Home Schooling Comes of Age. As state legislators, school boards, and the public at large become more receptive, home-schoolers are gaining access to more resources, including those at public schools. Researchers disagree over home schooling's effects on academic achievement and social development. Home schooling could be an important resource for studying how children learn in informal environments. What Educators Should Know.
Home schooling is one of the fastest growing educational options in the United States.
Parents choose home schooling for various reasons including differences in religion, concerns about the safety of public schools, overcrowding of public schools, contrasting views about discipline, providing a better learning environment for special needs children, avoiding negative peer pressure, devoting more time to development of children's special talents and interests, and beliefs that school curricula are ineffective or irrelevant. Research indicates that home schoolers score as well or better than their public school peers on achievement tests. This can be attributed to the significant amount of time parents' devote to their children's education and the availability of educational resources for home schooling. Because rural communities have different needs and resources from those found in the populated areas, nontraditional programs such as home schooling are becoming more prominent. With the advent of technology and personal computers, home schooling in rural areas is no longer dependent upon parental education or community resources.