Too Cool for Summer Vacation

July 16, 2009

Summer means two full months of swimming, skateboarding, video games, and television for most kids. But a lucky few are still hitting the books -- and not in summer school.

“I have never understood how you could stop kids from learning,” writes D.C. homeschooler Faye Kepner. “And isn’t that the whole reason for school/education, so kids can learn?”

Kepner’s attitude is typical of the parents who have taken a pass on both government schools and sectarian/for-profit education. They’re going it alone, and doing so with spectacular results.

It’s undeniable that most “uncertified” moms and dads teach children far better than “professional educators.” The proof is easy to find. In 1997, a thirteen-year-old from Brooklyn became the first homeschooled student to win the National Spelling Bee. But even before that high-profile victory, research was starting to show the many ways homeschooled students wipe the floor with their government-education counterparts.

Superior achievement is one of the reasons why the homeschooling movement is booming. At least 1.5 million students learn at home in the U.S., up from 850,000 in 1999. (Private-school enrollment is stagnant.) In Connecticut, the figure for 2006 was 2,099, up from 364 in 1990. According to legislative researchers, the education bureaucracy “believes the actual number of home-schooled students in the state is higher than the numbers reported since not every home-school family notifies the local school superintendent.” Amazingly, the red-tape burden placed on homeschoolers in the Nutmeg State is relatively mild. In contrast, Connecticut’s three neighbors are all rated as “high regulation” states by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

Other reasons to homeschool, a recent federal survey found, include concerns about safety (bullies, drugs), a desire to provide religious/moral teaching, and an interest in pursuing unique teaching methods. BusinessWeek discovered that “the spread of the post-geographic work style and flex-time economy, in which managers can work at odd hours in any number of locations” are additional causes for growth, as is technology, which enables access to “economics tutorials from the Federal Reserve, online tours of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, ornithology seminars from Cornell University, and filmmaking classes from UCLA.”

And white, gun-clinging, Christian fundamentalists living in the mountains are hardly the only cohort teaching their kids at home. Muslims are doing it. Racial and ethnic minorities are doing it. Liberals are doing it. Libertarians are doing it. Support groups exist for every type of parent who homeschools.

The rap on homeschooled children is that they’re socially awkward misfits who self-destruct upon entering high school, college, or the workforce. There’s not a shred of evidence to support this slander. Some research even shows that the opposite is true, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s thought about the conditions that prevail in government schools. As the HSLDA’s Chris Klicka observes, “public school children are confined to a classroom for at least 180 days each year with little opportunity to be exposed to the workplace or to go on field trips. The children are trapped with a group of children their own age with little chance to relate to children of other ages or adults. They learn in a vacuum where there are no absolute standards. They are given little to no responsibility, and everything is provided for them. The opportunity to pursue their interests and to apply their unique talents is stifled. Actions by public students rarely have consequences, as discipline is lax and passing from grade to grade is automatic. The students are not really prepared to operate in the home (family) or the workplace, which comprise a major part of the ‘real world’ after graduation.”

Homeschooling is more than an alternative to government and private education. It’s a political force. Homeschoolers scare educrats and their allies in the unlimited-government lobby. Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist explains why: “Every year there will be more homeschoolers. And they are smarter, harder-working, and more serious than the products of government schools. The children of homeschooling have not been socialized to believe in the sanctity of government education. They begin life as skeptics of the competence and necessity of government.”

With politicians offering “free” education, there’s little chance that a majority of American students will ever be homeschooled. But the learn-at-home movement’s expansion, and success, cannot be denied. More parents are reaching the conclusion that sending their children off to a government-run, unionized monopoly five days a week isn’t such a good idea. In a nation where nearly every societal trend is headed in the wrong direction, that’s encouraging news.

D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com.

# # # # #