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Jacob Early

ENG 1201

Dr. Cassel

20 October 2021

Is Homeschooling Beneficial or Harmful for Students?

In April of 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in America, 1.5 million

school age kids stayed at home to do their schooling. While this was an extremely new

experience for a great majority of those kids and their parents, it was life as usual for roughly 3

million students across the United States who identify as homeschoolers. As homeschooling is

continuing to grow in America and around the world, it has led many around the nation to

question, is homeschooling the right choice for students?

Homeschooling in America has been around since the foundation of our nation. During

colonial times, homeschooling was the cultural norm. It wasn’t until 1852, when Massachusetts

began to require compulsory school attendance, that this practice was even questioned. Many

states began to follow in Massachusetts’ footsteps, and public-school attendance was required in

almost every state. The modern movement began in 1970, led by John Holt. Holt began to build

a network of homeschooling parents with his newsletter “Growing Without Schooling”

[ CITATION Ray14 \l 1033 ]. Holt believed that there were many flaws with the standard ways of

teaching children, saying that students were “taught for test taking” [ CITATION Ray14 \l 1033 ].

The movement continued in the 1980s, led by Dr. Raymond Moore and his faith-based approach
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to homeschooling. By the end of the decade, more than 20 states had legalized homeschooling

[ CITATION Kyl16 \l 1033 ].

Since the beginning of the modern homeschooling movement, the number of families in

America practicing homeschooling has increased tremendously. From 1999, to 2012, the number

of homeschoolers in America grew from 850,000, to over two million [ CITATION The21 \l 1033 ],

and that number has only grown since. The states have progressively made it easier for

homeschooling families. The government has passed legislations to help fund homeschool

programs and has relaxed restriction that inhibited homeschooling families. Yet, there is still a

huge divide over whether or not it is the right thing to do for children. Advocates for and against

homeschooling take very extreme stances. James Dwyer, in his book “Homeschooling: The

History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice”, described the two sides of the divide as

“Enslavement of the mind, or a last refuge of human independence”[ CITATION Dwy19 \l 1033 ].

The controversy is especially hard on parents who have made the decision to homeschool. These

parents must battle social prejudices that society has made against home education, as well has

make conscious efforts to justify their decisions. Let’s take a look at the positions and arguments

of the two sides.

First, let’s consider the arguments held by challengers of homeschooling. One of the

biggest knocks of homeschooling, is that parents (mothers usually do the teaching), lack the

education of real teachers. Joanna Nichols, principal of Kings Elementary in Washington state

said that “Kids need teaching to be carefully geared to meet individual needs, [and] a teacher is

the best resource for that” [ CITATION Mit03 \l 1033 ]. While a parent’s lack of knowledge may not

be harmful at an elementary level, once homeschool kids reach high school, a parent may not be

the best resource to educate that child. Another major argument against homeschooling is that
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homeschoolers severely lack adequate socialization [ CITATION The21 \l 1033 ]. A lack of

socialization at a young age can have serious future impacts. Finally, critics of homeschooling

realize that by legalizing homeschooling, and making it possible to due with little to no

government supervision, child abuse becomes a major risk. This has been an issue that

lawmakers have had to deal with. Homeschooling can work very well but authorizing it can put

children in grave danger [ CITATION Dwy19 \l 1033 ].

Now to hear the side of homeschooling supporters. There is a plethora of reasons that

parents decide to homeschool there kids. Some of the biggest include the possibility of

individualized curriculum, the opportunity for learning with real world context, more time with

there kids, and being able to mold their kids without pressure from the outside world. Proponents

of homeschooling believe that every child has great potential for distinctive accomplishments,

and standardized ways of education squelch that potential [ CITATION Mit03 \l 1033 ]. Parents get

to choose how they want to raise and educate their child, instead of the schools getting to make

those decisions. In 1999, one of the largest homeschool studies was conducted. 20,000 K-12

homeschool students standardized test scores were studied and found to be exceptionally high

(Mccabe et, al.). In that same study, 25% of the homeschool students were enrolled one or more

grades above their grade level (Mccabe et, al.). The freedom of homeschooling allows kids that

are academically gifted to progress through grade levels that would not academically challenge

them to grow. Many kids in public school systems waste years learning and being taught things

that they already fully understand. Finally, supporters of homeschoolers argue that

homeschoolers are in fact receiving plenty of social interaction. The majority of homeschooling

families in America participate in co-ops that allow their kids to learn and grow with other kids

their grade. In fact, homeschoolers are more open to interact with kids much older, and much
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younger than them. This is due to the absence of a hierarchical system that public school systems

encourage.

At the end of the day, there are many accurate and fallible arguments for and against

homeschooling. The most important thing to magnify in this controversy, is the behavior of the

parents doing the homeschooling. They are the ones that determine if their child receives a

proper education or if they academically fall short to their public-school peers. Homeschooling

allows parents to better take advantage of learning experiences that naturally take place in home

and community life [ CITATION Kyl16 \l 1033 ]. When parents realize that it is their sole

responsibility to educate and grow their child into a socially acceptable adult, they take it more

seriously. But if that never happens, then they give truth to every argument of homeschooling

critiques.
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Works Cited
Dwyer, J. D., & Peters, S. F. (2019). Homeschooling : The History and Philosophy of a

Controversial Practice. Chicago, Illinois, United States: University of Chicago Press.

Retrieved October 20, 2021, from https://web-s-ebscohost-

com.sinclair.ohionet.org/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE5NDExNDVfX0FO0?

sid=e499987b-b7a6-4d0d-ba0c-c714e56f84a7@redis&vid=7&format=EB&ppid=pp_89

Greenwalt, K. (2016, September 11). Here’s how homeschooling is changing in America.

Retrieved October 13, 2021, from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/heres-

how-homeschooling-is-changing-in-america-63175

McCabe, M., Belanova, A., & Machavcova, K. (2021, July 26). The gift of homeschooling:

Adult homeschool graduates and their parents conceptualize homeschooling in North

Carolina. Journal of Pedagogy, 12. Warsaw. Retrieved October 13, 2021, from ProQuest:

https://www.sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jped-2021-0006

Ray, B. D. (2014, July 10). Left, Right, and Online: A Historic View of Homeschooling.

Retrieved Ocotber 20, 2021, from NHERI: https://www.nheri.org/home-school-

researcher-left-right-and-online-a-historic-view-of-homeschooling/

Stevens, M. L. (2003). Kingdom of Children : Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling

Movement. Princeton, New Jersey, United States: Princeton University Press. Retrieved

October 20, 2021, from https://web-p-ebscohost-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/ehost/detail?

sid=49503e0f-639a-4656-bd10-

91fb40ee4eae@redis&vid=2&format=EB&ppid=pp_108#AN=273016&db=nlebk