Around the 1800’s, a child’s education was limited to what the parents knew and learned, the knowledge of life skills taught by the parents at home. This source of education was based on what the parents knew and had learned to succeed in the future of the times. As the years continued to pass, and times began to change the homeschool setting changed to provide the proper education, children needed, however, still in the home setting. The regulations and laws for compulsory education are there just as they are in traditional school or other ways of getting the proper education to succeed.
The evidence shows homeschooling, that teaches children the same life skills and concepts as traditional education, makes it a valid form of education. Home schooling began in the early 1800’s when parents began teaching their children life skills and concepts to survive their future’s and make a good life for themselves and their loved ones. Homeschooling is the fastest growing form of education, as Ronald Kreager Jr mentions in his article, “Homeschooling: The Future of Education’s Most Basic Institution,” “The National Center for Education Statistics estimated that 1. million students received their schooling from home in the United States in 2003 (Kreager, 2010)”.
Although homeschooling is the oldest form of education, and the amount of students attending this type of education is rising. There is a fear for its future, for many reasons’ such as politics, whether the children can make it into college and is the education at home going to make the child successful in the future. One of the bigger issues of homeschooling is the attendance and how parents are performing the teaching and upholding other duties during the homeschooling education for the children.
During the period of the early 1800’s compulsory attendance laws were set into place for each of the 50 states in the United States. Massachusetts, founded the first law, stating that children must attend at least 12 weeks of school, unless they could not afford to do it. The laws were put into place to help support the economy and the new Americans that could possibly not afford a proper education for their children, such as immigrants that had come to America. The first threat to homeschooling was this law because some could not afford it, so they enrolled their children in public school, which is a free education, for the most part.
Then came the politics of legislation and regulations into the homeschool requirements per state. Over the spectrum each state has its own requirements for parents to have contact with the Department of Education and homeschooling children, 12 states have no requirements for homeschool education, 14 states have minimal requirements and parent’s notification to the Department, 21 have moderate requirements for contact and six have strict requirements for contact with the Department of Education.
The requirements require attendance records, visitations by Department of Education officials and social workers, curriculum approval, test scores, minimum required school hours per week and more. Just as traditional schools have to send the same documentation and such to the Department of Education to stay running to provide an education for children across the map, homeschool has to as well.
All of this documentation for homeschool helps monitor the behavior, achievement of the child and teachers, plus whether the education is being performed without issue and abuse, whether it is to the educational success of the child or the child themselves. As you can tell from the homeschooling regulations the actions are monitored just as they are with the traditional school. For regular school, they are required to follow the compulsory laws also. They have contact requirements, attendance policies to follow, their curriculum has to be approved, they too have to report test scores even if their tests are different for each state.
The rules and regulations between homeschool and traditional school is no different as we can tell. Thus making homeschool no different than regular school education when it comes to the guidelines and rules of requirements to educate at home. Even with all the debate and regulations on homeschool requirements, homeschool is on a rise in the United States. Aislin Davis states in his article, “In 2007, the number of homeschooled students was about 1. 5 million, an increase from 850,000 in 1999 and 1. 1 million in 2003.
The percentage of the school age population that was homeschooled increased from 1. 7% in 1999 to 2. 9% in 2007. The increase in the percentage of homeschooled students from 1999 to 2007 represents a 74% relative increase over the 8-year period and a 36% relative increase since 2003 (Davis, 2011). ” The legislative requirements make it hard for parents to obtain all the information and background they need to homeschool, however, the statistics show that the regulations do not stop parents from homeschooling their children if they believe that is the best way for their child to succeed in life.
The largest problem that seems to keep children from homeschool is the parent advocating themselves with the requirements and laws for each state on this form of education. Nothing about this says that it is not a valid form of education, it just shows even more that there are regulations and restrictions to uphold and laws that still have to be abided by for the child to succeed and do something great with their future. The impact of more children performing homeschool rather than traditional education makes it easy to see that it is an easier method for some and is still considered to be valid as a learning process in life.
With myths and fallacies that come to the debate on homeschooling it is not hard to see why one would be in wonder or worry if it is a valid form of education. Numerous fallacies involve writers and people discussing in their arguments that child abuse is more likely to happen in the homeschool setting, things were different in the past when homeschooling first formed and you need a better education now in order to succeed, even things such as it takes away teacher’s paychecks.
However, counterarguments show things such as the rise in bullying in the traditional school setting between peers and even teachers, one on one education for children who struggle with certain subjects or behavior problems and things against the teacher’s and their paychecks, such as is that really all the teachers are there for or are they there to teach our children. With the economy, controversial, political, even shut down state this country is in, it is not hard to get caught up in discussions about pay, education, things such as bullying and more.
It is easy, however, to see that all these things can interfere with traditional and homeschool education validity either route you go. Which is easy to see why it should be counted as a valid form of education. Though on should not worry due to all the positive facts homeschooling seems to present. The biggest misconception on homeschooling would be socialization, the lack of children being in a social setting with their peers and being able to get along in groups of one or more persons.
It is that they have a lack of knowledge of the real world and the interactions such as lack of social skills, difficulty relating to others, and being socially awkward. According to Romankowski, “Homeschooled children are involved in numerous activities outside the home with peers, children of different ages, and adults (Ray 1999). On the average, homeschooled students are involved in 5. 2 activities outside the home, with 98 percent engaged in two or more (Ray 1997).
This range of activities includes scouting, dance classes, group sports, 4-H, and volunteer work, demonstrating that homeschoolers are not isolated from the outside world (Romanowski, 2006). ” These statistics show that the lack of socialization should not be a concern to people who are looking into homeschooling a child, it also shows that socialization should not be an offset to the validation of homeschool being a strong education. There is a great debate over homeschool and whether it is a strong school.
Homeschooling teaches children the same life skills and concepts as traditional education, so why elieve homeschooling is a valid choice of education and why it should be allowed to continue in our educational lives has nothing to do with the myths and politics of it all. It should have to do with what is best for our children and their educational experience. It should have to do with what we the educators from birth and our children feel will give them the opportunity to succeed in life and accomplish what the child wants for themselves. While being the people or person to prove that just because there are some minor issues with the homeschool setting, we can demonstrate it to be a valid decision
