An article recently came out that takes on the National Education Associations anti-homeschooling position revealing 4 performance indicators that demonstrate the value of homeschooling. If you weren't aware, The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience. They say, when home schooling occurs, students enrolled must meet all state curricular requirements, including the taking and passing of assessments to ensure adequate academic progress.
Not only is it disturbing that the NEA supports intruding in the lives of families when it comes to what is best for their children, the facts are that home educated students do better than those in public schools.
The article points to the following four performance indicators along with links to sources for each one.
- Key Performance Indicator #1: Academics
- Key Performance Indicator #2: Socialization
- Key Performance Indicator #3: Finances
- Key Performance Indicator #4: Values
You can read about each performance indicator in the original article here.
Although I completely support public education, I cannot criticize homeschoolers. My sister has home schooled her four children their entire lives and they are all ahead of their grade levels in almost every category. Socially, they seem about as normal as any other kids.
ReplyDeleteOf course she has both the time and the resources to do the job right and is very willing to find outside help for areas outside her abilities (like Skype Trig tutoring by Uncle Math Teacher :-). Most families aren't as fortunate.
However, I do have a problem with parents who homeschool for the sole purpose of isolating their children. It's very possible for kids to learn good values while still living in the real world.