Life After Home Schooling - New York Times

By: Pam Belluck

Published: November 1, 1998

They are pioneers, in a way: the first wave of the modern home-schooling movement, the first generation of children to be taught primarily by their parents.

Some 15 years after states began legalizing home schooling in earnest, these early graduates are starting to make their way in the world.

Some have found the transition challenging, especially when trying to convince colleges and employers that home school is as good as high school, or when trying to get used to working in groups and socializing with peers. Others have had easy success, building on talents nurtured in their home incubators and drawing on a sense of competence fed by their teacher-parents' undivided support.

The experiences of these young adults have paved the way for the increasing numbers of children coming after them. Following years of court battles, home schooling is now legal in every state. While there are no exact figures, estimates suggest that the number of home-schooled children has jumped to anywhere between 500,000 and 1.5 million today, from 15,000 in 1970. Many, if not most, go to college, and schools like Harvard and Yale now have policies for evaluating their work. The Internet has vastly broadened the range of home curriculums.

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State schools shunned for home education

• Polly Curtis, education editor
• The Guardian,

Parents are increasingly seeking alternative forms of education such as home schooling or Steiner schools to free their children from the state sector's regime of testing and targets, academics suggest today. Most English pupils now start formal learning at four years old, among the youngest in the world, and go on to be the most tested throughout their education, according to a series of in-depth reports which will feed into a major review of primary schooling by Cambridge University.

Many parents are now considering alternative forms of education and more are opting to home-educate their children. The government should learn from the way children are taught in alternative settings such as Steiner schools where they learn through play, the academics say.

"Both the numbers opting for home schooling and the range of motivations of those wishing to do so have expanded considerably in recent years. One substantial and growing group is comprised of those who have abandoned formal schooling because they believe it to be too constrained," according to a paper by James Conroy and colleagues at Glasgow University. An estimated 50,000 children are being educated at home. A second paper, also released today, reveals that English children are attending school earlier, and spend more days a year at school, and in increasingly large institutions.

Most children now start school at four, the second study, The Structure of Primary Education, by the National Foundation for Educational Research, finds, despite the legal age being after their fifth birthday. One factor has been rising demand for childcare as more women work full-time.

The school starting age has not changed since it was introduced in 1870 to prevent child labour abuses. The average school size in England in 2006 was 224 pupils, compared with 128 in Scotland and higher than any other country in the study. A third study, on the curriculum and assessment, led by Kathy Hall at the National University of Ireland in Cork, says that English schoolchildren are among the most tested in the world. "No other country appears to be so preoccupied with national standards," it says. The research says home-educated children perform better and that children from disadvantaged backgrounds can improve disproportionately. Home-educated pupils are less likely to watch TV or spend hours on computers.

The Cambridge review, led by Professor Robin Alexander, is the biggest independent review of primary schooling in 40 years.