HOME EDUCATION RESEARCH


FACT SHEET IIIc

by NHERI

Active and Visible in American Life

• Growing at the rate of 7% to 15% per year, there are 1.5 to 1.9 million children (grades K-12) home educated during 2000-2001.¹
  
• "Not once but twice yesterday, the House corrected a problem in an education bill that had home schoolers in an uproar and congressional switchboards swamped for a week." The House voted with home educators, 424-1.²
  
• Patricia Lines of the U. S. Dept. of Education concludes: home education families "... have not turned their backs on the broader social contract as understood at the time of the Founding [of America]. Like the Antifederalists, these homeschoolers are asserting their historic individual rights so that they may form more meaningful bonds with family and community. In doing so, they are not abdicating from the American agreement. To the contrary, they are affirming it."³
  
• Home education families are not dependent on public, tax-funded resources - they save taxpayers many millions of dollars.⁴

Academic Achievement

• The largest data set on the academic success of the home educated reveals positive things. 16,311 students from across the country were tested with the nationally normed Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The nationwide average for the homeschooled on the Basic Battery (i.e., reading, language, and math) was the 77th percentile. They were at the 79th percentile in reading, the 73rd in language, and the 73rd in math. (The national average is the 50th percentile.) See the table on this sheet.⁵

• Canada's largest study of its kind revealed similar findings on the academic success of the home educated. Dr. Brian Ray found the students scoring, on average, at the 80th percentile in reading, the 76th in language, and the 79th in math. Students whose parents were certified teachers did no better than the other students.⁶
  
• Dr. Steven Duvall compared the academic engaged time (AET) and basic skill development of learning disabled students who were home educated to those in public school special education programs. Higher rates of AET and greater academic gains were made by the home educated. "... parents, even without special education training, provided powerful instructional environments at home..." (p. 11).⁷
  
• Repeatedly, across North America, the home educated score as well as or better, on average, than those in conventional schools.⁸

The Home Educated as Adults

• Drs. Paulo de Oliveira, Timothy Watson, and Joe Sutton studied Christian college-age students at a large liberal arts, Christian university. They compared four groups - those who had graduated from two types of private schools, from public schools, and those from homeschools. There were no statistically significant differences in various critical thinking skills among the student groups. That is, the home educated did as well as the others.⁹
  
• Public school, conventional Christian school, and homeschool graduates at a large, Christian liberal arts university were examined and compared for their college academic preparedness and college academic achievement. Dr. Rhonda Galloway found that the home educated performed as well or better than the others on these measures.¹⁰
  
• Dr. Gary Knowles, of the University of Michigan, explored adults who were home educated. None were unemployed and none were on welfare, 94% said home education prepared them to be independent persons, 79% said it helped them interact with individuals from different levels of society, and they strongly supported the home education method.₁₁

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

The National Home Education Research Institute gathers and distributes a wealth of information and NHERI is actively engaged in collecting and analyzing original research data. Most of the research cited in this sheet is explained and fully documented in Home Schooling on the Threshold and the Home Centered Learning Annotated Bibliography available from NHERI. Tax-deductible donations greatly assist the essential work of the non-profit, 501(c)(3), NHERI.

NATIONAL HOME EDUCATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., President
PO Box 13939, Salem, Oregon 97309, (503) 364-1490, fax (503) 364-2827, www.nheri.org

COPYRIGHT © 2001 by Brian D. Ray To order multiple copies of this fact sheet, contact NHERI.

Endnotes (Full citations are in the Home Centered Learning Annotated Bibliography available from NHERI):
1. Patricia M. Lines, 1991; Brian D. Ray, 1997.
2. Carol Innerst, The Washington Times, 2/25/94.
3. Patricia M. Lines, 1994.
4. Brian D. Ray, 1995.
5. Home School Legal Defense Association, 1994.
6. Brian D. Ray, 1994.
7. Steven F. Duvall, 1994.
8. Brian D. Ray, 1992.
9. Paulo Oliveira, Timothy G. Watson, & Joe P. Sutton, 1994.
10. Rhonda A. Galloway, 1994
11. J. Gary Knowles, 1991.