It is estimated that there are 2 million kids homeschooled in the United States during the 2002-2003 school year. Homeschooling has been growing at a rate of about 7% over the last 4 years according the U.S. Department of Education.
According to homeschool researcher, Dr. Brian Ray, homeschoolers save American taxpayers about 10 billion dollars per year.
As a group, in study after study, homeschoolers outperform public school students in academic performance.
This report begins a series I will be doing on education. Learning is an important part of human growth and development and contributes to good mental health.
For many years I have been concerned that public schooling is, in many ways, detrimental to children and adolescent's mental health. I even remember reading a paper by a child psychologist who made a good case that public schooling is a form of child abuse. While I am not willing to go that far, there are many aspects of institutionalized schooling which are antithetical to the nuturing and interpersonal facilitation that makes for healthy development. Nothing beats the family as a unit of socialization in our society and, increasingly, parents feel undermined and disempowered by schooling elites that profess to know what is better for a child than the child's own parents. The data on homeschooling which has been actively implemented since the 80s supports the efficacy of homeschooling.
I will be posting more on homeschooling in future articles.
Link: NHERI - Content.
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