Mike Smith:
The homeschool pioneers of the late 1970s and '80s faced questions about the academic ability of parents to educate their own children at home. The critics asked, "Were parents really capable of such a task?"
Well, the critics were proven wrong time and time again as homeschoolers outscored their public school counterparts consistently by 20 to 30 percentile points on standardized tests. In just 25 years of homeschool resurgence, many elite colleges actively pursue homeschool students because they are academically excellent. And a predominantly homeschool college based in Virginia-Patrick Henry College-is currently challenging the Ivy League schools in academic excellence.
By the mid-'90s the critics had largely dropped their criticism of homeschool academics, choosing to focus on whether homeschoolers would be properly socialized.
The socialization question has been a constant annoyance for most of the '90s, but a new study from the National Home Education Research Institute has exposed the socialization question for what it is-a myth. Homeschoolers are among the best-socialized young adults because they have been trained in an adult environment, not by their peers in traditional schools.
The new study has already quieted critics on the socialization question, but homeschool critics have shifted to a new avenue of attack.
Tomorrow we'll begin our discussion of the latest attempt to undermine the homeschool movement-linking homeschooling to child abuse.
And until next time, I'm Mike Smith.
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