Stephanie Blackwell Professor Cheryl Duffus English 102 11 November 2013

Homeschooling Debates
Many people today look at homeschooling as a negative factor in a childs life. Parents often focus on factors such as negative influences, religious beliefs and social aspects. While these are all very important factors to consider for your childs education, I think there is one-aspect parents tend to over look. This one factor would be how well the children are being educated in the school systems today. Personally, this topic of debate has never crossed my mind. I have always been against homeschooling because I feel it doesnt prepare children for the real world. However, my small group leader brought this concern to my eye a few days ago when we were discussing the topic. Amy, my small group leader, has 3 kids. Her oldest is a freshman in college, the middle is in 6th grade and the youngest is in 5th. Amy feels as though Ben (the middle child) and Emma (the youngest child) arent being prepared for college. Jared, the oldest, attends a community college where Im from. He is struggling in his English class because throughout high school he wasnt taught how to write a paper so he wasnt prepared for the work assigned in his classes. Amy doesnt want Ben and Emma to be as ill prepared for college as Jared is. I could relate to Amys thought process because coming to college, I realized high school didnt prepare me at all.

I took the time to research test scores, to see the difference between public and homeschool test scores. When I searched for my information on time, it didnt take long for me to find my answer. One article stated One study of more than 11,000 homeschool students found that students typically score 34 to 39 percentile points higher than the average student on standardized tests (Ray, pg. 1). I then began to wonder if students were okay with their parents decision to take them out of the school I attended and away from their every day life. Recent research suggests that many home schoolers are happy with their parents decision to educate them outside the traditional school system. In 2003, the Home School Legal Defense Association commissioned a survey of over 7,000 adults who were home schooled and found that 95 percent were glad they had been home schooled. Ninety-two percent believed their home schooling had been advantageous to them as adults and over 82 percent said they would home-school their own children (Ray, pg. 1). Parents that take the time to care and put effort into their childs education are going to challenge them on a higher level. Many parents dont feel as though their child is being challenged in school. In high school, I was never challenged to exceed my limits. The only students I feel like teachers push to succeed are students in AP and Honors classes. Teachers let students in regular classes just slide by without any effort. These kinds of things do not prepare students for college; much less prepare them for the real world. So as I used to be against homeschooling, this argument has sparked a thought in my head on what students really are being challenged to do in school. If parents care about their kids education, they need to wake up and ask themselves if their students are really being challenged in the school they attend.

Works Cited Ray, B., Homeschool Progress Report 2009: Academic Achievement and Demographics, National Home Education Research Institute, 2009. Ray, B., Home Educated and Now Adults: Their Community and Civic Involvement, Views About Homeschooling, and Other Traits, National Home Education Research Institute, Home School Legal Defense Association, 2003.