An analysis of 300 newspaper and magazine articles about homeschoolers revealed that the top four reasons to homeschool were dissatisfaction with the public schools, the desire to freely impart religious values, academic excellence, and the building of stronger family bonds.(31) Those reasons coincide with the findings of polls of homeschoolers. For example, the Florida Department of Education surveyed 2,245 homeschoolers in 1996. By the end of August 1996, 31 percent of that number had returned the survey. Of that group, 42 percent said that dissatisfaction with the public school environment (safety, drugs, adverse peer pressure) was their reason for establishing a home education program.(32)

Americans of different races, socioeconomic backgrounds, and religions homeschool. Holt Associates describes its clientele as individuals who "live in the country, city, suburbs, small towns. Some are single parents, combining working outside the home with homeschooling."(33) Given many Americans' penchant for associations, there are national homeschooling support groups for Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, the handicapped, and homeschoolers of color.

A recent study of 5,402 homeschooled children from 1,657 families, conducted by Brian Ray and the HSLDA, noted that the top three occupational groups of homeschooling fathers were accountant or engineer (17.3 percent); professor, doctor, or lawyer (16.9 percent); and small-business owner (10.7 percent). According to the same survey, 87.7 percent of mothers who have chosen to stay at home and teach their children list "homemaker" as their occupation.(34)

Educational researchers Jane Van Galen and Mary Ann Pittman have categorized the two primary types of families who choose homeschooling as ideologues and pedagogues. Ideologues are typically the religious conservatives whom homeschooling attracts. Van Galen notes that ideologues want "their children to learn fundamentalist religious doctrine and a conservative political and social perspective" and establish homeschools to communicate to their offspring "that the family is the most important institution in society."(35)

Van Galen defines the pedagogues as those who teach their children themselves primarily because they dislike the professionalization and bureaucratization of modern education. They are parents who "come to their decision to home school with a broader interest in learning--they have professional training in education, they have close friends or relatives who are educators, they have read about education or child development, or they are involved with organizations that speak to the issue of childrearing."(36)

Both types of families share a common characteristic: they have enormous confidence in their ability to do a competent job of educating their children with minimal institutional support.

Are There Different Methods of Homeschooling?

Families may choose to purchase a preplanned, prepackaged curriculum from publishers that specifically target homeschoolers, such as School of Tomorrow (800-685-3357) A Beka Home School, Konos Curriculum, and Saxon Publishers. Other families may choose to enroll their children in correspondence programs, like the Calvert School of Maryland, the Christian Liberty Academy Satellite Schools of Illinois, the Home School Academy of Pennsylvania (800-683-1474), or the Clonlara School of Michigan.

As families gain confidence in their homeschooling abilities, they may opt for a less structured approach and rely on homemade materials or borrow heavily from local libraries. Tutors may be sought to teach particular skills, such as a foreign language or a musical instrument, and older children are sometimes recruited to teach younger siblings a particular academic discipline or task. Homeschooled children also participate in field trips and learning co-ops with other homeschooled students or even take courses at a day school or community college. In Ray's study of 1,657 families, 71.1 percent of the respondents said they custom design their curriculum to suit their child's needs, and 83.7 percent said that their children use a computer in their home. The average cost is $546 per homeschooled student per year.(37)

No matter the method employed, studies indicate that one-on-one involvement with homeschooled children, especially during their primary years, is high. Theodore Wagenaar of Miami University notes that homeschooled children "are considerably more likely to experience someone in the family doing the following activities with them three or more times a week: tell a story, teach letters, teach songs, do arts and crafts, play with toys and games indoors, play games and sports outdoors, take child on errands, and involve child in household chores."(38)

What about Socialization? How Do Homeschooled Children Meet Others?

Those are the questions homeschoolers report they are usually asked first when they are asked to explain their lifestyle. Typically, homeschooled children engage in a variety of activities outside the home--sports teams, scouting programs, church, community service, or part-time employment. Richard G. Medlin of Stetson University notes that homeschoolers rely heavily on support groups as a resource for planning field trips and maintaining personal contact with like-minded families.(39)

In 1992 Larry Shyers of the University of Florida wrote a doctoral dissertation in which he challenged the notion that youngsters at home "lag" in social development. In his study, 8- to 10-year-old children were videotaped at play. Their behavior was observed by trained counselors who did not know which children went to regular schools and which were homeschooled.

The study found no big difference between the two groups of children in self-concept or assertiveness, which was measured by social development tests. But the videotapes showed that youngsters who were taught at home by their parents had consistently fewer behavior problems.(40)

Is Homeschooling Legal?

The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights do not mention education. In spite of the creation of a federal Department of Education, education is an issue of states' rights. According to the National Homeschool Association, "Homeschooling is legally permitted in all fifty states, but laws and regulations are much more favorable in some states than in others."(41) For example, states such as Idaho, Oklahoma, and Texas are considered user friendly to homeschoolers in that there is no requirement for parents to initiate contact with the state to begin to homeschool. On the other hand, states such as Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York are heavily regulated (curriculum approval by the state, home visits, submission of achievement test scores, and so on).(42)

In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, as the homeschooling movement gained more converts, the compulsory attendance laws of various states were challenged in court. One landmark case, for example, occurred in Massachusetts. In Perchemlides v. Frizzle (1978), a Massachusetts court upheld the right of the nonreligious Perchemlides family to homeschool their young son. The court concluded that "the Massachusetts compulsory attendance statue might well be constitutionally infirm if it did not exempt students whose parents prefer alternative forms of education."(43)

In response to homeschoolers' court victories at the state level, 33 states had enacted homeschooling legislation by 1995. The more favorable legal and political climate did not mean that controversies with school officials ceased.(44) Christopher Klicka, an attorney for the HSLDA, notes that, during the 1990-91 school year, nearly 2,000 homeschoolers with problems sought assistance from his organization. Those problems "involved various degrees of harassment, ranging from actual or threatened prosecution to the attempted imposition of restrictions in excess of the law."(45)

How Does a Family Begin Homeschooling?

Susan Nelson, a homeschooling consultant and curriculum developer, suggests that new homeschooling parents will find their task simpler if they decide whether their primary goal in becoming home educators is "to provide their child with useful and interesting educational experiences; or to prepare him for [formal] schooling."(46) Other advocates of homeschooling are more practical and suggest reading homeschooling literature, becoming familiar with the homeschooling laws of one's state, attending a how-to seminar, joining a regional support group, or spending time with a seasoned homeschooling family before taking the leap. Popular homeschooling advice books include How to Tutor by Samuel L. Blumenfeld, Homeschooling: Your Questions Answered! by Deborah McIntire and Robert Windham, and The Original Home Schooling Series by Charlotte Mason.(47)

After a period of trial and error, most families fall into a satisfactory routine with their homeschools. Nancy Wallace, a homeschooling mother, said about her beginning days of teaching her children: "Every morning we practice our French, play the piano, and do some writing. Every evening we read aloud to Vita and Ishmael for about 1½ hours. And in between? Ishmael takes two drama classes, a French class and a piano lesson for 1-hour periods once a week, we go to the library, explore the woods, observe nature and read."(48)

Do Homeschooled Students Get Admitted to College?

A growing number of colleges and universities around the United States, including Harvard and Yale, are admitting homeschooled students to their freshman classes. One unusual family, the Colfaxes of Boonville, California, have had three of their four homeschooled sons accepted by Harvard. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported a boom in homeschooled students' winning admission to selective colleges.(49) In the absence of a transcript or high school diploma, applicants can submit samples or a portfolio of their work, letters of recommendation, and CLEP and Stanford Achievement Test scores. The HSLDA's study of 1,657 homeschooling families notes that homeschooled students want to attend college: 69 percent of respondents pursued a more formal postsecondary education.(50)

How Does the Education a Homeschooled Child Receives Compare with That of Conventionally Schooled Children?

Lines notes that "virtually all the available data show that the group of homeschooled children who are tested is above average. The pattern for children for whom data are available resembles that of children in private schools."(51) Ray notes that, regardless of income, race, gender, or parents' level of education, homeschooled children consistently score between the 82nd and 92nd percentiles on achievement tests.(52) The data from the Washington Homeschool Research Project, which has analyzed the SAT scores of homeschooled children in Washington State since 1985, demonstrated that the scores of those children were above average. Jon Wartes, writing on behalf of the project, notes that "fears that homeschooled children in Washington are at an academic disadvantage are not confirmed."(53) One significant piece of evidence of the educational progress homeschooled children are making: the National Merit Scholarship Corporation chose more than 70 homeschooled high school seniors as semifinalists in its 1998 competition.(54)

The movement is even old enough to have begun to establish a second generation of homeschoolers--homeschooled children who choose to homeschool their own children. Assessing the outcome of that choice remains a future task for researchers, but some information about first-generation homeschooled adults is available. J. Gary Knowles of the University of Michigan studied 53 adults to see the long-term effects of being educated at home. He summarized his findings as follows:

I have found no evidence that these adults were even moderately disadvantaged. . . . Two thirds of them were married, the norm for adults their age, and none were unemployed or any on any form of welfare assistance. More than three quarters felt that being taught at home had actually helped them to interact with people from different levels of society.(55)