Hi everyone.
On August 11, 2009, a summary of a new study, called “Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics”, was published stating that homeschool students scored 36 percentage points higher on standardized achievement tests compared to their public school peers. The actual study isn’t due to be published until November 2009, but the summary provides some good evidence that, overall, homeschooling works.
Now, this study wasn’t conducted by just anyone, it was done by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI). Founded in 1990, NHERI, is one of the most (if not the most) prominent organizations specializing in homeschool research.
Here are some more details regarding this study:
1) 11,739 homeschool students from all 50 states participated in the tests,
2) Tests were conducted by 15 independent testing services,3) There were 3 well-known tests taken to measure performance: a) California Achievement Test, b) Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and c) Stanford Achievement Test, and
4) Tests were conducted during the 2007-2008 school yearOne more thing about this test – the reason why this study was conducted in the first place was because as homeschooling grew among the U.S. education institution, many people and organizations have become aware of homeschooling and naturally, have been asking more questions about the validity of homeschooling in this day and age.
Actually, there was a similar study done by Dr. Lawrence Rudner, a professor at the University of Maryland, in which he found that as a result of testing over 20,000 homeschool students, homeschool achievement scores outperformed national averages by 30 percentage points. Of course, this study was conducted over a decade ago, leaving open the possibility that results would look dramatically different today.
The results of this new study not only confirm that homeschool achievement continues to eclipse public school scores, but also suggests that homeschoolers today outpace their peers by even a higher margin than those recorded over a decade ago.
OK – enough talk about background, let’s get to the juicy stuff – the test results.
Results
Alright. You’ll be happy to know that not only did homeschoolers outperform their public school peers overall, but they did so in each category tested as shown below:
Remember, that a 36 percentage point difference actually translates to a homeschool achievement score that is 72% higher compared to the public school national average.
And here are some detailed demographics on the homeschoolers that were tested:
Notice that for each homeschool demographic factor, the spread between the lowest and highest score is minimal, with education and income resulting in the largest difference in scores.
I mean, doesn’t all this kinda get you wondering what the states are doing spending all their money trying to control homeschooling, when in fact the difference that all these efforts make is the same miniscule difference as whether the homeschool student who participated in this study was a boy or a girl? Go figure.
Some Thoughts
Wow. All this talk about achievement scores and I guess we didn’t tackle the age old question of why. So, why did the homeschool kids score so much higher than their public school peers?
Is this nation too soft on public school students? Are we, as homeschool parents, too hard on our kids?
My personal thoughts are that, overall, families that homeschool have values focused on meeting family goals (not just financial goals or goals focused only on a particular member of the family, but real goals that benefit the entire family) – this is not to say that families whose kids are in public schools do not have these same goals, but if you compare the two groups at the highest level, I believe that there is a greater percentage of homeschooling families that pursue and live towards meeting genuine family values and goals compared to the public school family group as a whole.
The hard work and effort into meeting these goals do not go unnoticed by homeschool students, who realize that they too have a role to fulfill. Homeschool students realize their parents actively chose a different path for them and took on the commensurate sacrifices. So this desire to fulfill their role becomes the self motivation required to fuel a successful academic career.
One last thought before signing off - having logged a scorching 7% growth per year over the last ten years, homeschooling will soon become a competitive differentiator of academic excellence (read: colleges and universities will actively seek homeschoolers for their student enrollment) in the years to come. In fact, already, some top universities are starting to notice that homeschool kids area different breed that merit a closer look for spots in their enrollment rosters.
And this recent study further supports that promising future.
See you next time!
"Click here for the summary of the "Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics" study and here forinformation about NHERI."
Sun Bae is the father of twins and has been homeschooling ever since they could talk.
He is also the creator of ProntoLessons, a website that offers a homeschool curriculum in American history for kids ages 6-8.
Specifically, his website includes 37 lessons that cover the immigration history of the American people; why they left their homes, what challenges they faced when they arrived to the U.S., and the contributions that they gave to our great nation.
The lessons are 100% scripted, which are perfect for homeschool educators who may not have had too much experience teaching in amore "formal" setting. Also, the lessons, intended as a 37-week full school year curriculum, is offered free to families who choose to use them.
Contact Sun by visiting ProntoLessons at www.prontolessons.com
