One of my relatives recently brought to my attention the fact that there are very few regulations in the state of Mississippi governing home-schooling. Basically, any parent who files a certificate of enrollment with the Department of Education by Sept 1st can home-school their child. The parent does not have to have any sort of certification, there is no set curriculum, the student doesn’t have to meet any benchmarks, and the student is not subject to state testing. This all comes from the Mississippi Annotated Code 37-13-91. This scenario is not just true for Mississippi- 41 States do not require parents to meet any specific teacher qualifications, and only 24 states require some sort of testing or evaluation.
According to a contact in the Mississippi Department of Education, as of May 2010 there are currently 13,196 home-schoolers enrolled in the state of Mississippi. To put that into perspective for you, that is 4 times larger than the largest high school in the state. There are also 7 local homeschooling support groups in Mississippi that parents can join as well as an annual convention.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics in a 2007 report, there was a 74% relative increase in the number of home-schooled students from 1999 to 2007. Also, white students constitute 77% of the home-schooling population. The NCES found that the most common reasons given by parents for homeschooling their children included:
-a desire to provide religious/moral instruction (36%)
-dissatisfaction with social environment at school and/or safety concerns (21%)
-dissatisfaction with academic instruction (17%)
The support for home-schooling seems to have a pretty strong support and/or lobbying base. I’ve already pointed out how the majority of the states in the Union have pretty lax regulations in regard to home-schooling, and organizations like the Home School Legal Defense Association continue to fight to keep it that way. It doesn’t hurt that proponents of homeschooling have precedent on their side either. In 1972 the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Wisconsin v. Yoder that an individual’s interests in the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment outweighed the State’s interests in compelling school attendance.
Needless to say, the freedom which home-schooling grants to parents is a popular topic among libertarians. Ron Paul even proposed a the Family Education Freedom Act (not that it got anywhere) last year in the House which would offer a $5,000 tax credit to families who choose to home-school their children. From my quick research into the price of home-schooling curriculum on the web, parents with multiple children almost need a tax credit. A 2006 estimate generated by Eduventures, a consulting and research firm, puts the home-schooling market at around $650 million a year and growing. The cost of home-schooling curriculum is literally all over the board. Parents can opt for free options such as K-12 Free Homeschool or something like K12 where they could pay $1,138 plus the cost of materials for just three kindergarten subjects, with single high school courses in excess of $450 a piece. While perusing the web of different curriculum options, I was immediately overwhelmed by the shear number of different companies that offer home curriculum. I honestly have to give props to any parent who could successfully navigate through this inundation without ripping their hair out.
As much as I personally disagree with the notion of homeschooling, there is some statistical evidence that proves it works. In a 2009 report published by The Journal of College Admission, Micheal Cogan found that homeschooled students had higher composite scores on the ACT with higher subject area scores in every tested subject area except math than private, public, and catholic school children. But you also have to take into account the fact that homeschoolers only constitute 1.0% of undergraduate admissions (according to the same study).
My major contention with home-schooling continues to be that children are not given the opportunity, on a day-to-day basis, to develop the social skills necessary to function in a society which demands communication and interpersonal skills 24/7. I recognize that this is fairly universal contention among opponents of homeschooling. However, I have to admit that when I learned that homeschooling parents are not subject to any kind of accountability is very surprising, if not somewhat frightening given the number of students in Mississippi who are home-schooled.
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