Home schooling is an effective alternative to the public school system

Contact:

Claudia R. Hepburn, Director of Education Policy
The Fraser Institute, Tel. (416) 967-2923
Email: claudiah@fraserinstitute.ca

Patrick Basham, Senior Fellow
The Cato Institute, Tel: (202) 789-5274

Release Date: 9 October 2001

VANCOUVER, BC— Home schooled children are, on average, more academically and socially advanced than public and private school students, according to a new study, Home Schooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream, released today by The Fraser Institute.

"In the past decade, home schooling has proven itself to parents and researchers to be a highly effective alternative to public and private schooling," says Claudia Hepburn, director of education policy at The Fraser Institute.

The growth of home schooling

In 1979, just 2000 Canadian children were home schooled. By 1996, the respective provincial ministries of education put the number of home schooled children at 17, 523 or 0.4 percent of total student enrolment — a 776 percent increase over just 18 years. Today, some estimates put the number of home schooled students in Canada as high as 80,000.

In the United States, various estimates suggest home schooling is growing at a rate of between 11 to 40 percent annually. In 1999, the US Department of Education estimated that approximately 850,000 students were being home schooled. In both countries, this surge in home schooling has been facilitated by the growth of the Internet.

"Although parents home school their children for a myriad of reasons, the principal stimulus is dissatisfaction with public education," notes Hepburn.

Home schooling and academic performance

Research indicates that home schooled children in the U.S. and Canada regularly outperform their peers in both public and private schools. The international evidence on the academic performance of home schooled students is equally encouraging.

In the United States, at every grade level, home schooled students' average score placed between the 82nd and the 92nd percentile in reading and reached the 85th percentile in math. Overall, test scores for home schoolers placed between the 75th and 85th percentiles. In contrast, public school students scored at the 50th percentile, while private school students' scores ranged from the 65th to the 75th percentile. Home schooled students also surpass the national averages on both of the major college-entrance tests: the ACT and the SAT.

Although there is less Canadian research available, the academic performance of Canadian home schooled students appears to be comparable to the American experience. The largest study to date in Canada found that home schooling students, on average, score at the 80th percentile in reading, at the 76th percentile in language, and at the 79th percentile in mathematics. The Canadian average for all public and privately educated students is the 50th percentile.

"Almost one-quarter of home schooled students perform one or more grades above their age level peers in public and private schools," says Patrick Basham, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the study's author.

Home schooling and socialization

Contrary to the concerns of the educational establishment, the typical home schooled child participates in a wide variety of extracurricular activities, including afternoon and weekend programs with public school students, day-time field trips and co-operative programs with groups of other home schooled kids. Ninety-eight percent of home schooled students are involved in two or more outside functions on a weekly basis.

Research also suggests that home schooled students are more sociable than their school peers, as well as more independent of peer values as they grow older.

"Popular belief holds that home schooled children are socially backward and deprived, but research shows the opposite: that home schooled children are actually better socialized than their peers," says Hepburn. "Some studies have shown that home schooled children are happier, better adjusted, more thoughtful, mature and sociable than children who attend institutional schools."

Characteristics of home schooling families

Parents choose to home school their children for a number of reasons, such as: the opportunity to impart a particular set of values and beliefs, higher academic performance, a lack of discipline in public schools, the expense of private schools for large families, and a physically safer environment in which to learn.

Home schooling parents have above average levels of education. Among American parents who home school, 81 percent have studied beyond high school compared with 63 percent of parents nationwide. Interestingly, having at least one parent who is a certified teacher has no significant effect on the achievement levels of home schooled students.

Home schooling families are almost exclusively two-parent families. Because of the time required, home schooling usually involves two parents-one who participates in the labour force and one who home schools. Research on the income of home schooling families has so far proven inconclusive.

Regulatory Environment

Home schooling is legal in all ten Canadian provinces. In regulatory terms, each province has its own specific rules governing home schooling: most require that home schooling parents comply with the Education Act in the respective province. Alberta leads the way in North America as the only jurisdiction that provides funding to home schooling families.

A comparison of home schooled students' performance in a highly-regulated, moderately regulated, and unregulated American jurisdictions found no statistical difference. In other words, the degree of government regulation has no significant effect on the academic performance of home schooled children.

"Although home schooling is neither desirable nor possible for all families, it has proven itself to be a highly successful and relatively inexpensive alternative to public and more formal private education," concludes Hepburn. "As such, it merits both the respect of regulators and the further attention of researchers."

Established in 1974, The Fraser Institute is an independent public policy organization based in Vancouver with offices in Calgary and Toronto.