was so small that this category was/is not included in the figures). Table 4: Civic involvement 18-24 25-39 40-54 Home

EducatedGeneralU.S.

Home Educated

General U.S.

Home Educated

GeneralU.S.

Contributed money to a candidate/political party/political cause

10 3 23 11 37 18

Worked for candidate/political party/political cause

14 1 13 5 15 6

Attended a public meeting

28 21 30 25 56 35

Wrote/telephoned editor/public official or signed a petition

36 31 47 33 59 39

Participated in a protest or boycott

14 7 13 6 22 6

Voted in national/state election in U.S. in past 5 years

76 29 95 40 96 53


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Enjoying life Taking all things into consideration, 59% of the subjects reported that they were “very happy” with life, with another 39% declaring that they were “pretty happy” (Table 5). Life is exciting for most. When compared to the general population of the United States, home school graduates are just more content. Table 5: Enjoyment of life91 Home

Educated (%)

General U.S. (%)

Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are:

Very happy 58.9 27.6 Pretty happy 39.1 63.0 Not too happy 2.0 9.4 In general, do you find life exciting, pretty routine, or dull? Exciting 73.2 47.3 Pretty routine 26.0 49.0 Dull 0.8 3.7 On the whole, how satisfied are you with the work you do? Very satisfied 61.4 39.7 Moderately satisfied 34.5 47.1 A little dissatisfied 3.6 10.1 Very dissatisfied 0.6 3.1 So far as you and your family are concerned, would you say that you are pretty well satisfied with your present financial situation, more or less satisfied, or not satisfied at all?

Pretty well satisfied 48.9 22.9 More or less satisfied 43.3 49.1 Not satisfied at all 7.8 28.0 Some people say that people get ahead by their own hard work; others say that lucky breaks or help from people are more important. Which do you think is most important

Hard work 85.3 68.2 Both hard work and luck equally 14.2 22.2 Luck or help 0.5 9.7

91 Responses of “no opinion” (n=93) were omitted from these statistics in order to obtain a better comparison to the general U.S. statistics. Source: National Opinion Research Center [NORC]. 2003. General Social Survey Codebook. Retrieved 8/27/03 online http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/gss. Chicago, IL:Author. The best comparable data were obtained by using the General Social Survey (GSS) selection filters of “year (2000)” and “age (16–29)”; ages 16 to 29 capture about 98% of the respondents in this study of home-educated adults.


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Appreciating their “alma mater” (and “pater”) For parents who sometimes wonder whether they are doing the right thing by home-schooling their children, it will be an encouragement to know that 95% of the home school graduates surveyed are glad that they were home schooled (Table 6). In the opinion of the home school graduates, home-schooling has not hindered them in their careers or education. Eighty-two percent would home school their own children. Of the 812 study participants who had children age 5 or older, 74% were already home-schooling (Table 7). Table 6: How has home-schooling affected your life? %

StronglyAgree

% Agree

% Neither

% Disagree

% Strongly Disagree

I am glad I was home-schooled 75.8 19.4 2.8 1.4 0.6 Having been home schooled is an advantage to me as an adult

66.0 26.4 5.7 1.5 0.4

Having been home schooled has limited my educational opportunities

1.0 4.2 6.6 29.2 58.9

Having been home schooled has limited my career choices

0.9 1.2 3.9 18.8 75.3

I would home school my children 54.8 27.3 13.5 2.8 1.6 Table 7: Type of education adults who were home educated provided for their children92

Percent Public school 9 Private school 10 Home-school 74 Private and home-school 15 Other 5

Conclusion The results of Dr. Ray’s cutting-edge research defuse long-held false criticisms of home-schooling and seem to indicate that home-schooling produces successful adults who are actively involved in their communities and who continue to value education for themselves and their children.

92 Respondents could mark more than one answer so the total may not equal 100.


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Writing from the perspective of a not-for-profit provider of curricular materials for home-schoolers, Jean Halle encourages us to think of home-schooling “as an important part of the continuum of educational alternatives.”

Document #12: Jean C. Halle93, “Home-schooling: Why We Should Care,” Education Week, November 13, 2002.

Early in the fall, classroom teachers across the country are busy assessing their students’ academic levels, learning styles, and individual needs. No matter how extensive the testing, however, they will face difficulty meeting the singular needs of every student during the course of the year. That’s because successful classroom instruction requires that teaching be directed to the average student; focusing too much time on the few accelerated or underperforming students takes important time away from the majority.

Home-schooling can bridge this learning gap. But first, educators must develop an appreciation for its appeal and its strengths. With increased understanding, they might more readily accept home-schooling as an important part of the continuum of educational alternatives, a powerful tool in the American arsenal for developing young minds.

Many unfamiliar with home-schooling question its academic rigor. They are equally concerned about possible gaps in instruction, the need for socialization, and the potential lack of parent-educators’ qualifications. But moving beyond perceptions, home-schooling is a growing educational success story. Colleges and universities are courting home-schoolers. They are “the epitome of Brown students,” says Joyce Reed, a Brown University associate dean, in a recent alumni magazine article on home-schooling. “They’ve learned to be self-directed, they take risks, they face challenges with total fervor, and they don’t back off.”

This year, home-schoolers accounted for 12 of the 55 finalists in the National Geographic Bee and four of the top-10 finishers. The winner, Calvin McCarter of Jenison, Mich., is home-schooled. Similarly, home-schoolers made up one-tenth of the 248 finalists in the National Spelling Bee this year, even though they account for only 1.7 percent of the school-age population. Home school students on average scored 30 percentile points above the state school average, according to research from the National Home Education Research Institute. These developments speak to the positive results that home-schooling can produce.

Nor is the phenomenon new to the educational landscape. Formal home-schooling began in the early 1900s, because missionaries and others in remote places had no access to schools. These early- 20th-century home-schoolers relied largely on Baltimore’s Calvert School, which in 1906 founded the first U.S. distance-learning program to deliver lessons

93 Jean C. Halle is the president and CEO of Calvert School Education Services, a Baltimore-based not-for-profit home school curriculum provider that annually provides courses to prekindergarten through 8th grade students, in homes, schools, and other educational environments. She can be reached at [email protected].


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and supplies by mail. By the 1940s, the military was using Calvert’s program in some of its schools around the world. Later, after U.S. Supreme Court decisions and congressional action on federal funding for schools began to restrict the role that religion could play in the nation’s classrooms, a new wave of families turned to home-schooling to ensure that their children received faith-based instruction. And the list of curriculum providers and home school booksellers quickly grew.

Even with this growth, however, many school boards have routinely discouraged families from home-schooling by subjecting them to intense scrutiny or misinforming them about regulations. Although home-schooling has been legal in all 50 states since 1993, families still face constant challenges to their ability and authority to home school. “Home-schooling is not authorized in California, and children receiving home-schooling [by a noncredentialed parent] are in violation of state truancy laws,” the California Department of Education announced in July, setting off a battle with the thousands of home-schooling families in the state

What the California state board of education and others fail to grasp is that the home school movement is gaining momentum because of increased community support, program flexibility, and challenging, accessible curricula. Local schools, for example, are making their after-school activities and sports available to home-schoolers, while community centers, including many YMCAS, are establishing home school sessions on weekday afternoons. Besides providing important extracurricular opportunities for these children, such activities afford home-schoolers the chance to develop their socialization skills. Typically, socialization is the first concern educators have about home-schooling, but children who are home-schooled generally participate in a number of activities, groups, and teams with other children because their flexible schedules and self-paced instruction put fewer constraints on their time.

Like public education, home-schooling takes various forms. In both environments, some approaches work and some fail. Families, like school boards, are free to choose what suits them. Among the number of approaches home school families can choose from are “unschooling,” or teaching through life’s examples, and groups that offer a traditional education with professional supervision and parental home instruction.

Many home-schoolers follow rigorous guidelines, often imposed by their local or state school boards. To assist themselves in meeting these criteria, parents rely on professional curriculum providers or guidance that comes from books like The Well-Trained Mind. The teaching materials used by many families match, and often exceed, the levels of classroom course materials.

The modern-day Calvert School, for example, provides each home school family with a lesson manual containing 152 daily lessons, eight reviews, and eight tests in all subjects. We test our lessons on real children in our day school in Baltimore, and then write them with a home teacher in mind, a process that takes at least two years. Our students, with few exceptions, are expected to complete all lessons and cover all portions of the textbook.


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At the heart of home-schooling is quality family time. These one- on-one discussions start in “the home classroom” and move to the grocery store, the doctor’s office, or the park. “Field Trip in Progress” reads a bumper sticker we send in each course box.

If they are committed to the effort, parents, especially those who have professional support, can be effective teachers, even though they are not professionally trained. Bridging the gap from nonteacher to teacher is at the center of effective home-schooling, especially for first-timers. Our research, conducted this year, found that two-thirds of home school parents are newcomers, having taught at home for no more than four years. Their success hinges on quickly developing the ability to instruct and to monitor the child’s understanding of new concepts. To aid them, each daily lesson includes a warm-up activity, introduction, objective, instruction, application, or assignment. Often, enrichments or optional activities designed to boost understanding are included.

To further bolster parents’ success, some curriculum providers offer additional support. We have professionally trained teachers available to discuss questions, concerns, or problems with daily instruction, for example, and also offer a testing service. A teacher grades and corrects a student’s tests in each subject and returns them with a letter directed to the student (or parent in the lower grades) that provides encouragement and suggestions for improvement. Calvert and other providers also offer objective tests with answer keys so parents can assess their children’s understanding of new material.

Families arrive at the decision to home school for a number of reasons. Some choose it because of health reasons or dissatisfaction with a classroom situation. Others decide to home school because their child is in need of accelerated or remedial instruction. And about 10 percent of Calvert’s students are home-schooled because an American education is not available in the country where they live.

Educators are interested in student achievement and should acknowledge and accept that families may elect to home school for a year or two. Moreover, as professional educators, we should work together to make it possible for home- schooled students to be placed in the grade level that best matches the student’s achievement, even if it is not the next grade in the public school sequence. Home-schooled students, because of the individualized instruction, often move more quickly through rigorous course materials than public school students do. Students schooled at home should not suffer in any way for their parents’ choice to educate them at home.

In past decades, newspapers typically published good news about our schools. Now, school news is often bad news—about poor academic performance, violence, limited resources, and failing schools. The success of home-schoolers is a bright spot in our struggle to improve American education. Home-schooling should be treated that way.

Home school families invest their own money and time in their children’s education, removing the common obstacles of politics and funding from the educational equation. With the influence of home-schooling, the focus of education is finally—and rightfully—shifting from what is right politically and financially to what is right for the children. And that is great news, worthy of far more attention.


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Zeroing gradually in on Pennsylvania, we turn to Marshall and Valle, who describe the experiences of some Pennsylvania parents engaged in educating their children at home. Although they use the felicitous term “the truly departed” to refer to these parents, as we already know and will see in greater detail shortly, home-schoolers are seldom, if ever, “truly departed” from their public school systems.

Document #13: J. Dan Marshall and James P. Valle, “Public School Reform: Potential Lessons from the Truly Departed,” Education Policy Analysis Archives 4:12 (August 1996) If “school reform” is a bandwagon, then the parade is still in progress. Most of the grand proposals earlier composed by politicians, pundits, policy wonks, and professors have evolved into smaller, more locally pertinent endeavors by actual change participants (educators, students, parents and community members). In the worst case, the continuing accumulation of school reform efforts is understood as succeeding waves of perpetual hassle and silliness which disturb the basic soundness of business-as-usual. In the best case, such efforts become a representation of participants’ commitment to the repetitive nature of the learning process: desiring to know and understand — acting upon these desires — making sense of and reflecting upon those actions — identifying new or different desires to know and understand. Thus, in the best case, school reform efforts should be here to stay. Those who care about examining and acting upon the quality of their local schools seek information from numerous sources, including their own experiences, outside consultants, beliefs and opinions collected from local, state, and national polls, and “the literature” of academia. But they seldom tap the one segment of their community which may provide the most unique perspective: parents who have opted out of the local public school system. We suspect that this group—particularly those families who have taken it upon themselves to provide education at home—may have something important to offer those working to change public education. In this article, we discuss our preliminary foray into the lives of several Pennsylvania home educators in light of public school reform efforts. Home Education—A Return to Educational Agency The philosopher Jane Roland Martin (1996) recently discussed the relationship between a nation’s cultural wealth and its commitments to education in the broadest sense. Working from the premise that cultural wealth must be broadly defined to include multiple “conceptions of high, popular, and material culture, and . . . countless other items as well” (p. 6), she suggests that the educational responsibility or agency for transmitting this wealth must return to the breadth it once enjoyed. And for a good deal of time in our history the home bore much of this educational agency. Prior to the great American experiment of educating all young people in publicly funded schools, most families bore primary responsibility for the education of their children. Support for these efforts in the form of reinforcement, refinement, and reorientation could be counted on from the community, extended family, and the church. While schools existed in our colonial period, they had little to offer the majority of people and little currency as a stand alone educational site. Even during the nineteenth century, the


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“common school” movement was accompanied by corresponding community located educational efforts (public libraries, agricultural societies, etc.). Slowly, beginning with Massachusetts in 1852 and ending with Mississippi in 1918, the United States became a land of compulsory schooling laws which, Supreme Court decisions in the early 1920s notwithstanding, legitimized schools as the primary educational agency. “It was only in the 20th century,” Martin writes, “that schools came to be seen as the sum total of education” (1996, p. 8). Martin’s (1996) overarching point is that “the assets that our culture has placed in school’s keep [i.e., preparing young people for their places in the world of politics, work, and the professions] represent one small portion of the [cultural] wealth” of our country (p.8); much of our remaining cultural wealth (largely that which pertains to popular and material culture) was assigned to the educational agency of home. Over time, the primacy of schools as bearers of educational agency and transmitters of dominant, high cultural wealth has overwhelmed the educational agency of the home and its historically gendered role in preserving other forms of cultural wealth. Social and political activities blossoming in the 1960s helped to tie these “other forms of cultural wealth” directly to public schooling. As the federal government moved into the business of national curriculum development, activists and parents raised questions about the overall relevance of schooling to students’ “real lives.” The growing movements around people’s rights (collective and individual) combined with a deteriorating political environment to produce a general desire to among many to question authority. Humanistic and critical thinking and practices complicated public schools which were caught in the throes of desegregation, while values—ranging from religious and spiritual to democratic and political—were noted as absent from the overall school experience. At the same time, new alternatives to the business-as-usual of public schooling began to appear. The late John Holt embodies the transitional spirit of school reform during these times. From his call for sweeping changes in public schools in 1964 (How Children Fail) he came to believe that parents and families, themselves, must re-take control of their children’s education. With the establishment of his magazine, Growing Without School in 1977, Holt dedicated the rest of his life to nurturing and supporting the civic-minded educational agency of the home by popularizing home education (Marshall and Sears, 1985). “Home-schooling,” the more popular term to describe families who teach their children at home (Litcher & Schmidt, 1991)(Note 2), has grown from roughly 15,000 to 350,000 students within the past ten years (Jeub, 1994; Lines, 1991). While in 1980 only three states had established laws to permit and control home-schooling, 34 states have done so to date. Pennsylvania’s more liberally enabling home-schooling legislation (unanimously passed by both legislative bodies) went into effect in late 1988, following the state’s supreme court ruling on the unconstitutionality of its previously confining statute (Klicka, 1990). We have a long-term interest in learning more about the pedagogical practices and guiding beliefs of these Pennsylvania home educators. In the following section we describe


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our initial effort to establish lines of communication and develop a sense of their feelings toward education at home and in schools. Perspectives from Pennsylvania Home Educators Following the passage of this more liberal Pennsylvania legislation, one of us (Jim) became involved with home educators as the “District Evaluator” of their efforts. In addition to his work as an elementary school teacher, his evaluator’s job is to see that home-based educational activities concur with the law’s requirements. Jim seems a wise choice for this role in that he is a former administrator of a Christian school, a longstanding member of the community, and (alongside his wife) a home educator himself. No less important, perhaps, is his reputation throughout the community as a vocal supporter of home education. When requested, Jim also serves families in the role of “independent evaluator” (an advocate who is personally selected by each home education family) to certify that the family’s efforts have been “appropriate” in the eyes of the law. These roles provide him with “official” (though not necessarily intimidating) access to home educators in several school districts, including his own. Jim’s local school district includes about 15,000 people and can be rightfully described as largely rural and conservative. The county’s picturesque landscape in southeastern Pennsylvania, once dominated by neatly spaced barns and silos, is increasingly dappled with housing developments—up from 49 new housing permits in 1980 to 518 in 1990. Most of the district’s 2,508 students begin school in one of four elementary buildings, move on to the lone middle school, and eventually matriculate to the central high school. During the present school year some 55 children from this district are being educated at home—a number that has risen steadily since 1988. We wondered what has prompted so many families to sidestep the public school system and take on the work of educating their students at home. How might they characterize their motivation for and commitment to the educational agency they have regained as home educators? As the first step in a larger study designed to explore the curricular understandings and practices of home educators, we contacted all 27 home education families from Jim’s district, along with 16 additional families for whom he serves as independent evaluator (a total of 43 families). Each family received a personal letter from Jim, describing and seeking their participation in the larger study, and asking them to complete and return a brief (one side of one page) survey designed to collect preliminary demographic information (number of school-aged children, number of years residing in district, etc.) along with answers to two simple questions. Those considering further participation signed these forms and provided telephone numbers; others remained anonymous. Nineteen families (44%) responded to our initial inquiry—a response rate we accepted as adequate for our exploratory purposes, given that many home educators prefer not to interact with interlopers (Clark, 1994). They raise an average of three school-aged children, all of whom are home educated in 15 of these families. Respondents have been Pennsylvanians for an average of more than 23 years (range of 1-45) and have lived within their particular school district for an average of 10 years. On average, these families have


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been conducting home education for nearly five years, though they range in this work from one to 11 years. Compelling Reasons for Home Education. Our survey made two simple, straightforward requests: 1) to describe the most compelling reason(s) for home education and 2) to say whether or not public schooling might again become an option and, if so, under what conditions. In cases where families offered more than one response, we identified their first one as a “primary” response, followed by a “secondary” response, etc. Our home education families offered at least five different reasons which compel them to teach their children at home. Though recorded by respondents as such, these reasons may not be mutually exclusive. Here, we present them separately. The least often mentioned reason was “cost.” Only three of the 19 families identified home education as a choice resulting from the prohibitive cost of private schooling, though none of these saw cost as a primary reason. These three families identify themselves as having chosen home education for religious reasons as well. Five respondents specified what we call “family cohesion” as a compelling (though not primary in any case) reason for home education. Here, respondents speak of benefits like “family unity,” and “spending time together.” These families have been conducting home education from four to nine years, and all who listed family cohesion also identified themselves as religiously motivated home educators. Some 36% of families (seven) named “peer influence” as a compelling reason for leaving (or never entering) the public schools. This reason, typically expressed as “influences of other students” such as “boy-girl relationships,” “drugs, sex, alcohol,” and “becoming part of the Tin crowd,” cut across the range of respondents in most respects (number of years doing home education, primary reasons for home education, etc.). While only two of those identifying “peer influence” as a compelling reason for home education also included religious reasons, “peer influence” was the sole, primary, or secondary reason noted by all who included it. Fewer than half (8) of our respondents explicitly stated religious beliefs as a compelling reason for home education, with six of these eight families listing this as their sole or most compelling reason. Representative of such beliefs would be the following statement: “We home school so that our children might receive an education that is consistent with our belief that God created the world and is in control of it.” Interestingly, all but two of these families have been home educating for five or more years (the upper end of our range). Within our sample, the most frequently offered reason for educating children at home pertains to the problematic quality of life and learning found in public schools—what we call “learning concerns.” These concerns ranged from dull academic environments to an over-emphasis on college-bound students; from inappropriate labeling of children to an inability to individualize instruction; from teachers who don’t care to administrators “out to get” certain problem kids. Thirteen of our 19 families (68%) found such matters compelling, with seven listing learning concerns as either their sole or primary reason for abandoning public schools. Though this reason was identified by families who have been


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practicing home-based education from 1-7 years, it is the dominant (i.e., sole or primary) reason among those seven responding families with the fewest (1-3) years of practice in home education. Among these 19 families, 58% (eleven) identified multiple reasons compelling them to separate themselves from the district’s public schools. Six of these eleven families include their religious beliefs as one of those reasons (almost all as a primary or secondary reason), yet only three of those six families list both religious convictions and learning-related concerns (in contrast, for example, to “family cohesion” which is mentioned by five of these six families). Of those eight families who offered but a single compelling reason for electing home education, two were religious and one was peer influence; the remaining five noted “learning concerns.” Returning to the Public School Fold. When asked whether or not they would “ever consider” returning to public schools and if yes, why, the answer from nearly 75% of our respondents was simply “No.” Within this group of parents, seven were unequivocal and emphatic; three would do so only as a result of some personal catastrophe (e.g., illness or death); two would consider such a move only if their children requested it; one would return children to public schools only if the law required it; and one family would consider public schooling again only if the schools somehow changed. The remaining five families were clearly less strident in their feelings about a possible return to public schools. Two families are among only four from our sample who simultaneously have children attending public schools and, we suspect, see public schools as a viable place for some of their children but not others. In the remaining three cases, one family may consider returning their child to the public schools in order to take advantage of a senior high school vocational-technical career training option, another is considering a return in light of their local school’s apparently more enlightened understanding of their child’s particular needs (in this case, “hyperactivity”), and the third would consider a return if they felt they were unable to adequately prepare their children for post-high school learning. Looking at the question differently, nearly 60% of these home educators take the position that nothing short of personal catastrophe or the long arm of the law would get their children back into public schools. Of this group, eight have been practicing home education for five years or more. None of those who have abandoned public schools for religious reasons would return to the public schools, nor would six of the nine families who included learning concerns but not religious beliefs among their reasons to educate their children at home. The five families that would consider returning their children to the public school fold all say that they left (or decided against ever enrolling in the first place) due to concerns about their children’s learning and/or peer influence. All but one of these families have been home educating for three years or less, and all respond to this question with respect to their children. That is, for these families, home education seems to be a choice which has been made in the best interests of (and perhaps in consultation with) their school-aged


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children. This group of parents, it seems, will “see how it goes”—for their children at home and with respect to what’s happening within their neighborhood public schools. Ideologues, Pedagogues and Beyond In light of the extant scholarship on “home-schooling,” none of this is especially new. Numerous studies have surfaced similar motivating factors (see, for example, Mayberry, 1989; Mayberry & Knowles, 1989), though most find much more significance in the religion factor than we presently do (Lines, 1991). Much of this work has been built on a scaffold developed by Jane Van Galen (1988, 1991) who characterizes parents who teach their children at home as falling into “two broad categories” of home education parents: Ideologues and Pedagogues. Acknowledging “tremendous variation” within and across these groupings, Van Galen (1988) describes Ideologues as those parents, largely conservative Christian in their religious beliefs, who “object to what they believe is being taught in public and private schools and . . . seek to strengthen their relationship with their children.” In contrast, Pedagogues believe that “schools teach whatever they teach ineptly” and that, based on their respect for their children’s intelligence and creativity, “children learn best when pedagogy taps into the child’s innate desire to learn.” Thus, Ideologues abandon public schools when they feel that schools teach “a curriculum that directly contradict[s] their own values and beliefs,” while Pedagogues opt for home education “because they [believe] that their children would be harmed academically and emotionally by the organization and pedagogy of formal schools” (Van Galen, 1988, p. 55). In some respects, Van Galen’s categories seem to fit our preliminary inquiry. Those Pennsylvanians we contacted who home educate for “religious” reasons are the same parents who identified “family cohesion” and “prohibitive cost” (each of the three families mentioned Christian schools here) as compelling reasons for sustaining their home education efforts. Thus, we could refer to this collection of eight families as similar to Van Galen’s Ideologues. These families constitute the more veteran home-schoolers among our respondents—with half of them pre-dating Pennsylvania’s 1988 home education law. Further, while only two families within this group listed religious beliefs as their sole compelling reason for home education, six of the 11 families offering multiple reasons could be characterized as Ideologues. All of this suggests that while religious beliefs may be strong among this group, the concomitant benefit of family cohesion along with the prohibitive cost of private Christian schools help to keep them educating children at home. Only three of these eight families, for example, specifically offered any sort of “learning concern” as a compelling reason for leaving or never even considering the public schools. Van Galen’s “Pedagogue” category also finds strong support from our preliminary findings. With the exception of the three families who listed both religious beliefs (Ideologues) and learning concerns (Pedagogues) as compelling reasons for dismissing public schools, our Pedagogues do, indeed, seem to highlight concerns about academic and/or emotional harm resulting from “the organization and pedagogy of formal schools.” Further, this


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group was unmistakably more willing than their Ideologue counterparts to consider returning their children to public schools under certain circumstances. What we find problematic about this categorization scheme, however, is its temptation to allow us to reduce what Harris & Fields (1982) call this “outlaw generation” of parents into easily identifiable (and thus, easily disposable) caricatures: Ideologues become right-wing Christian fanatics and Pedagogues become New Age eco-progressives. In short, we risk distancing “them” from “us.” Marginalizing home educators as “them” further serves to support and sustain all the myths which have grown up around this movement—including myths about who “can” teach, what does and doesn’t get taught/learned, and the social isolation of home-educated students (Meighan, 1984). Again, much available information indicates otherwise (see, for example, Calvery and Others, 1992; Frost, 1988; Groover & Endsley, 1988; Ray, 1988; Ray & Wartes, 1991; Stough, 1992; Tipton, 1990; Webb, 1989). More importantly, however, such myths reinforce the primacy of school as the sole educational agency, particularly when they are perpetuated by professional educators like education professor Robert Slywester, who believes that “Home-schooled children miss important opportunities,” and Thomas Shannon, executive director of the National School Boards Association, who believes that “Few [home educating] parents . . . are objectively qualified to do so” (Cohen, 1995, p.7; see, also, Mahan & Ware, 1987). But exploring and explaining these myths detours our attention to larger and more important matters concerning educational agency and civic-minded public schooling. Arguing that only schools can provide social competence or state certified teachers sidesteps the larger and more immediate questions pertaining to which specific civic and cultural responsibilities belong to and might best be accomplished within schools and how those differ from responsibilities which belong to and might best be addressed within the home and family. Home and school—the two primary sites of educational agency—must, Jane Roland Martin argues, begin to balance and share responsibilities for maintaining our cultural wealth. As Martin puts it:

It is downright irrational to persist in assigning school a function that is defined in relation to and relies on home’s educational agency while denying the existence of that very agency. It is also the height of folly to assign what we take to be our one and only educational agent the task of preparing children for life in the public sphere . . . Besides, given the great changes home has undergoing in recent decades and the importance to both the development of children and the life of society of the cultural wealth that home has been charged with transmitting, to equate education with schooling, yet continue to endorse a function for school that is premised on home’s carrying out an opposite but equally important function, is short-sighted in the extreme. (1996, p.9)


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Potential Lessons from the Truly Departed Let us reiterate: Our simple inquiry was not designed in order to construct significant generalizations from a large or unique database. Rather, we hoped to openly and honestly connect with those volunteer families who might later serve as informants for a study of home educators’ curriculum and instruction practices. Towards this ultimate end, we posed two simple questions could might permit us to discover certain angles and issues related to home education which might not yet have been developed within this growing body of scholarship, and permit our respondents to remain anonymous or self-identify as a statement of further interest. While public schools in Pennsylvania and across the United States seem grudgingly headed toward positions of greater interactive support for home educators, they do so, in part, to recoup moneys lost when “home” students do not appear on public school rolls. Beyond this mercenary motivation, reconciliation is sought in the name of accountability and control. Maralee Mayberry believes, for example, that “a significant proportion” of home educators who are permitted to have a say in how new relationships get negotiated between themselves and their local public schools will, over time, “accept some guidance and standards from states and public schools” (Cohen, 1995, p.6). Meanwhile, few efforts are made to critically reflect upon what home-based educators have to say “about learning, about educational policy, and about the strength and viability of the institution of schooling” (Van Galen & Pitman, 1991a, p. 5). We believe that our preliminary inquiry, when seen in light of the existing knowledge about home-based teachers and learners, contains several important inferences of value to those engaged in school reform efforts. To begin, don’t oversimplify people and their concerns. Public school curricula remain “godless” in the eyes of primarily religious-motivated home educators (Van Galen’s Ideologues). And though issues around the “wall of separation” between the secular and spiritual aspects of public schooling in this country continue to proliferate in all venues of public discourse, our data suggest that such issues are typically interwoven with others having to do with social and pedagogical values. Complex issues like these provide openings where people can explore and attempt to untangle their concerns in an effort to communicate their differences and seek commonalities. The greatest area of concern registered by the home educators represented here pertains to parents’ dissatisfaction with schools in which their children could not learn and grow strong in appropriate ways (Van Galen’s Pedagogues). Rather than place their children within environments they characterized as too quick to produce and act according to labels (e.g., behavior problem or slow learner), or too academically challenging or unchallenging, most of these families claim to have given up on the possibility of that ever happening. For these families to dismiss those opportunities which can perhaps best be provided through the educational agency of school is a tragic loss which affects everyone who cares about civic America.


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The most complicated and pertinent message about the state of public school affairs we find within our data pertains to home educators’ concerns about “peer influence”—a message all but lost when oversimplifying the Ideologue/Pedagogue categories. Variously referred to as concerns about the effects of urbanization and modernization (Mayberry & Knowles, 1989) or the quality of socialization (Mayberry, 1989), parents of all religious, ideological, and social persuasions in our sample are removing their children from U.S. public schools on the basis of “peer concerns” (for additional support for and elaboration of this position, see Aiex, 1994; Gladin, 1987; Knowles and Others, 1994; Morgan & Rodriguez, 1988; Pike, 1992). The message here is that schools are simultaneously feeding and reflecting broader social and cultural changes which are considered inappropriate by growing numbers of people. This critique of schools is not new. The 26th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of attitudes toward public schools indicates that among the top four problems faced by schools and communities are “fighting/gangs/violence,” “lack of discipline,” and “drug abuse” (Elam, Rose, & Gallop, 1994). Indeed, concerns about discipline and drugs have been uppermost in the minds of respondents over the past 25 years of such polls (Elam, Rose, and Gallup, 1993). And while poll respondents carefully complete these Gallop surveys, Pennsylvania’s home educators continue in growing numbers to remove their children from socially and culturally complicated public school environments. In our state, the number of school-aged children educated at home doubled between 1990 and 1992 as the number of home education support groups climbed to more than 100 (Richman, 1994). That our sample of home educators comes from a largely rural Pennsylvania community underscores the need for concerned school reformers to confront the porous nature of the school/community inter-relationship head on—not in an attempt to more successfully isolate its school inhabitants, but rather in an effort to identify and better understand larger problems, construct and critique desirable alternative visions, and determine appropriate collective actions (Note 3). Such opportunities provide a site where parents, educators and community members struggle through their distinct and reinforcing roles and responsibilities—a site where the realization that various educational agencies must jointly participate in the transmission of cultures to our youth cannot be ignored. Conclusion With so many public school educators diligently at work to bring renegade parent educators back in line in terms of the products of public schooling (test scores, content coverage, minutes on-task, etc.), we believe that those committed to public school reform ought to pay a different sort of attention to them. Confronting a changing culture is the order of the day for a public school machine slowly becoming obsolete within an increasingly conservative, libertarian effort to ignore an inevitably postmodern world (see Doyle, 1992). In this world, absolutes are fading, demands upon schools have increased to the point where individual learning and development can no longer be taken for granted, and balkanization, fear and ennui have


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overwhelmed civic-mindedness. And while schools have obvious and crucial educational and cultural responsibilities in light of this world, they are not alone. To address these issues, Jane Roland Martin urges schools to return to an earlier position wherein they shared their responsibilities with other educational agents—particularly with the home. This change will require that those who represent schools see themselves, again, as members of “the whole range of cultural custodians” and accept that “school has much to gain from treating other educational agents as partners rather than as humble assistants or else dangerous rivals” (10). Doing so also creates the need for all educational agents to understand, appreciate, and accept responsibility (and thus, be accountable) for the cultural work at hand. In her words: if we can envision an array of institutions, all of which share the tasks of preserving our vast cultural assets, see themselves and are seen by others as legitimate educational agents, and work together to transmit the [cultural] wealth, we will at least have a better idea of what to strive for. (1996, p. 10) We choose to see home educators as thoughtful and important critics of public schooling who have decided to assume their responsibilities as what Henry Giroux terms “cultural workers” at great personal cost and uncertainty. Parents who educate their children at home do so at considerable cost (Bishop, 1991; Reynolds & Williams, 1985; Williams and Others, 1984). It is “an arduous option” (Lines, 1983, p.183) to educate one’s children at home; as Virginia Seuffert (1990), a home-teaching mother notes, “Home-schooling dominates your time and demands a certain energy level that not everyone has” (p. 74). Nonetheless, the number of home educators continues to increase nationwide—a fact that should put everyone committed to the ongoing reformation of public schools on notice. That so many families we contacted in rural Pennsylvania have exited the public schools solely or primarily for “pedagogical” reasons, that more than one third remove their children because of “peer influence” concerns, and that so few parent-teachers can imagine their children returning to those exited public institutions ought to tell us something not only about our neighbors but about ourselves. Perhaps it’s time for us to consider the possibility that these “truly departed” represent important voices in our continuing efforts to reform schools in light of our changing world.

REFERENCES

Aiex, N.K. (1994). Home-schooling and socialization of children. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 372 460.

Bishop, C. (1991). Home-schooling parent support groups in Kansas: A naturalistic inquiry into their concerns and functions. Ph.D Dissertation, University of Kansas. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 338 368.

Calvery, R., and others. (1992). The difference in achievement between home schooled and public schooled students for grades four, seven, and ten in Arkansas. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association, Knoxville, TN, November 11-13. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 354 248.

Clark, C. (1994). Home-schooling. C Q Researcher, 4 (33), 769-792.


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Cohen, P. (1995). Schooling away from school. Education Update, 37(6), 1,6,8.

Doyle, D.P. (1992). The challenge, the opportunity. Phi Delta Kappan, 73(7), 512-520.

Elam, S.M., Rose, L.C., & Gallop, A.M. (1994). The 26th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallop poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(1), 45-56.

Elam, S.M., Rose, L.C., & Gallop, A.M. (1993). The 25th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallop poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 75(2), 137-151.

Frost, G. (1988). The academic success of students in home-schooling. Illinois School Research and Development, 24(3), 1111-117.

Gladin, E.W. (1987). Home education: Characteristics of its families and schools. Ed.D. Dissertation, Bob Jones University. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 301 925.

Groover, S.V., & Endsley, R.C. (1988). Family environment and attitudes of home-schoolers and non-home-schoolers. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 323 027.

Harris, J.J., & Fields, R.E. (1982). Outlaw generation: A legal analysis of the home-instruction movement. Educational Horizons, 61(1), 26-31, 50-51.

Jeub, C. (1994). Why parents choose home-schooling. Educational Leadership, 52, 50-52.

Klicka, C.J. (1990). Home-schooling in the United States: A statutory analysis. Paeonian Springs, VA: Home School Legal Defense Association.

Knowles, J.G., & Others. (1994). Home education as an alternative to institutional education. Educational Forum, 58(3), 238-243.

Lines, P. (1991). Home instruction: The size and growth of the movement. In J. Van Galen & M.A. Pitman (Eds.), Home-schooling: Political, historical, and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 9-42).. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Lines, P.M. (1983). Private education alternatives and state regulation. Journal of Law and Education, 12(2), 189-234.

Litcher, J.H., & Schmidt, S.J. (1991). Social studies in the home schools. Social Education, 55(4), 239-241, 248.

Mahan, B.M., & Ware, B.J. (1987). Home-schooling: Reasons some parents choose this alternative form of education, and a study of the attitudes of home-schooling parents and public school superintendents toward the benefits of home-schooling. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 286 624.

Marshall, J.D., & Sears, J.T. (1985). John Holt: In memory. Changing Schools, 13, 5.

Martin, J.R. (1996). There’s too much to teach: Cultural wealth in an age of scarcity. Educational Researcher, 25 (2), 4-10.

Mayberry, M. (1989). Home-based education in the United States: Demographics, motivations and educational implications. Educational Review, 41(2), 171-180.

Mayberry, M., & Knowles, J.G. (1989). Family unity objectives of parents who teach their children: Ideological and pedagogical orientations to home-schooling. Urban Review, 21 (4), 209-225.

Meighan, R. (1984). Political consciousness and home-based education. Educational Review, 36(2), 65-73.

Morgan, P.T., & Rodriguez, R.C. (1988). Home school parents: A rural survey. Rural Education, 10(1), 15-18.


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Pike, B. (1992). Why I teach my children at home. Phi Delta Kappan, 73(7), 564-565.

Ray, B.D. (1988). Home schools: A synthesis of research on characteristics and learner outcomes. Education and Urban Society, 21(1), 16-31.

Ray, B.D., & Wartes, J. (1991). The academic achievement and affective development of home-schooled children. In J. Van Galen & M.A. Pitman (Eds.), Home-schooling: Political, historical, and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 43-62 ).. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Reynolds, P.L., & Williams, D.D. (1985). The daily operations of a home school family: A case study. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, March 31 - April 4. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 256 080.

Richman, H.B. (1994). Home-schooling: The oldest educational invention. In C.E. Greenwalt II (Ed.), Educational innovations: An Agenda to frame the future (pp. 221-239). Lanham, MD: University Press.

Seuffert, V. (1990). Home remedy: A mom’s prescription for ailing schools. Policy Review, 52, 70-75.

Stough, L. (1992). Social and emotional status of home schooled children and conventionally schooled children in West Virginia. Masters Thesis, University of West Virginia. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 353 079.

Tipton, M. (1990). An analysis of home-schooled children’s Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills results and demographic characteristics of their families. Masters Thesis, Antioch University. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 336 208.

Van Galen, J.A. (1988). Ideology, curriculum, and pedagogy in home education. Education and Urban Society, 21(1), 52-68.

Van Galen, J. (1991). Ideologues and pedagogues: Parents who teach their children at home. In J. Van Galen & M.A. Pitman (Eds.), Home-schooling: Political, historical, and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 63-76).. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Van Galen, J., & Pitman, M.A. (1991a). Introduction. In J. Van Galen & M.A. Pitman (Eds.), Home-schooling: Political, historical, and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 1-5 ). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Webb, J. (1989). The outcomes of home-based education: Employment and other issues. Educational Review, 41(2), 121-133.

Williams, D.D., & Others. (1984). Understanding home education: Case studies of home schools. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, April 23-27. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 244 392.

Next we take a look at the regulations guiding home-schooling in Pennsylvania—first in summary form from the National Home Education Network Web site, then the regulations themselves, including an amendment to the home education regulations adopted in 2005. They are described by home-school advocates as among the most restrictive regulations in the country.

Document #14: “Brief overview of Pennsylvania state regulations governing home-schooling” National Home Education Network (http://www.nhen.org/leginfo/detail.asp?StateCode=Pennsylvania)

The Pennsylvania Home-schooling Act 169-1988 specifies that parents must submit a notarized affidavit of their intent to home school. Along with this affidavit, they must also


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submit medical forms and a list of learning objectives covering the required academic subjects. School officials do not have discretionary authority to approve or disapprove a family’s home-schooling plans or practice. They only have authority to rule on the narrow question of whether or not the parents have submitted the paperwork required by the law. Parents must maintain a log of instruction (e.g., list of materials read) and daily attendance records, must have at least a high school education, and must arrange each year for an annual evaluation of the child’s progress by a certified teacher or licensed psychologist of their own choosing. At the end of the school year, parents must submit the professional’s written evaluation that their child has received an appropriate education along with a portfolio of the child’s work for the school district’s review. In grades 3, 5, and 8, the home schooled child must take a standardized test, administered by anyone other than the parent of the child. Parents also have a second option for home-schooling: the private tutor provision. In this provision, the tutor must be a certified teacher. Parents need only submit evidence of the tutor’s credentials and criminal record clearance

Document #15: Pennsylvania Statute 24 PS 13-1327.1 Home education program (Available at Pennsylvania Department of Education Web site (http://www.pde.state.pa.us/home_education/cwp/view.asp?a=148&Q=59608&home_educationNav=|606|&home_educationNav=|606|)

(a) The following words and phrases when used in this section shall have the meanings given to them in this subsection:

“Appropriate education” shall mean a program consisting of instruction in the required subjects for the time required in this act and in which the student demonstrates sustained progress in the overall program.

“Hearing examiner” shall not be an officer, employee or agent of the Department of Education or of the school district or intermediate unit of residence of the child in the home education program.

“Home education program” shall mean a program conducted, in compliance with this section, by the parent or guardian or such person having legal custody of the child or children.

“Supervisor” shall mean the parent or guardian or such person having legal custody of the child or children who shall be responsible for the provision of instruction, provided that such person has a high school diploma or its equivalent.

(b) The requirements contained in sections 1511 and 1511.1, except as provided for in this section, and section 1605 shall not apply to home education programs. A home education program shall not be considered a nonpublic school under the provisions of this act.

(1) A notarized affidavit of the parent or guardian or other person having legal custody of the child or children, filed prior to the commencement of the home education program and annually thereafter on August 1 with the superintendent of the school, district of residence and which sets forth: the name of the supervisor of


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the home education program who shall be responsible for the provision of instruction; the name and age of each. child who shall participate in the home education program; the address and telephone number of the home education program site; that such subjects as required by law are offered in the English language, including an outline of proposed education objectives by subject area; evidence that the child has been immunized in accordance with the provisions of section 1303(a) and has received the health and medical services required for students of the child’s age or grade level in Article XIV; and that the home education program shall comply with the provisions of this section and that the notarized affidavit shall be satisfactory evidence thereof. The required outline of proposed education objectives shall not be utilized by the superintendent in determining if the home education program is out of compliance with this section and section 1327. The affidavit shall contain a certification to be signed by the supervisor that the supervisor, all adults living in the home and persons having legal custody of a child or children in a home education program have not been convicted of the criminal offenses enumerated in subsection (e) of section 111 within five years immediately preceding the date of the affidavit.

(2) In the event the home education program site is relocating to another school district within this Commonwealth during the course of the public school term or prior to the opening of the public school term in the fall, the supervisor of the home education program must apply, by registered mail, thirty (30) days prior to the relocation, to the superintendent of the district in which he or she currently resides, requesting a letter of transfer for the home education program to the district to which the home education program is relocating. The current superintendent of residence must issue the letter of transfer thirty (30) days after receipt of the registered mail request of the home education program supervisor.

(i) If the home education program is not in compliance with the provisions of this section, the superintendent of the current district of residence must inform the home education supervisor and the superintendent of the district to which the home education program is relocating the status of the home education program and the reason for the denial of the letter of transfer.

(ii) If the home education program is in hearing procedures, as contained in this section, the superintendent of the current district of residence must inform the home education supervisor, the assigned hearing examiner and the superintendent of the district to which the home education program is relocating the status of the home education program and the reason for the denial of the letter of transfer.

(3) The letter of transfer, required by clause (2), must be filed by the supervisor of the home education program with the superintendent of the new district of residence. In the case of pending proceedings, the new district of residence superintendent shall continue the home education program until the appeal process is finalized.


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(c) A child who is enrolled in a home education program and whose education is therefore under the direct supervision of his parent, guardian or other person having legal custody shall be deemed to have met the requirements of section 1327 if that home education program provides a minimum of one hundred eighty (180) days of instruction or nine hundred (900) hours of instruction per year at the elementary level, or nine hundred ninety (990) hours per year at the secondary level:

(1) At the elementary school level, the following courses shall be taught: English, to include spelling, reading and writing; arithmetic; science; geography; history of the United States and Pennsylvania; civics; safety education, including regular and continuous instruction in the dangers and prevention of fires; health and physiology; physical education; music; and art.

(2) At the secondary school level, the following courses shall be taught: English, to include language, literature, speech and composition; science; geography; social studies, to include civics, world history, history of the United States and Pennsylvania; mathematics, to include general mathematics, algebra and geometry; art; music; physical education; health; and safety education, including regular and continuous instruction in the dangers and prevention of fires. Such courses of study may include, at the discretion of the supervisor of the home education program, economics; biology; chemistry; foreign languages; trigonometry; or other age-appropriate courses as contained in Chapter 5 (Curriculum Requirements) of the State Board of Education. ‘

(d) The following minimum courses in grades nine through twelve are established as a requirement for graduation in a home education program:

(1) Four years of English.

(2) Three years of mathematics.

(3) Three years of science.

(4) Three years of social studies

(5) Two years of arts and humanities.

(e) In order to demonstrate that appropriate education is occurring, the supervisor of the home education program shall provide and maintain on file the following documentation for each student enrolled in the home education program:

(1) A portfolio of records and materials. The portfolio shall consist of a log, made contemporaneously with the instruction, which designates by title the reading materials used, samples of any writings, worksheets, workbooks or creative materials used or developed by the student and in grades three, five and eight results of nationally normed standardized achievement tests in reading/language arts and mathematics or the results of Statewide tests administered in these grade levels. The department shall establish a list, with a minimum of five tests, of nationally normed standardized tests from which the supervisor of the home education program shall select a test to be administered if the supervisor does not


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choose the Statewide tests. At the discretion of the supervisor, the portfolio may include the results of nationally normed standardized achievement tests for other subject areas or grade levels. The supervisor shall ensure that the nationally normed standardized tests or the Statewide tests shall not be administered by the child’s parent or guardian.

(i) A teacher or administrator who evaluates a portfolio at the elementary level (grades kindergarten through six) shall have at least two years of experience in grading any of the following subjects: English, to include spelling, reading and writing; arithmetic; science; geography; history of the United States and Pennsylvania; and civics.

(ii) A teacher or administrator who evaluates a portfolio at the secondary level (grades seven through twelve) shall have at least two years of experience in grading any of the following subjects: English, to include language, literature, speech, reading and composition; science, to include biology, chemistry and physics; geography; social studies, to include economics, civics, world history, history of the United States and Pennsylvania; foreign language; and mathematics, to include general mathematics, algebra, trigonometry, calculus and geometry.

(iii) As used in this clause, the term “grading” shall mean evaluation of classwork, homework, quizzes, classwork-based tests and prepared tests related to classwork subject matter.

(2) An annual written evaluation of the student’s educational progress as determined by a licensed clinical or school psychologist or a teacher certified by the Commonwealth or by a nonpublic school teacher or administrator. Any such nonpublic teacher or administrator shall have at least two years of teaching experience in a Pennsylvania public or nonpublic school within the last ten years. Such nonpublic teacher or administrator shall have the required experience at the elementary level to evaluate elementary students or at the secondary level to evaluate secondary students. The certified teacher shall have experience at the elementary level to evaluate elementary students or at the secondary level to evaluate secondary students. The evaluation shall also be based on an interview of the child and a review of the portfolio required in clause (1) and shall certify whether or not an appropriate education is occurring. At the request of the supervisor, persons with other qualifications may conduct the evaluation with the prior consent of the district of residence superintendent. In no event shall the evaluator be the supervisor or their spouse.

(f) The school district of residence shall, at the request of the supervisor, lend to the home education program copies of the school district’s planned courses, textbooks and other curriculum materials appropriate to the student’s age and grade level.

(g) When documentation is required by this section to be submitted to the district of residence superintendent or the hearing examiner, the superintendent or the hearing examiner shall return, upon completion of his review, all such documentation to the


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supervisor of the home education program. The superintendent or hearing examiner may photocopy all or portions of the documentation for his files.

(h) Such documentation required by subsection (e)(1) and (2) shall be provided to the public school district of residence superintendent at the conclusion of each public school year. In addition, if the superintendent has a reasonable belief that, at any time during the school year, appropriate education may not be occurring in the home education program, he may, by certified mail, return receipt requested, require documentation pertaining to the portfolio of records and materials required by subsection (e)(1) to be submitted to the district within fifteen (15) days; and documentation pertaining to subsection (e)(2) to be submitted to the district within thirty (30) days. If the tests as required in subsection (e)(1) have not been administered at the time of the receipt of the certified letter by the supervisor, the supervisor shall submit the other required documentation and shall submit the test results with the documentation at the conclusion of the school year.

(i) If the superintendent of the public school district determines, based on the documentation provided, at the end of or during the school year, that appropriate education is not taking place for the child in the home education program, the superintendent shall send a letter by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the supervisor of the home education program stating that in his opinion appropriate education is not taking place for the child in the home education program and shall return all documentation, specifying what aspect or aspects of the documentation are inadequate.

[j) Upon receipt of the certified letter required by subsection (i), the supervisor of the home education program shall have twenty (20) days to submit additional documentation demonstrating that appropriate education is taking place for the child in the home education program. If documentation is not submitted within that time, the home education program for the child shall be out of compliance with the requirements of this section and section 1327, and the student shall be promptly enrolled in the public school district of residence or a nonpublic school or a licensed private academic school.

(k) If the superintendent determines that the additional documentation submitted still does not demonstrate that appropriate education is taking place in the home education program, he shall so notify the supervisor of the home education program by certified mail, return receipt requested, and the board of school directors shall provide for a proper hearing by a duly qualified and impartial hearing examiner within thirty (30) days. The examiner shall render a decision within fifteen (15) days of the hearing except that he may require the establishment of a remedial education plan mutually agreed to by the superintendent and supervisor of the home education program which shall continue the home education program. The decision of the examiner may be appealed by either the supervisor of the home education program or the superintendent to the Secretary of Education or Commonwealth Court.

(l) If the hearing examiner finds that the documentation does not indicate that appropriate education is taking place in the home education program, the home education program for the child shall be out of compliance with the requirements of this section and section 1327, and the student shall be promptly enrolled in the public school district of residence or a nonpublic school or a licensed private academic school.


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(m) At such time as the child’s home education program has been determined to be out of compliance with the provisions of this section and section 1327, the supervisor or spouse of the supervisor of the home education program shall not be eligible to supervise a home education program for that child, as provided for in subsection (b)(1) of this section, for a period of twelve (12) months from the date of such determination.

· · ·

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA SENATE BILL No. 361

Session of 2005

Introduced By Regola, Tomlinson, Jubelirer, Piccola, Wonderling, Wenger, Robbins, D. White, Armstrong, Pileggi, Earll, Orie, M. White, Greenleaf, Waugh And Lemmond,

MARCH 4, 2005 AS AMENDED ON THIRD CONSIDERATION, HOUSE OF

REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 4, 2005

AN ACT amending the act of March 10, 1949 (P.L.30, No.14), entitled “An act relating to the public school system, including certain provisions applicable as well to private and parochial schools; amending, revising, consolidating and changing the laws relating thereto,” further providing for home education programs, for cyber charter school requirements and prohibitions and for cyber charter school enrollment and notification. The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hereby enacts as follows: Section 1. Section 1327.1 of the act of March 10, 1949 (P.L.30, No.14), known as the Public School Code of 1949, is amended by adding subsections to read: Section 1327.1. Home Education Program

(f.1) Subject to the provisions of subsections (f.2), (f.3), (f.4) and (f.5, the school district shall permit a child who is enrolled in a home education program to have the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities, including, but not limited to, clubs, musical ensembles, sports and theatrical productions.

(f.2) (1) All school districts by July 1, 2006, shall adopt a policy for the

participation of resident students enrolled in a home education program in the extracurricular activities of the school district of residence.

(2) The policy shall include, but not be limited to: (i) Provisions that outline how the students of home education

programs can meet the same eligibility guidelines for participation in the school district’s extracurricular activities as the students attending the district’s public schools

(ii) Provisions that indicate the eligibility of student participation based on age, location of residence within the district and grade level or its equivalent.


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(iii)Requirements that participating home education students meet the same eligibility and try-out criteria for positions on teams or in organizations as students attending the district’s public schools.

(f.3) Students enrolled in a home education program who wish to participate in the extracurricular activities of the school district of residence shall comply with the extracurricular policy, with the directions and requirements of all coaches, advisors, leaders or administrators involved with the extracurricular activity. Home education students shall also comply with all participation policies and regulations of the governing organizations of extracurricular activities, including, but not limited to, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) and the Pennsylvania High School Speech League (PHSSL).

(f.4) School districts shall publish, in a publication of general circulation in the school district or its Internet Web site, the dates and times for any physical examination or medical test required for participation.

(f.5) For purposes of this section, the term “extracurricular activity” shall mean any activity covered by the provisions of Section 511 which meets the following requirements:

1. Is sponsored or approved by the board of school directors. 2. Is not offered for credit toward graduation. 3. Is conducted partially or entirely outside the regular instructional day

schedule. 4. Is available to any student who voluntarily elects to participate and be

subject to the eligibility requirements of the activity. A school district’s program of interscholastic athletics, including varsity sports, shall be deemed to be extracurricular in nature and cover all activities related to competitive sports contests, games, events or exhibitions involving individual students or teams of students of the school district whenever such activities occur between schools within the district or schools outside the district…

There follow excerpts from a 2006 Pennsylvania Department of Education report on home-schooling in the state. Interestingly enough, the numbers of home schooled students dropped off in 2003-2005. The report has not been updated since 2006. Document #16: John Creason, compiler, Home Education in Pennsylvania 2004-05 (Pennsylvania Department of Education, February 2006) (Available at http://www.pde.state.pa.us/k12statistics/lib/k12statistics/homeEd0405withFig2.pdf) Overview The 2004-05 total for home education students in Pennsylvania was 23,287. The total was comprised of 11,934 males and 11,353 females. This was a decrease of 789 students, or 3.3%, from the 2003-04 total of 24,076. This was the second year in a row that home education enrollments decreased and only the third year overall since the passage of Act


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169 of 1988, which authorized parents, guardians and legal custodians to teach their children at home. Data was collected from all of Pennsylvania’s 501 school districts for home education students aged five through 21. Austin Area, Bristol Borough and Clairton City were the only three school districts that reported no home education students in 2004-05. The number of home education students decreased in 41 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. Once again, Lancaster County led the state with 2,558 students, followed by York County with 1,573 (see figure 2, page 4). Students educated at home comprised an additional 1.1% of the state’s public, private and nonpublic enrollments in 2004-05 (see figure 5, page 8). There were 245 school districts (48.9%), up from 237, that allowed home education students to participate in curricular programs, while 290 (57.9%), up from 270, allowed them to participate in extracurricular activities (see table 2, page 9). Some districts that allowed participation had restrictions. Act 67 of 2005, amended the home education law of Pennsylvania. The new law allows home-educated students to participate in the school district activities that are subject to the provisions of Sec. 511 of the School Code. These activities include clubs, musical ensembles, athletics (such as varsity sports), and theatrical productions and may include other activities related to the school program. The school board may develop or amend current policies on these activities, but local policies may not conflict with Act 67 of 2005. The law allowed participation in activities to begin January 1, 2006.


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Appendix A: Home Education Students by School District and Age Group, 2004-05 (Excerpt)

Indiana County

Total Ages 5-11 Ages 12-18+

Blairsville-Saltsburg 31 11 20 Homer-Center 22 7 15 Indiana Area 33 19 14 Marion Center Area 21 9 12 Penns Manor Area 15 7 8 Purchase Line 4 3 1 United 21 11 10

· · ·


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At long last we have arrived in Homer-Center school district, based in Homer City, Indiana County, Pennsylvania. To paraphrase Daniel Webster speaking of Dartmouth College94, “it’s a small town, gentlemen, but there are those who love it.” Background information on Homer City and its schools.

History: Indiana County was created by the Act of the General Assembly March 30, 1803, from territory of Westmoreland and Lycoming Counties and named for the former Indian inhabitants. The history of Homer City dates back to the mid 1700’s, when settlers began to establish homesteads on lands previously owned by six Indian nations. The village of Homer City was laid out in 1854 by William Wilson, who named it after the ancient Greek poet, Homer.95

94 Before the U.S. Supreme Court in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (17 U.S. 518 [1819]): “It is a small college, gentlemen, but there are those who love it.” 95 http://www.indianainfo.org/muni/homercity.html


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Population.

Population (2000)96 1,844

Ethnic composition:

White 99.4%

African American 0.2

Hispanic (of any race) 0.3

Asian American <0.1

Native American 0.0

Other 0.3

Median household income (1999) $30,815

There were 805 households [in 2000] out of which 26.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.4% were married couples living together, 10.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.5% were non-families. 32.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 18.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.28 and the average family size was 2.91.

In the borough the population was spread out with 22.1% under the age of 18, 6.3% from 18 to 24, 27.0% from 25 to 44, 23.8% from 45 to 64, and 20.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 87.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 79.1 males.97

Ancestries of the Homer City population include: German (20.2%), Italian (20.0%), Irish (12.9%), Polish (10.0%), Slovak (8.5%), English (8.1%). Education levels of the population 25 years and over in Homer City: High school or higher: 84.7%; Bachelor’s degree or higher: 18.2%; Graduate or professional degree: 4.5%. Marital status of the population 15 years and over in Homer City borough: Never married: 24.1%; Now married: 56.8%; Separated: 1.7%; Widowed: 10.5%; Divorced: 6.9%98 Economy. Although FMC Corporation99 is a major employer, there are many other businesses within the borough providing goods and services to our residents. These

96 http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html 97 http://www.wikipedia.com 98 http://www.city-data.com/city/Homer-City-Pennsylvania.html 99 “FMC Corporation is one of the world’s foremost, diversified chemical companies with leading positions in agricultural, industrial and consumer markets. From our inception in 1883, FMC has been providing solutions to the world’s best companies and their customers. Today, we use an array of advanced technologies in research and development to improve the delivery of medications; enhance foods and


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include a pharmacy, a bank, a grocery store, a department store, restaurants, a Laundromat, barber shops, hair salons, physician’s offices and other service oriented businesses, all of which are readily accessible.100

Politics. Homer City Borough’s elected officials consist of a seven member council and a mayor. Five of the seats on Council are 4 year terms while the other two are two year terms. The council of Homer City meets the first Tuesday of every month for general business.

beverages; power batteries; protect crop yields, structures and lawns, and advance the manufacture of glass, ceramics, plastics, pulp and paper, textiles and other products.” (http://www.fmc.com) 100 http://www.indianainfo.org/muni/homercity.html


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Exhibit #5: Homer-Center school system statistics101

Student population (2005-06) 964102 Ethnic composition: White 99.0 African American 0.6 Hispanic (of any race) 0.4 Asian American <0.1 Native American <0.1 Other 0.2 School budget $10,992,000 Per student expenditure $11,228 Sources of school funding: Federal 5% State 56 Local 39 Teachers 64 Teacher-student ratio 1:14.9

101 National Center for Education Statistics (http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/search.asp) 102 The school district draws its students from Homer City and its surrounding area.


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Exhibit #6: Homer-Center School Governance

Pennsylvania State Legislature

(Both houses controlled by Democratic majorities)

Board of Education

(9 members, elected at large)

SuperintendentVince DelConte

(Appointed by Board of Education)

Homer-Center High SchoolHomer-Center Elementary School

GovernorEdward G. Rendell

(D)

State Board of Education

(22 members, 17 appointed by

governor, 5 ex officio)

Secretary of Education

Gerald L. Zahorchak

Pennsylvania Department of

Education

Mayor

M. Gaydosh


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Exhibit #7: Timeline of events in Combs et al. v. Homer-Center School District 1988 The Pennsylvania state legislature adopts the Pennsylvania Home-

schooling Act 169-1988, which mandates the measurement and monitoring of academic performance of home schooled students in the state.

2002 The Pennsylvania state legislature adopts a Religious Freedom Protection Act that provides that “neither State nor local government should substantially burden the free exercise of religion without compelling justification.”

2004-2005 March-February

Six home-school families from five different Pennsylvania counties in the state filed separate lawsuits against their school district asking the court to declare Pennsylvania’s home-schooling requirements unconstitutional under the 2002 Religious Freedom Protection Act. The cases are merged under the designation Combs et al. v. Homer-Center School District.

2005 March

The Pennsylvania state legislature adopts Act 67, which amends the home education law. The new law allows home-educated students to participate in the school district activities, including clubs, musical ensembles, athletics (such as varsity sports), and theatrical productions and may include other activities related to the school program as determined by the local school board.

2005 December

Federal district court judge Arthur J. Schwab rules against the six families, rejecting the claim that Act 169 violates the First Amendment or the Religious Freedom Protection Act.

2008 August

The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rules that Pennsylvania’s homeschooling law does not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution. The court declined to address related claims brought under Pennsylvania’s Religious Freedom Protection Act, sending them back to state court for resolution. Plaintiffs announced they are considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.


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We turn now to a former Brown student of mine, Abbey Kerins, to walk us through the Combs case. Document #17: Abbey Kerins, “Home-schooling in Homer-Center, Pennsylvania,” (Unpublished research paper for Education 176, Spring 2006) Excerpts. Pennsylvania has been the site of recent battles regarding home-schooling. This study will specifically consider a suit brought by six families against their local school district, Combs et al. versus Home-Center School District. The case provides an interesting opportunity to look closely at the kinds of regulations that bind home-schooling to the larger public interests and the potential conflict between home-school legislation and the private rights of parents choosing to home-school.

The District is composed of two small towns, Homer and Marion Center, in the central region of the Pennsylvania called Indiana County. Located on the northern edge of the Appalachian range, which diagonally cuts across the state from northeast to southwest, Homer and Marion Center are in many ways typical of most rural towns in central and northern Pennsylvania. Combined, there are less than 2,000 people living within the less than 2 square mile area. Most of the population in these towns hold managerial, office or sales positions and support the education, health or social service industry. This stands in stark contrast to the heavy-labor, low-skill jobs available in the extraction and manufacturing industry that have dominated the area for over a century.103 In the late 19th century, oil was the main economic force, which led to the development of other industries, such as shipbuilding, steel and coal mining. These industries continued to grow throughout the 20th century until a dramatic economic downturn in the 1980s. In the late 90s and early 2000s the market has slowly started to regain its strength.104

The cultural and political values held by the vast majority if people living in central and northern Pennsylvania are not representative of the state at large. James Carville put it succinctly when he described the state as “Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, with Alabama in the middle.”105 The state leans left on either side of its boundaries, and the northern-central section or what is known as the “Republican T” leans toward the right and traditionally holds conservative positions. Considered a swing state, Pennsylvania is represented in Washington by Republicans and yet many of the state’s highest offices are held by Democrats. The “Republican T” is not only different in its political views; this region’s racial and ethnic make-up is also fairly homogeneous. Though the state, which has a total population just shy of 12.5 million, boasts one of the largest and fastest growing Asian and Hispanic communities in the nation, these communities are mostly concentrated in and around urban centers, and the northern-central regions have remained primarily white – many can even trace their ancestry back

103 Date source is the 2005 US Census, as reported by the website “Hometown Locator”. The information is available at: http://www.hometownlocator.com/CityCensusData.cfm?StateFIPS=42&PlaceFIPS=47472 and http://www.hometownlocator.com/CityCensusData.cfm?StateFIPS=42&PlaceFIPS=35408. 104 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania 105 Ibid.


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the early German and Welsh settlers.106 Of Indiana County’s 89,000 residents 97% are white, and Asian- and African-Americans make up the largest portion of the non-white population with .7% and 1.6% respectively.107 A little less than half of the population (38,686) adheres to a religious faith, primarily Protestant, Catholic or Evangelical denominations.108 Although the state is clearly divided, Pennsylvania’s legislature was united in a bi-partisan support of the Home-schooling Act, Act 169. In 1988 the bill amended the Pennsylvania School Code and enabled parents and legal guardians to provide education at home. The Pennsylvania Home-schooling Act, specifically states that “a home education program shall not be considered a nonpublic school,” and therefore is subject to many of the same laws and regulations as public schools. The law articulates a long series of guidelines and requirements for home-schooling parents and legal guardians, much of which focuses on the process of reporting, oversight and due process. Prior to initiating the program and before August 1st of each subsequent school year, home-schooling parents must present a curriculum plan that outlines the educational objectives and content areas to be covered by instruction,109 their contact information, information on each student, and evidence that each student has been immunized and has received health care. This report must be submitted to the district superintendent with a notarized affidavit that affirms the home-school supervisor (usually the parent or non-parental guardian) is legally responsible for the child and has not been convicted of a crime in the preceding five years. Instruction must be offered in English and provided over the course of a minimum of 180 days.110 Home-school supervisors can request textbooks, curriculum outlines and other materials from their local school district. A second strand of reporting is required to demonstrate that home-schooled students are academically and socially developing in stride with their public school peers and in accordance with local standards. The home-schooling parent or guardian must maintain a portfolio of student work, which includes but is not limited to reading material, worksheets, writing samples, creative materials and other projects. In addition, third, fifth and eighth grade home-schooling supervisors must select a norm-referenced test, which will be administered by someone other than the student’s parent or guardian. Portfolios and test scores are subject to an annual review by a credentialed teacher with at least two-years of teaching experience in any content area.111 The process, which includes an

106 Ibid. 107 Data was found on the “School District Demographic” table available on the NCES website: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sdds/selectgeo.asp 108 Data was found through “The Association of Religion Data Archives” available at http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/maps/map.asp?state=38&variable=2. 109 The law outlines specific content areas that must be covered in each grade and gives an approximate number of hours for each content strand. The curricular scope is determined by the State Board of Education. 110 There must be a minimum of 900 hours of instruction for elementary students and 990 hours for secondary level students. 111 The law seems to allow for some flexibility in this area. Clinical psychologists, non-public school educators, or an alternative evaluator suggested by the parents and approved by the district may be


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interview with each student, results in a written evaluation of the student’s educational progress and certifies “whether or not an appropriate education is occurring”. At the close of each public school year, the evaluation, portfolio, attendance logs and test scores must be submitted to the superintendent, who ultimately determines if the home-school is providing an adequate education. In the event that the home-school is inadequately performing, families are given the opportunity to provide additional documentation in order to avoid revocation hearings. Revocation hearings are conducted by a qualified, independent hearing examiner who can either prohibit the family from home-schooling for at least 12 months or require a remedial education plan in its place. Regardless of the outcome, the decision may be appealed by the home-school supervisors, the superintendent, the Secretary of Education or the Commonwealth Court.112 Many home-schooling advocates have argued that Pennsylvania’s home-schooling law is far too restrictive, as we will see in the Combs et al. vs. Homer-Center School District case. If we use Texas home-schooling laws as a point of comparison, Act 169 does stand out as a highly regulating mandate. Many advocacy organizations, such as the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)113, champion Texas law as an exemplar for home-school policy, because the state government has no explicit requirements for assessment and no control over the content or skills being taught. Home-schools are in fact recognized as private schools, and “need only have a written curriculum, conduct it in a bona fide manner and teach math, reading, spelling, grammar, and good citizenship.”114 This extreme level of deregulation is an important issue, an issue that is beginning to reach the federal level.115 Although there are few voices among the home-school movement demanding further regulation of academic programs, some families have criticized the law for failing to provide adequate guidelines in other areas, specifically with regard to access to public school facilities, advanced classes, and participation in non-academic activities, such as sports. In 2005, Pennsylvania’s Senate passed a bill 361, which permits home-schooled students to participate in extracurricular activities, including but not limited to “clubs, musical ensembles, athletic and theatrical productions.116 Maine and Virginia passed similar legislation; however their laws make specific allowances for home-school students to

permitted. However, the law clearly states that at no point can the evaluator be either the parents or guardians. 112 The full text of the law is available at http://www2.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/BT/1987/0/SB0154P2540.pdf. The law allows for two alternatives to the home-school program: a private, certified tutor and a satellite program that is connected to religious schools. 113 HSLDA is a non-profit advocacy and legal defense organization that protects and advances the “constitutional right of parents to direct the education of their children and to protect family freedoms.” 114 Home School Legal Defense Association: Advocates for Family and Freedom. Home-schooling in the United States: A Legal Analysis: 2005-2006 Edition. Percellville, VA: HSLDA: 2005. Available at http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/Texas.pdf. 115 The Home School Non-Discrimination Act of 2005 is an example of such federal legislation. This bill will considered in further detail later in the study. 116 The full text for Senate Bill 361 is available online through HSLDA: http://www.hslda.org/docs/link.asp?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2%2Elegis%2Estate%2Epa%2Eus%2FWU01%2FLI%2FBI%2FBT%2F2005%2F0%2FSB0361P1240%2Epdf.


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enroll in and earn credit from public school courses—an a la carte education. Many other states have passed or are considering legislation that will give students further access to public school courses, activities and facilities. The debate is often framed in terms of equal access to public resources, providing home-schools much more flexibility to educate their children in cooperation with local public schools. In this sense, the movement does seem to want to participate within the public sphere, though not when it comes to assessment or curricular requirements.

This debate is spurred on by the conflict that exists between state and federal legislation regarding the evaluation of home-schools. According to NCLB, home-schools, like private and parochial schools, are exempt from mandated assessment tests. As quoted by the HSLDA, the legislation states:

Nothing in this Act or any other Act administered by the Department shall be construed to permit, allow, encourage, or authorize any Federal control over any aspect of any private, religious, or home school, whether or not a home school is treated as a private school or home school under state law. This section shall not be construed to bar private, religious, or home schools from participation in programs or services under this Act or any other Act administered by the Department.117

In effect, NCLB makes accountability optional for home-schools. In addition, the federal level exemption from testing creates a precedent that states do not have the right to mandate the participation of home-schools in state-wide assessment tests. This creates a problem for states such as Arkansas, Georgia, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, and South Dakota that have designed accountability systems that include standardized tests. Since Pennsylvania evaluation procedure allows home-schoolers to choose the tests used to evaluate their students and includes multiple-measures of assessment, Pennsylvania’s home-school law is not directly affected by the legislation. However, the spirit of the NCLB exemption – the belief that home-schools should be free from all public controls – is influencing proposed legislation at the state level. Pennsylvania House Bill 280, which amends Act 169 and is supported by the HSLDA, seeks to remove the superintendent’s supervisory role with regard to home school portfolio evaluation and limit the superintendent’s authority to decide whether or not a student’s home education is adequate. This supervisory role would be borne by an independent evaluator selected by the parents. The law is ambiguous on the issue of whether or not the superintendent has the power to call for a hearing on the educational quality of home-schools, but the HSLDA’s synopsis states that the superintendents would be required to “accept an evaluator’s determination that an appropriate education is occurring in the home education program.”118 Furthermore, the amendment would allow

117 National Center for Home Education.” The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: An Initial Overview of the House Bill.” Issue Analysis (2001): n. pag. Online. Internet. 6 April. 2001. Available: http://nche.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200104061.asp. 118 http://www.hslda.org/Legislation/State/pa/2005/PAHB280/default.asp.


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parents to continue their home-school program throughout the revocation hearings.119 The bill passed the House in November, 2005 and is currently being reviewed by the Senate and Education Committee.120 Although the amendment does not seem to provide a thorough solution to the problem of evaluation and local control, it does strike at some of the key issues which plague home-schooling policy. How can local, state and federal governments provide support and assessment of home-schooling, while still respecting their rights? Should home-schooling be considered a public or private institution? And is deregulation the best way to improve the relationship between home-schools and public interests? According to the four families that filed separate lawsuits against their local school district, home-schools have a civil right to home-based education that is free from any public regulation or oversight. However, not all home-schooling families feel that Act 169 infringes on their right to freely educate their children at home. Between March 2004 and February 2005, six home-school families from five different counties in the state filed separate lawsuits against their school district. Mark and Maryalice Newborn were the first to file a lawsuit against the Franklin Regional School District, charging that the district’s mandate for home-school reporting was interfering with their right to practice religion, and three weeks later Thomas and Babette Hankin brought a similar suit against Bristol Township School. These were then followed in quick succession by four more: Darrell and Kathleen Combs against Homer-Center School District, Thomas and Timari Prevish against Norwin School District, the Nelson family against Titusville Area School District and the Weber family against Dubois Area School District. Though these families hail from rural, suburban, eastern, central and western parts of the state, they all find that Act 169’s mandated reporting process prevents them from faithfully practicing their religion—a right they believe is protected by the state’s Religious Freedom Protection Act and the First Amendment. Under the counsel of the HSLDA, these cases were consolidates into one: Combs et al vs. Homer-Center School District. Here is how the Pittsburgh press covered the case. Document #18: Paula Reed Ward, Home School Parents Sue State Over Religious Freedom,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 11, 2004. Darrell and Kathy Combs’ children in Center Township, Indiana County, have spent the last few months learning about the election process. There are glossary terms to memorize, electoral-college votes to count and spelling words to learn. Mixed in with those lessons are others their parents feel are important, such as which candidates are pro-life and where they stand on homosexuality. 119 The full text of PA House Bill 280 is available on the HSLDA website: http://www.hslda.org/docs/link.asp?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2%2Elegis%2Estate%2Epa%2Eus%2FWU01%2FLI%2FBI%2FBT%2F2005%2F0%2FHB0280P3031%2Epdf. 120 [As of September 2006 it had not been passed by the Pennsylvania Senate.]


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The Combs children—Daniel, 12; Sheriya, 10; and T.J., 8—get their schooling at home from their parents, who believe they are ultimately answerable to God for their children’s education, not to the state or their local school district. That is why, two weeks ago, the Combses filed a lawsuit in Indiana County asking the court to declare Pennsylvania’s home-schooling requirements unconstitutional under the 2002 Religious Freedom Protection Act. That act says that all state laws must avoid “the imposition of substantial burdens upon the free exercise of religion without compelling justification.” The Combs, one of four Pennsylvania families who have filed similar claims across the state, believe the home-schooling law restricts their religious freedom in a way that violates the law. One of the home-schooling requirements is that parents submit an annual affidavit to their local school district’s superintendent outlining their educational goals for their children, and then turn in a log at the end of the year that shows what subjects were taught on what days, what work was done and the time spent on it, as well as an evaluation from a neutral, certified teacher who reviews the work and interviews the child. The Combs, believing the Bible gives them the responsibility for educating their children, decided this year not to submit those reports. As a result, Homer-Center School Superintendent Joseph Marcoline has filed truancy charges against them. The Combs and other parents who are fighting the law say the superintendent’s review is the same as having to seek a district’s approval of their educational work, and that is what they object to. “We’re taking all of this out of scripture,” Darrell Combs said. “The Bible calls us directly to educate our children. “Nowhere in scripture is authority for education given over to local or state government.” But Sarah Pearce, acting director of the state Education Department’s school services office, said it’s the department’s job to ensure parents are meeting minimum educational standards. There have been scattered cases of superintendents rejecting the reports submitted by home-schooling parents, but Marcoline has never ultimately rejected such reports. James Mason, an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association, said Pennsylvania’s home-schooling requirements are the most restrictive in the nation, because they call for a triple review at the end of the year, including the parents’ log, the


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independent evaluation, and standardized tests in third, fifth and eighth grades. “It’s not the burden of the paperwork so much,” Mason said. “It’s the authority they believe the Bible gives to them to provide and decide what appropriate education is.” Combs said his family uses the Bible as the foundation of all knowledge, and that when his children learn their subjects -- whether science, social studies or even math -- they are taught to relate the information to the Bible. Marcoline, Homer-Center superintendent for the last 19 years, said the state requirements are “very simple,” and it takes only a few minutes to fill out the daily log and summary of subjects taught. Those records are necessary to ensure children are receiving a proper education, he said. The Combs had complied with the home-schooling law the last two school years, but as part of what Combs called his spiritual maturation process, they decided this year to challenge the law. “God has put us in charge,” said Combs, a minister at First Christian Church in Big Run, Jefferson County. “We’re answerable to him.” Among the verses cited by Combs is one from Deuteronomy, Chapter 6, which reads, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Combs also refers to a passage in Ephesians, which instructs parents to raise their children “in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Maryalice and Mark Newborn also believe they have a God-given responsibility to educate their children. The Murrysville couple was the first in the state to file a lawsuit on the issue in February. “I believe Pennsylvania home-school law steps too far into my home with government regulation,” Maryalice Newborn said. She has been contesting the state’s home-schooling law for several years. She’s testified before the house Education Committee on the issue and has worked with legislators. Eventually, she filed the lawsuit claiming the home-school law violates the Religious Freedom Protection Act. Another Westmoreland County couple, Thomas and Timari Prevish of Irwin, also have filed a lawsuit on the matter against the Norwin School District. “If the state has an interest [in restricting religious freedom], they have to follow least-restrictive means,” Newborn said. “The standards imposed are not least restrictive.”


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The law’s language says the state can limit a “person’s free exercise of religion if the agency proves, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the burden is . . . in furtherance of a compelling interest . . . [and] the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling interest.” In the 2002-03 school year in Pennsylvania, 24,415 children were home-schooled, and the U.S. Department of Education estimates about 1 million are home-schooled across the country. The Newborns have home-schooled all five of their children, including their oldest, a 17-year-old son, who completed his secondary education at 15 and is now a sophomore in college. Newborn, who has three master’s degrees, believes learning should last a lifetime, and one way to do that is to make education an ongoing process, not one that ends every day when the bell rings. “I think I’m giving them the best childhood I could possibly give them,” she said. As part of their education, they spend time together as a family, they volunteer in their community and they pursue their religious beliefs throughout the day -- not in one class, as her children might experience it in a private school. “How do I separate God for 45 minutes out of the day?” she asked. Newborn doesn’t believe the religious education she provides her children should be judged by a public school district. “It’s not their children. It’s not their money,” she said On its editorial page, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, while acknowledging the legitimacy of home-schooling, nonetheless sided with the state against the Combs plaintiffs. Document #19: Editorial: “Life Lessons: Home-schoolers Shouldn’t Upset State Law,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 14, 2004. The United States was founded by people seeking religious freedom and nothing is more foreign to American traditions and principles than allowing the government to dictate on matters of faith. Rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and rendering unto God what is God’s, is not always easy, even if people of strong religious faith sometimes think it is. Such certainty belongs to Darrell and Kathy Combs, who home-school their children in Center Township, Indiana County.


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They have filed a lawsuit against the Homer-Center School District, claiming that Pennsylvania’s requirements for home-schooling violate the state’s Religious Freedom Protection Act passed in 2002. This says that state laws must avoid “the imposition of substantial burdens upon the free exercise of religion without compelling justification.” Couples in Murrysville and Irwin have filed similar suits against their school districts. Before anyone considers these claims, they should acknowledge that home-schooling has its place in American education, and those children who are taught at home -- some 24,000 of them in Pennsylvania and about 1 million nationwide -- contain many success stories. Indeed, nothing suggests that those bringing these suits have done anything but a good job of educating their children. That said, does the state have a compelling justification in keeping some control over home-schooling? Common sense strongly suggests the answer is yes. Education of the young is the very sinew of democracy. Just because many home-schooled children excel doesn’t mean that the potential doesn’t exist for some less dedicated parents to keep their children at home simply to help with the chores. American society shouldn’t tolerate even the chance of letting a few kids grow up knowing nothing. These cases may turn on how restrictive Pennsylvania’s rules on home-schooling really are. Critics claim that they are the most restrictive in the nation, but perhaps that is because other states are foolishly negligent. To us, the requirements seem rather minimal. Parents must submit an annual affidavit to the local school superintendent outlining their educational goals. They must turn in a log at the end of the year showing what subjects were taught and when. A neutral, certified teacher reviews the work and interviews the child. Standardized tests are required at several grade levels. What is the problem with that? Americans who act on strong religious principles should be respected and accommodated as much as reasonably possible. The courts should find that the rules for home-schoolers in Pennsylvania already do just that. Document #20: Abbey Kerins, “Home-schooling in Homer-Center, Pennsylvania,” (Research paper for Education 176, Spring 2006) Excerpts (continued). Pennsylvania’s Religious Freedom Protection Act (RFPA) has been used as the primary legal argument against home-school regulation. The state’s RFPA was passed in 2002 in response to the Supreme Court case City of Boerne v. Flores, which held that Congress had acted outside of its authority in passing a federal level RFPA and moved many states to


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amend their state constitutions to protect free exercise and establishment of religion.121 The statute declares:

Laws and governmental actions which are facially neutral toward religion, as well as laws and governmental actions intended to interfere with religious exercise, may have the effect of substantially burdening the free exercise of religion. However, neither State nor local government should substantially burden the free exercise of religion without compelling justification.122

In effect, the law allows individuals, churches or other institutions to claim an exemption from laws that require an “undue burden” on the practice, tenets and expression of religion. The Combs case hinges on the legal definition of “undue burden” and whether or not the state has a “compelling interest” and uses the “least restrictive means” in regulating home-school instruction and measuring the education progress of those students. “Nowhere in scripture is authority for education given over to local or state government” notes Darrell Combs, a home-schooler and minister at the First Christian Church in Big Run. “God put us in charge and we’re answerable to him.”123 According to the HSLDA, home-schools in Virginia have successfully been granted an exemption from regulation based on the state’s own RFPA, and in 2003-04, 5,600 of the state’s 18,000 home-schoolers did not report educational goals or performance to the state.124 Though the HSLDA portrays the central issues in the case as basic, enduring human rights, other home-schooling families find the case’s claim unreasonable. Linda Wohar, a Pennsylvanian resident who has home-schooled all ten of her children and actively advocates for improving home-schooling policy, acknowledges that the suit is trying to give exposure to Act 169’s restrictive measures and controls. “I think the point of it is to try to bring emphasis to the difficulty in the law. PA has one of the most difficult laws in the country. We’re like number two.” But Wohar criticized the Combs suit; “They’re saying the law is infringing on their practice of religion and the district should have no say so in what they do as a home-schooler.” She goes on to state, “I’m not in favor of the rigidity of our law, but you still have to recognize it is the law. Some people don’t want any law, and that’s where I disagree with them.”125 Following from this assertion, it seems that the families who have filed lawsuits challenging Act 169 are not representative of the population as a whole; however, there is very little information about what this large population sees as a more just reworking of the legislation. It is important to note that no

121 Mason, James R. III. “Charting Freedom’s Course: Navigating home school liberty through Pennsylvania Courts.” The Home School Court Report. Vol. XX Num. 6. (2004): n. pag. Online. Internet. November/December 2004. Available: http://www.hslda.org/courtreport/V20N6/V20N601.asp 122 The full text of Pennsylvania’s RFPA is available at http://www2.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/BT/2001/0/SB1421P2382.pdf. 123 Ward, Paula Reed. “Home school parents sue state over religious freedom.” Pittsburg Post Gazette. (2004): n. page. Online. Internet. 11 October. 2004. Available: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04285/393756.stm 124 Mason, James R. III. 2004. 125 Pikulsky, Jeff. “Home School Policies Debated.” The Valley Independent. (2004): n. pag. Online. Internet. 11 October. 2004. Available: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleyindependent/news/s_260605.html.


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other lawsuits have been filed against the Act, and that, according to research on espoused beliefs within the national movement, this group of religiously motivated families make up less than one-third of the home-schooling population. Other suits currently pending in Pennsylvania are focused on compulsory education law, special needs evaluations, and the right to privacy in cases where social service agents are refused access to the home-school site.

On December 8th, 2005, federal district court judge Arthur J. Schwab ruled against the six families and rejected the claim that Act 169 violates the First Amendment or RFPA. His detailed judgment found that there was no proof that the evaluation process, which requires an attendance log, an outline of the educational content and skills, and a portfolio of student work be submitted for annual review, actually inflicts any real restriction on the families’ exercise, expression or conduct of their religious beliefs. While Judge Schwab agreed that parents and guardians are primarily responsible for transmitting cultural values and providing moral guidance, he stated that the state has a “secondary, yet substantial, role to play…” Pennsylvania has a duty to maintain and support a public education that serves the needs of the public, and the four alternatives to the compulsory education law provide parents the flexibility to make choices without mandating or prohibiting certain kinds of educational content. The judge added that the court should not function as a “super school board” and that the collective wisdom of the legislature with regard to deciding what is an “appropriate education” must take precedence.126 The plaintiffs with support from the HSLDA resolved to appeal the case to a higher court, but no hearing has been scheduled as of May, 2006.

According to a state commissioned study on home-schooling, 24,076 or 1.1% of students attended home-schools in the state of Pennsylvania in 2003-04. Though this percentage is small and the growth rate in Pennsylvania is slowing,127 home-schooling policy needs to enter more fully into the ongoing debate about educational alternatives. Given the overall national trends that suggest home-schooling represents the largest group of students of any educational alternative and the potential for special interest groups to influence reform, the home-schooling movement and the education officials need to clarify legislation regarding home-school evaluation, avenues for redress, the limits of curricular flexibility and other ways that home-schoolers can connect with local public schools. De-regulation does not seem like an adequate response to the problem posed by home-schooling for exactly the reasons stated by Judge Schwab, and I would add that home-schoolers benefit from the maintenance of this public system, through tax credits, access to the public school activities, and state-sponsored scholarships, among other things. However, this debate has just begun. More families will challenge state and local regulation of home-school, and states will have to negotiate laws to align with the federal policies, such as NCLB and possibly a more restrictive law called the Home School Non-Discrimination Act. Regardless, it is critical that policy issues embedded in the education of young people at home come to the surface of our national conversation on educational alternatives and accountability.

126 The full text of Judge Schwab’s findings are available at http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=9962ec8edc217469c7de15666e279ff8&_docnum=3&wchp=dGLbVlb-zSkVA&_md5=74bec10dc051650acc8888f805e3a20e. 127 Creason, John, Comp. “Home Education in Pennsylvania 2003-04”, Pennsylvania Department of Education, Division of Data Services. Harrisburg, PA, 2005.


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REFEREBCES

Creason, John, Comp. “Home Education in Pennsylvania 2003-04”, Pennsylvania Department of Education, Division of Data Services. Harrisburg, PA, 2005. General Assembly of Pennsylvania. Senate Bill No. 154. Harrisburg. 1987 ______. Senate Bill No. 1421. Harrisburg. 2002. ______. Senate Bill No. 361. Harrisburg. 2005. ______. Senate Bill No. 280. Harrisburg. 2005. Hill, Paul T., et al. School Choice: Doing It the Right Way Makes a Difference. Washington: The Brookings Institute: 2003. Home School Legal Defense Association: Advocates for Family and Freedom. Home-schooling in the United States: A Legal Analysis: 2005-2006 Edition. Percellville, VA: HSLDA: 2005. Available at http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/Texas.pdf. Marshall, Dan J, and James P. Valle. “Public School Reform: Potential Lessons from the Truly Departed.” Education Policy Analysis Archives 4.2 (1996): n. pag. Online. Internet. 8 August, 1996. Available: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v4n12.html.

Mason, James R. III. “Charting Freedom’s Course: Navigating home school liberty through Pennsylvania Courts.” The Home School Court Report. Vol. XX Num. 6. (2004): n. pag. Online. Internet. November/December 2004. Available: http://www.hslda.org/courtreport/V20N6/V20N601.asp

National Center for Education Statistics, “Number and percentage of home schooled students, ages 5 through 17 with a grade equivalent of kindergarten through 12th grade, by various characteristics: 1999 and 2003.” Chart. Washington: 2003 National Center for Home Education.” The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: An Initial Overview of the House Bill.” Issue Analysis (2001): n. pag. Online. Internet. 6 April. 2001. Available: http://nche.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200104061.asp. People for the American Way. Dereliction of Duty: Further Denigration of Public Education – Funding Home-schooling. n. pag. Online. Internet. Available: http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=13557. Pikulsky, Jeff. “Home School Policies Debated.” The Valley Independent. (2004): n. pag. Online. Internet. 11 October. 2004. Available: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleyindependent/news/s_260605.html. Sarris, Marina. “Home-schooling has appeals for several reasons; Educational, personal, religious concerns drive a growing trend in Howard County.” The Baltimore Sun. 19 March. 2006: p. 30t. Schwab, Arthur J. 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32007. United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. 2004. Ward, Paula Reed. “Home school parents sue state over religious freedom.” Pittsburg Post Gazette. (2004): n. page. Online. Internet. 11 October. 2004. Available: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04285/393756.stm Epilogue. With the help of the Home School Legal Defense Association, the Combs plaintiffs filed a motion for a summary judgment in their favor, which request was turned down by the court in May 2006.


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HSLDA appealed the decision to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. On May 25, 2006 that court ruled that Pennsylvania’s homeschooling law does not impose a “substantial burden” on plaintiffs’ religious faith. HSLDA appealed the district court’s decision to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In August 2008 that court ruled that Pennsylvania’s homeschooling law does not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution. The court declined to address related claims brought under Pennsylvania’s Religious Freedom Protection Act, sending them back to state court for resolution. The court’s decision is available at http://wwwhslda.org/hs/state/pa/RFA_Decision_8-21-08.pdf. Plaintiffs announced they are considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Suggested Study Group Questions

1. Is it appropriate, in your view, that parents who “opt out” of the public school system should have the option of “opting back in” for purposes of giving their children access to extracurricular activities or particular courses?

2. The California Department of Education has concluded that how parents choose to home school their children is “none of the state’s business.” Pennsylvania, by contrast, has what home school advocacy organizations regard as the country’s most restrictive set of regulations for measuring and monitoring home schooled students’ educational progress. Where do you stand on this spectrum, and what policy would you advocate that accords with your position?

3. Is it appropriate, in your view, that home-schooled children are exempt from the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act? What is an appropriate way to measure home-schooled students’ outcomes? Is it any of the state or federal government’s business what those outcomes are?

4. We have read arguments expressing concern that home-schooling undermines our civic culture. We have also read arguments supporting the idea that home schooled students go on to be actively engaged in their communities. Which of these arguments do you find persuasive?

5. We have considered home-schooling in the context of several varieties of school choice, and you have developed some well-grounded opinions on the issues surrounding choice. Has your consideration of home-schooling—by far the most popular form of school choice—altered those well grounded opinions and, if so, how?

· · · [N.B. This being a new case, there are no clarifying questions from former classes.]

Yale - 2009 Fall - Readings - Public Schools Policy - Case v Homer Center

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