Homeschooling has become a choice for some Parents
"...disenchanted with official educational provision, significant number of parents have taken their children out of school - or have decided not to send them in the first place�" (The Right to Learn; Alternatives for a Learning Society, Ken Brown, 2002)
In the United States: "Homeschooling is legal throughout the United States, although state regulations differ. Most states require families to keep records, and some curriculum providers offer accredited programs that meet state standards for homeschooling. Contact the state or local board of education for more information or visit the Home School Legal Defense Association at www.hslda.org or call them at (540) 338-5600." (http://www.aracontent.com) �some partisan estimates place the figure as high as two million � and rising�� (The Right to Learn; Alternatives for a Learning Society, Ken Brown, 2002)
In Canada: �Home schooling is now officially recognized as an acceptable educational option within the education acts of Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and Yukon Territory. The remaining provinces and the Northwest Territories have developed specific programs, guidelines, or regulations to accommodate home schooling within the structure of their current education acts that allow for the exemption from public school attendance where a child is under "efficient", "equivalent", "satisfactory", or "adequate" instruction at home or elsewhere.� (http://www.hsldacanada.org/school/studies.htm)
�Home-schooled children are still a tiny minority in Canada, although an increasing number of parents are opting for this style of education. In 1979, 2,000 children were educated at home. By 1996, 17,500 students -- 0.4% of total enrollment -- were home schooled. The most recent figures show the number has risen to 80,000 children.� (http://www.ontariohomeschool.org/fraserstudysummaries.html)
�Alberta is the only province that funds home-based education�. (http://www.ontariohomeschool.org/fraserstudysummaries.html)
"Although parents home school their children for myriad reasons, the principal stimulus is dissatisfaction with public education," said Claudia Hepburn, director of education policy at the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based conservative think-tank.� (http://www.ontariohomeschool.org/fraserstudysummaries.html) �When mass schooling was established in 1870 in the UK, parents were more or less excluded from involvement in any type of school. Since most were illiterate it made ... sense to claim that education was best left to the "professionals," the body of teachers that the government would train and license... Most parents are now literate.� (Roland Meighan of the University of Birmingham) [�] �The families involved in home-based education are pointing to a new blueprint for education to replace the current "day prison" model, designed in the 1870s, which has outlived its usefulness� Perhaps we should listen carefully to what these courageous parents have to say.� � (Meighan, 1989, Emphasis in original.) (http://www.hsldacanada.org/school/parent.htm)
�Official opposition in the United States and Canada led to the formation of the Home School Legal Defence Association, [HSLDA of Canada, #2 - 3295 Dunmore Road SE, Medicine Hat, Alberta, T1B 3R2, Tel.: 403 528-2704 Fax: 403 528-2870] a body which has developed the expertise necessary to mount legal defences for families in different states with varied statutory educational provisions.� (The Right to Learn; Alternatives for a Learning Society, Ken Brown, 2002 p.136) �It is not usually a good idea to ask your local school board for information before informing yourself about the laws. In many areas, we have found local officials do not fully understand the laws relating to home education, and may therefore ask for far more monitoring of your program than the law requires.� (http://www.ontariohomeschool.org)
"Most parents don't realize that they are free to remove their child from school an hour each week for musical or other edifying types of instruction. Furthermore, few realize that public schooling is not compulsory. You have the freedom to remove your child from school at any time. School boards like to keep this information to themselves for obvious reasons." (Burnout Starts In School, Jennifer Lumsden, http://www.hsldacanada.org/html/default.htm)
From Stanford Magazine: November/December 2000: �In a Class by Themselves�
�It's the spark, the passion, that sets the truly exceptional student--the one driven to pursue independent research and explore difficult concepts from a very early age--apart from your typical bright kid. Stanford wants students who have it�. [�] "Homeschooled students may have a potential advantage over others in this, since they have consciously chosen and pursued an independent course of study."�[�] Further, there are �findings by educators and psychologists suggesting that children taught at home are actually socially and emotionally healthier than those in schools. They are more comfortable interacting with adults and less likely to pin their self-esteem to the fads and whims of teenagers, Rays says. The way these youngsters learn social skills--modeling themselves after adults rather than peers--is more consistent with the way children have been socialized through most of history. [�]"Now, [kids in schools] model themselves after the other kids, who model themselves after TV characters--and the results of that are clear.� [�] �the very nature of homeschooling--requiring kids to be self-driven and to handle the details of their own education--can give these students an edge as freshmen. "It's not, 'I'm free now--I'm going to go to college and party,'" Dobson says. �These kids know what it's like to handle responsibility���
�Contrary to the popular belief that children educated at home are disadvantaged because of a lack of peers, the study by the Fraser Institute shows they are happier, better adjusted and more sociable that those at institutional schools. The average child educated at home participates in a range of activities with other children outside the family and 98% are involved in two or more extracurricular activities such as field trips and music lessons per week, the report says�� "People think these children are neurotic, unsocialized and can't function in normal society. But the opposite is true. I think the fact children educated at home do better than private school students would also surprise people�� (Study by the Fraser Institute, 'Home Schooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream', Patrick Basham, Cato Institute, http://www.ontariohomeschool.org/fraserstudysummaries.html)
�Children taught at home in Canada score, on average, at the 80th percentile in reading, at the 76th percentile in languages and at the 79th percentile in mathematics, the report shows. Private and public students perform, on average, in the 50th percentile on mandatory tests in the same subjects�� �In the United States, students educated at home also achieve the highest grades on standardized tests and outperform other students on college entrance exams, including the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), according to the study��
(Study by the Fraser Institute, 'Home Schooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream', Patrick Basham, Cato Institute, http://www.ontariohomeschool.org/fraserstudysummaries.html)