| Much of what I thought about home schooling was | | | | schooling, although they often do some work there |
| wrong. The conventional wisdom about this rapidly | | | | to pay the bills, or trade off with other |
| growing dimension of American education is too | | | | home-schooling parents when they have to be away. |
| simple, too stereotyped and too stale. For instance, | | | | Home schooling involves a tremendous commitment |
| the Home School Legal Defense Association, despite | | | | from the parents. At least one parent must be willing |
| its energetic lawyers and many admirers, is not the | | | | to work closely with the child, plan lessons, keep |
| leader of home schooling in this country. There is no | | | | abreast of requirements, and perhaps negotiate |
| leader, and no reigning ideology. There are instead at | | | | issues with the school district. The most common |
| least a million American children - the real figure is | | | | home school arrangement is for the mother to teach |
| probably twice that number - whose families want | | | | while the father works out of the home. There are a |
| them to learn at home for many reasons, often | | | | variety of educational materials geared for the home |
| having little to do with religion or politics. The common | | | | school, published by dozens of suppliers. Some are |
| image of home-schoolers as lockstep religious | | | | correspondence courses, which grade students' work, |
| conservatives falls apart when you discover that | | | | some are full curricula, and some are single topic |
| some of these parents have been shunned by their | | | | workbooks or drill materials in areas such as math or |
| fundamentalist churches for teaching their kids at | | | | phonics. Many of the curriculum providers are |
| home rather than sending them to the church's | | | | indentifiably Christian, including several major home |
| school. Some home-schoolers love the new for-profit | | | | school publishers such as Bob Jones University Press, |
| online teaching programs like K12. Some think they | | | | Alpha Omega Publications, and Home Study |
| are a corporate plot. Some parents are | | | | International. A major non-religious provider of home |
| home-schooling because their kids were learning more | | | | school materials is the Calvert School in Baltimore. |
| quickly than their teachers could keep up with. Some | | | | Figures vary as to how many home schools use |
| are home-schooling because their kids were learning | | | | published curricula or correspondence courses, but |
| more slowly than their public school teachers had | | | | the Department of Education estimates that it is |
| patience for. Some home-school because their | | | | from 25 to 50%; the rest use a curriculum the |
| children were unhappy at school. Some home-school | | | | parents and/or child have devised. Education writer |
| because they could not meet their needs any other | | | | John Holt, a champion of home schooling, suggested |
| way. Public school educators often worry that the | | | | that no particular area of study was essential. He |
| children of such people will not learn necessary social | | | | advised parents to use real life activities such as |
| skills. But home-schooling parents said their children | | | | work in a family business, writing letters, |
| learned how to deal with other people just fine, | | | | bookkeeping, observing nature, and talking with old |
| particularly with the many adults they encountered | | | | people as meaningful academic lessons. Home schools |
| when they visited the library or went to church or | | | | might fall anywhere on this spectrum, between the |
| did chores around the neighborhood. With their | | | | tightly planned study of a formal curriculum to Holt's |
| parents so often at their side, they were able to see | | | | free-form, experiential learning. But first, all the |
| what good manners and self-confidence looked like, | | | | parents interested in teaching their children at home |
| rather than be forced to adopt the jungle code of | | | | need to find out what laws apply to their state and |
| the average high school corridor. In many families one | | | | school district. |
| parent stays at home to supervise the home | | | | |