homeschooling

[kc261]

There are some good points made in this thread, and also some misinformation flying around. I'm going to try to clarify some stuff.

First of all, it is legal to homeschool in every state in the US. Different states have different requirements, but it is legal in each and every one. If a state has mandatory testing, then either homeschoolers are exempt from it, or there is a way for them to take the tests. The tests listed in the link Raptor provided are related to the No Child Left Behind act, which means they are mandatory for public schools to give to prove the schools are doing their job, nothing else. Private schools and homeschoolers don't have to take the NCLB tests or meet those requirements.

Getting a high school diploma and getting in to college can be tricky, but far from impossible. Sometimes homeschooled students end up with a GED instead of a diploma, but since they are equivalent it really doesn't matter. Yes, a GED can be seen as somehow inferior to a HS diploma, but usually this is not the case when talking about a homeschooled student. Many colleges are actively seeking out homeschooled students, because for the most part, they do very well in college. But homeschooled students do still have to prove to the college somehow that they are qualified. Often this is done through a combination of SAT or similar tests scores, and a listing of what textbooks they used during their home studies, but there are plenty of alternatives and many colleges are willing to be flexible. It is handled somewhat in the same way as students who want to enter college at a later point in their life instead of just out of high school, when the usual admissions stuff such as high school GPA doesn't really apply, and each case must be looked at individually.

Socialization for homeschoolers is a big concern in the minds of many people, but there are now studies that show that not only does the average homeschooled student outperform their age-peers academically, but they do better socially as well. This is because most homeschoolers get plenty of socialization, and a much wider variety of social experiences than public schooled students. If you think about it, public schooled students are "socialized" by other kids who have mostly only known life in the public school system, and by teachers, who mostly went to public school, went to college, and then went right back into the public school system. That's a pretty narrow range of life experiences to draw from.

Another concern is what happens to those kids whose parents weren't good in math, or are otherwise not qualified to teach. As has already been mentioned in this thread, many homeschooling families team up to form co-ops, so each subject is being taught by a person who is fully qualified to teach that subject. But guess what else... it is possible to learn things without having a qualified teacher to teach you. Most of us learned how to walk & talk without being taught by a licensed teacher. And on this forum, I'm sure most of us have learned far more about reptiles than we ever knew in school. I bet you understand genetics far better than you did after your high school biology teacher taught it to you. Once you know how to read, you can pretty much self-teach yourself anything, and a lot of homeschooled high school students do just that.

I'm not saying homeschool is perfect. It isn't. And as I said in my first post in this thread, it is not for every body. There are a few people posting in this thread who have had bad experiences with it. That happens. I'm aware of others. But it happens in public school too.