Article at-a-glance:

Homeschooling

by Leigh A. Bortins

Even though the majority of American children continue to attend public schools, the choices for parents have proliferated in recent years. In addition to private schools, many communities now offer homeschool co-ops and university model schools (in which students attend classes 2-3 days per week). These choices reflect the growing concern of parents over the state of the U.S. educational system.

On February 28, National Public Radio aired an interview with Bill Gates about his recent speech to the nation's governors in which he addressed education. According to Gates, who donates considerable funds to education causes, the results for American schools are not improving. In the last 20 years, many other nations, including India and China, have seen educational improvements, but the results in the United States have been "flat."

My husband and I made our school choice fairly easily at home. Although I was an engineering major in college and an aerospace engineer by trade, I knew that my K-12 education had been lacking. When our firstborn son Robert came along, we were determined to do better by him. In those early years, we had the same sense as many other parents that our modern educational models had gotten off track. They simply were not producing the same literacy rates as Americans enjoyed from colonial days to the era of the one-room schoolhouse through the grammar schools of the 1950s. Now, two of our sons have graduated from our homeschool, earned their undergraduate degrees and started their careers. We continue to pursue home-centered education with our two younger sons, currently in junior high and high school.

Over the years, our understanding of our school choices and thus our reasons for continuing to homeschool have deepened and expanded. Apparently, we are not alone. Recent reports on both Fox News and CNN noted a marked increase in the number of U.S. homeschoolers in recent years. I believe concerned parents will continue to seek out and craft their own educational choices and opportunities in response to dismal school performance. At any rate, decisions about our children's education must receive our serious attention. In the hopes of assisting other parents with this critical decision, I have outlined some of the reasons my husband and I continue to be passionate about home-centered education.

Confusion About the Goal

Many educators and parents are understandably confused about the goal of education. Are we concerned with a utilitarian end? In other words, are we only concerned about giving children a 'factory' education which prepares them for a specialized career but fails to answer the important questions of life? Or, would we prefer to educate widely read citizens who are prepared to self-govern because they can comprehend a wide range of issues from domestic to foreign affairs?

Reduced Parental Involvement

One of the results of the current craze for specialization is that ordinary parents no longer feel equipped to educate their children or to assist in guiding their children's education. In addition, children have many more teachers over the course of their education which means that they have lost two sources for wise and loving mentors-the actively involved parent and the teacher who walks with them through multiple subjects and multiple ages.

Reduced Literacy Rates

Parents need to recognize that our current literacy and numeracy standards are below our children's abilities. In 2003, National Center for Education Statistics reported that only 14% of females and 13% of males were proficient in reading prose. This contrasts sharply with a study conducted in 1800 by Dupont de Nemours which revealed that only four in one thousand Americans were unable to read and write legibly.

Reduced Expectations of Students

Although I made good grades, I couldn't comprehend the French in Henry V, the Latin phrases in the National Review magazine, or the English in The Federalist Papers. I couldn't tell you a single constellation or name an African country or Australian province. I could not say what century Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and Charlemagne lived in; whether they were related to one another; or what kingdoms they ruled. By lowering our expectations of the material we expect high school students to master, we are cheating them.

Rejection of Great Classical Conversations

Because our society cannot agree on the ultimate purpose of a quality education, we can no longer agree on a core base of knowledge to study. We have rejected the classics of history, mathematics, science, philosophy, and fine arts in favor of educational fads. As a result, our children are "provincial in time." In other words, they don't understand the root of the ideas that are in the marketplace today. They don't have a basis for understanding that many of these "new" ideas are actually old ideas repackaged for a new generation. I don't want my children to think that fascism or totalitarianism are great new ideas. It used to be that when evil came around again, it would disguise itself with a new name. I now worry that our children will be so ignorant of the past that evil will no longer have to be clever to fool them.

Homeschooling: A Valid Alternative

Since 1997, I have had the distinct privilege of working with families across the country who are striving to give their children a better education than the one they themselves received. These hardworking families delight to study, work, and play together. They are modeling a lifelong love of learning for their children as they delve into new subjects like Latin and logic. Together, we are working to uncover the methodologies that made the educational models of the past a success and to raise the standards for our children.