Brian D. Ray

Home Schooling: The Ameliorator of Negative Influences on Learning?

The modern home school movement appears to be making a noticeable mark on society in general and on education in particular (Clark, 1994; Kantrowitz & Wingert, 1998; Lines, 1994; Toch, 1991a). Home schooling is the practice in which the education of children is clearly parent-controlled or parent-directed (and sometimes student-directed) during the conventional-school hours during the conventional-school days of the week. Although it did not begin a resurgence in the United States until the 1970s, parent-led and homeand family-based education have been practiced by many cultures throughout history, and it never disappeared in some of them. Gordon and Gordon (1990) made it clear that education centered in and around the home and family has played a key role throughout the history of Western civilization. An examination of education in America indicates that home education, in one form or another, was prevalent until the late 19th century. “In general, then, seventeenth and eighteenth century parents—particularly the father—bore the primary responsibility for teaching their children. ... Christian doctrine, vocational skills, and how to read and, to a lesser extent, write and figure” (Carper, 1992, p. 254). During the 19th century, “the school was a voluntary and incidental institution: attendance varied enormously from day to day and season to season” (Tyack, 1974, p. PEABODY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, 75(1&2), 71–106 Copyright

Home Schooling for Individuals' Gain and Society's Common Good

People have been competing to control the education of children since the first Homo sapiens was born. Regardless of genteel and resourceful language and rationales promoting consensus building and democratic decision making during the past century and currently, historians of institutional education have revealed that education is typically a realm of contention. Education in the United States is no exception; history supports this claim. In like manner, the discussions about parent-led, homeand family-based education—home schooling—are simply a continuation of the struggle over who will control what goes into the minds and affects the hearts of children—the future full-fledged citizens of any nation. Whether more persons should choose to home school is, at first glance, an insignificant issue, because currently about 89% of all 52 million U.S. conventional school students in kindergarten through Grade 12 are in state-run institutions, with the other 11% in private schools (U.S. Department of Education, 1998); only another estimated 1.2 million to 1.7 million are home educated (Lines, 1998; Ray, 1999). The issue, however, goes to the core of the centuries-old debate over who should be in the primary position of influence in the educational lives of children and what effect the answer has on society. PEABODY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, 75(1&2), 272–293 Copyright

Homeschooling Associated with Beneficial Learner and Societal Outcomes but Educators Do Not Promote It

This article reviews research on homeschool learner outcomes and evaluates opposition to homeschooling. It synthesizes research on learner outcomes related to homeschooling in areas of students’ academic achievement and childrens social, emotional, and psychological development and the success of adults who were home educated and finds generally positive outcomes on a variety of variables are associated with homeschooling. The author identifies four classes of negativity expressed toward home-based education by the education profession, such as the claims homeschooling is bad for the collective good and that without much state regulation significant numbers of homeschooling (home schooling) parents will harm their children. The evaluation reveals that proactive opposition to homeschooling and calls for significant state control over homeschooling do not offer any empirical research evidence that homeschooling is bad for individual children, families, neighborhoods, or the collective good. The alleged harms of homeschooling or arguments for more control of it are fundamentally philosophical and push for the state, rather than parents, to be in primary and ultimate control over the education and upbringing of children so they will come to hold worldviews more aligned with the state and opponents of state-free homeschooling than with the childrens parents and freely chosen relationships.

The Home Education Movement in Context, Practice, and Theory: Editors' Introduction

An examination of home schooling from a variety of perspectives. Topics covered include: the religious and educational context of home education; defying the stereotypes of special education; and aspects of home schooling in areas ranging from South Carolina to Europe.

African American Homeschool Parents’ Motivations for Homeschooling and Their Black Children’s Academic Achievement

This study explores the motivations of African American parents for choosing homeschooling for their children and the academic achievement of their Black homeschool students. Their reasons for homeschooling are similar to those of homeschool parents in general, although some use homeschooling to help their children understand Black culture and history. The average reading, language, and math test scores of these Black homeschool students are significantly higher than those of Black public school students (with effect sizes of .60 to 1.13) and equal to or higher than all public school students as a group in this exploratory, cross-sectional, and explanatory nonexperimental study.

Homeschooling Rising Into the Twenty-First Century: Editor's Introduction

It is easy to forget history and that thinkers holding fundamentally different worldviews have been thoughtfully critiquing institutional mass schooling for many decades (e.g., Cole, 2010; Freire, 1970; Gatto, 2001) and calling for something radically different than that which nearly 96% of all American children now experience. It is also easy to forget that institutional state schooling did not involve the majority of what are now called school-age children for most of the “school year” until after 1900 (Ray, 2012). With so many educational scholars, policymakers, journalists, and even the general public forgetting such history, it is not difficult to comprehend why the modernday, parent-led home-based education movement—that is in many ways radically different from mainstream and institutionalized schooling, both state run and private—stirs up many a curious query, negative critique, and firm praise from those in varied walks of life. The renascence of parent-led home-based education caused people as recently as 15 years ago to wonder whether homeschooling was just a fad. Now, having grown from nearly extinct by the 1970s to more than 2 million K-12 students (Ray, 2011), homeschooling has become a well-considered choice for mainstream America. It appears that homeschooling will be a stable, if not growing, part of the educational landscape for many years to come. Some observers of the sudden reemergence of parent-led education (worldwide) are cheering while others are dreadfully concerned. Academics hold subtle discussions regarding the educational benefits (or detriments) of parents being the main teachers and administrators of their children’s education. At the same time, policymakers, parents, and advocacy groups—and sometimes academics—get a bit feistier in their dialogues about parental and state rights and responsibilities, effects on the common or collective good, and children’s welfare when the often-contentious topic of homeschooling arises. The Peabody Journal of Education devoted a special double issue to homeschooling at the turn of the millennium (McDowell & Ray, 2000). This issue of the journal reviews significant research since then, presents new original research, covers a wide range of salient topics, and offers a forum for various perspectives on the value of parent-led home-based education for both individual students and society at-large. Since the turn of the century, several changes have become apparent related to the homeschooling movement. First, this parent-led education community has continued to grow in absolute numbers and percentage of the school-age population. Second, it has broadened in

A Review of research on Homeschooling and what might educators learn

This article reviews research on homeschool learner outcomes and then focuses on one study and one conceptual theme related to both home education and schooling in general. It synthesizes research on learner outcomes related to homeschooling in areas of students’ academic achievement, children’s social, emotional, and psychological development, and the success of adults who were home educated. The summary finds generally that positive outcomes on a variety of variables are associated with homeschooling. The first special focus is one study on African American homeschooling families that explores the parents’ reasons for homeschooling and their Black children’s academic achievement. The second particular focus is the issue of whether compulsory school attendance laws are necessary in light of the findings of research on teacher preparation and certification

A Systematic Review of the Empirical Research on Selected Aspects of Homeschooling as a School Choice.

ABSTRACT This article gives the demographic characteristics of the U.S. homeschooling population and the reasons that parents choose to homeschool, summarizes the findings of studies on the homeschool learner outcomes of academic achievement, social development, and success in adulthood, and proposes future research on parent-led home-based education. The majority of peer-reviewed studies on academic achievement reveal a positive effect for the homeschooled students compared to institutional schooled students, while a few studies show mixed or negative results. Regarding social and emotional development, a large majority of studies show clearly positive outcomes for the homeschooled compared to those in conventional schools. A majority of the studies on the relative success of the home-educated who later became adults show positive outcomes for the homeschooled compared to those who had been in conventional schools. I recommend that the existing literature be enhanced by well-controlled non-experimental designs to examine adults who were homeschooled in terms of an array of knowledge, attitudes and behaviors regarding lifelong learning, rates of public welfare dependency, and degree of personal agency or self-efficacy.