Growing Phenomenon of Homeschooling

Home schooling is defined simply as the "education of school-aged children at home rather than at a school. Home schools, according to those who have observed or created them, are as diverse as the individuals who choose that educational method.

The victory of home schooled 13-year-old Rebecca Sealfon in the 1997 National Spelling Bee brought new attention to the growing phenomenon of home schooling. Dissatisfied with the performance of government-run schools, more and more American families have begun teaching their children at home. Estimates of the number of home schooled children vary widely; the best estimate is 500,000 to 750,000, but some estimates range up to 1.23 million. All observers agree that the number has grown rapidly over the past 15 years.

There are two historical strains of home schooling, a religious-right thread inspired by author Raymond Moore and a countercultural-left thread inspired by John Holt. Their differences illustrate the various concerns that cause people to choose home schooling: some want religious values in education, some worry about the crime and lack of discipline in the government schools, some object to the conformity and bureaucracy in the schools, others are concerned with the declining quality of education, and still others just feel that children are best educated by their parents.

A recent boom in the number of home schooled students winning admission to selective colleges demonstrates both the growth and the effectiveness of home schooling. The lesson for educational reformers is that home schooling, with minimal government interference, has produced literate students at a fraction of the cost of any government program. Home schooling has been largely deregulated, but further deregulation would make parents' task easier.

Growing phenomenon of home schooling

Thirteen-year-old Rebecca Sealfon of Brooklyn, New York, brought new attention to the growing phenomenon of home schooling when she became the first home schooled child to win the National Spelling Bee. She was one of 17 home schooled students among 245 competitors in the 70th annual bee, held in May 1997

The rise of home schooling, of course, reflects broadening dissatisfaction with formal education in the United States. From its modest beginnings in one-room schoolhouses, American education has grown into a gargantuan government enterprise. Today, about 50 million students attend more than 85,000 public schools and more than 26,000 private schools. Education is the largest line item in most state budgets. The average per pupil expenditure in America's public schools is $6,993.

Ironically, given the amount of money expended on teaching young people, public dissatisfaction with America's schools is high. In a Gallup Poll, "The Public's Attitudes toward the Public Schools," 45 percent of the respondents gave America's schools low grades--C, D, or F.

Dissatisfaction is high for two reasons. First, American public schools are turning out a poor product--illiterate and unprepared graduates. For example, American 13-year-olds have been documented as having math skills that rank below those of 13-year-olds in 14 other developed countries. One survey noted that only one in three high school juniors could place the Civil War in the right half century. Not coincidentally, American companies are spending billions of dollars a year on remedial education for their employees.

Equally troubling, public schools have become crime scenes where drugs are sold, teachers are robbed, and homemade bombs are found in lockers. A Metropolitan Life study released in 1993 reported that over 10 percent of teachers and 25 percent of students had been victims of violence at or near their public schools.

To compound the problem, teachers' unions, school officials, and many politicians adamantly oppose the use of public monies for innovative solutions, such as vouchers and charter schools. Those alternatives, although not a panacea for all the present problems, are at least promising vehicles that could help poor and middle-income parents to find better schools for their children and break up the monopoly of a "one-size-fits-all" philosophy of education.

In light of the educational quagmire the United States finds itself in toward the end of the 20th century, many parents, impatient for reform, are taking matters into their own hands. One alternative that is gaining growing public acceptance is the educational option known as home schooling.


Homeschoolers like to say that the world is their classroom. Or, as John Lyon, writing for the Rockford Institute, has observed,

Schooling, rather obviously, is what goes on in schools; education takes place wherever and whenever the nature with which we are born is nurtured so as to draw out of those capacities which conduce to true humanity. The home, the church, the neighborhood, the peer group, the media, the shopping mall . . . are all educational institutions.

Modern learning theories aside, homeschoolers believe that the student who receives his instruction simultaneously from the home and the community at large will be a more culturally sophisticated child than the one the bulk of whose learning experiences is confined to a school. The historical record offers noteworthy examples of the "world is my teacher" model. Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, Andrew Wyeth, Pearl Buck, and the Founding Fathers were all taught at home. Those famous Americans' parents were pioneers.