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Homeschooling
Comes of Age
The
Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School
Students in 1998
Strengths
of Their Own--Homeschoolers Across America
Parental
Involvement
Parents'
Literacy and Their Children's Success in School
The
Case for Authentic Assessment
How
Homeschooling Will Change Public Education
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Homeschooling
Comes of Age by Patricia M. Lines The Public Interest July
1, 2000
General discussion
of historical and current state of homeschooling in the US.
on test scores
of homeschoolers (from the article):
When people ask--How
well do homeschoolers do?--they usually want to know about test scores.
Of course, many homeschoolers reject this criterion, since their mission
is to impart not simply skills but a particular set of values. That
said, virtually all of the reported data show that homeschooled children
score above average, sometimes well above average. Self-selection may
affect this result, just as it affects other aspects of homeschooling
research. Further, even where state law requires testing, substantial
numbers of homeschoolers do not comply. Still, the available evidence
suggests steady success. For example, Alaska, which has tested children
in its homeschooling program for several decades, finds them, as a group,
above average. In a very different study, commissioned by the Home School
Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), a conservative Christian organization,
Lawrence Rudner of the University of Maryland collected and analyzed
results from the 12,000 students nationwide who had used the Bob Jones
University testing services. The homeschooled children placed in the
62nd to 91st percentile of national norms, depending on the grade level
and test subject area. Of course, we don't know how these same children
would do in school. But there is certainly
no evidence to suggest that homeschooling harms academic achievement.
(emphasis added)
on whether parents
need to have a certain educational attainment (from the article):
Significantly, a
handful of studies suggest that student achievement for homeschoolers
has no relation to the educational attainment of the homeschooling parent.
This is consistent with tutoring studies that indicate that
the education level of a tutor has little to do with the achievement
of a tutored child. (emphasis added) One explanation might
be that the advantages of one-to-one learning outweigh the advantages
of professional training.
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The
Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School
Students in 1998, by Lawrence M. Rudner, Ph.D.
from the study:
Significantly,
there was also no difference found according to whether or not a parent
was certified to teach.
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Strengths
of Their Own—Home Schoolers Across America.
a study performed by Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research
Institute, and sponsored by the Home School Legal Defense Association.A
summary can be found on the NHERI
website. Go to "News" and look for 6/13/97.
from the
study:
Several analyses
were conducted to determine which independent variables were significantly
related to academic achievement. There was
no significant relationship between achievement and (a) whether the
father was a certified teacher, (b) whether the mother was a certified
teacher, (c) family income, (d) money spent on education, (e) legal
status of the family, (f) time spent in formal instruction, (g) age
formal instruction began, and (h) degree of state regulation of home
schooling. Achievement was statistically significantly related,
in some cases, to father’s education level, mother’s education level,
gender of student, years home educated, use of libraries, who administered
the test, and use of computers. The relationships were, however, weak
and not practically significant.
This and other studies
indicate that very few background variables (e.g., socioeconomic status
of parents, regulation by the state) explain the academic achievement
of the home educated. It is possible that the home education environment
ameliorates the effect of variables that are typically considered a
detriment to students. A variety of students in a variety of home education
settings have performed very well in terms of academic achievement.
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Parental
Involvement, an article on the website of the College
of Education and Human Endowment, University of Minnesota
from the article:
The research is
overwhelmingly clear: When parents play a positive role in their children’s
education, children do better in school. This is true whether parents
are college-educated or grade school graduates and regardless of the
family income, race, or ethnic background. What
counts is that parents have a positive attitude about the importance
of a good education and that they express confidence their children
will succeed. Major benefits of parent involvement include
higher grads and test scores, positive attitudes and behavior, more
successful academic programs, and more effective schools." (San Diego,
1997)
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Parents'
Literacy and Their Children's Success in School: Recent
Research, Promising Practices, and Research Implications
an article reviewing the literature
from the article:
Auerbach's work
also shows that "indirect factors including frequency
of children's outings with adults, number of maternal outings, emotional
climate of the home, amount of time spent interacting with adults,
level of financial stress, enrichment activities, and parental involvement
with the schools had a stronger effect on many aspects of reading and
writing than did direct literacy activities, such as help with homework"
(Auerbach, 1989).
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The
Case for Authentic Assessment.
ERIC Digest.
from the article:
What most defenders
of traditional tests fail to see is that it is the form, not the content
of the test that is harmful to learning; demonstrations of the technical
validity of standardized tests should not be the issue in the assessment
reform debate. Students come to believe that learning is cramming; teachers
come to believe that tests are after-the-fact, imposed nuisances composed
of contrived questions--irrelevant to their intent and success. Both
parties are led to believe that right answers matter more than habits
of mind and the justification of one's approach and results.
A
move toward more authentic tasks and outcomes thus improves teaching
and learning: students
have greater clarity about their obligations (and are asked to master
more engaging tasks), and teachers can come to believe that assessment
results are both meaningful and useful for improving instruction.
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How
Home Schooling Will Change Public Education By Paul T.
Hill, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Governmental Studies Program
Hoover Digest, Summer
2000, No. 3
from the article:
Parents who decide
to school their children at home commit time and energy to an activity
that was once left to specialized professionals. Even in the states
with the most permissive home-schooling laws, parents must learn what
is normally taught to children of a given age, find materials and projects
that teach specific skills, and learn how to use their own time and
that of their children productively.
Even
a casual perusal of the home-schooling literature reveals the scale
and intensity of home-schooling parents' search for ideas, materials,
and relevant standards of performance.
Home schooling
is a very large teacher training program, and many tens of thousands
of people are learning how to teach, assess results, and continuously
improve instruction. It also must be one of the biggest parent-training
programs in the country.
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