Public Education – The Peanut Gallery

By Dr. Susan Berry / 8 Jun 2013 – Breitbart Report

As dissatisfaction with the U.S. public school system grows, apparently so has the appeal of homeschooling. Educational researchers, in fact, are expecting a surge in the number of students educated at home by their parents over the next ten years, as more parents reject public schools.

A recent report in Education News states that, since 1999, the number of children who are homeschooled has increased by 75%.

Though homeschooled children represent only 4% of all school-age children nationwide, the number of children whose parents choose to educate them at home rather than a traditional academic setting is growing seven times faster than the number of children enrolling in grades K-12 every year.

As homeschooling has become increasingly popular, common myths that have long been associated with the practice of homeschooling have been debunked.

Any concerns about the quality of education children receive by their parents can be put to rest by the consistently high placement of homeschooled students on standardized assessment exams. Data demonstrates that those who are independently educated generally score between the 65th and 89th percentile on these measures, while those in traditional academic settings average at around the 50th percentile. In addition, achievement gaps between sexes, income levels, or ethnicity—all of which have plagued public schools around the country—do not exist in homeschooling environments.

According to the report: Recent studies laud homeschoolers’ academic success, noting their significantly higher ACT-Composite scores as high schoolers and higher grade point averages as college students. Yet surprisingly, the average expenditure for the education of a homeschooled child, per year, is $500 to $600, compared to an average expenditure of $10,000 per child, per year, for public school students.

The high achievement level of homeschoolers is readily recognized by recruiters from some of the best colleges in the nation. Home-educated children matriculate in colleges and attain a four-year degree at much higher rates than their counterparts from both public and private schools. Schools such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Stanford, and Duke Universities all actively recruit homeschoolers.

Similarly, the common myth that homeschoolers “miss out” on so-called “socialization opportunities,” often thought to be a vital aspect of traditional academic settings, has proven to be without merit. According to the National Home Education Research Institute survey, homeschoolers tend to be more socially engaged than their peers and demonstrate “healthy social, psychological, and emotional development, and success into adulthood.”

From the report: Based on recent data, researchers such as Dr. Brian Ray (NHERI.org) “expect to observe a notable surge in the number of children being homeschooled in the next 5 to 10 years. The rise would be in terms of both absolute numbers and percentage of the K to 12 student population. This increase would be in part because…[1] a large number of those individuals who were being home educated in the 1990’s may begin to homeschool their own school-age children and [2] the continued successes of home-educated students.”

Peanut Gallery: A new blog – Ooobie on Everything – has been brought to my attention and it’s well worth a read. The re-blog here speaks to the issue of how America got into our current mess – public education hijacked by leftists.

What’s the solution? Think homeschooling, or private schooling… yes, it’s that bad.

Here’s a sample of what Ooobie has to say about it –

The leftist infiltration of education as a primary means of spreading the faith has been underway for many generations, but it really went into high gear following the radicalization of the 60s generation. While most of that generation went on to pursue more lucrative fields, the real activists went into the classrooms. They knew that by indoctrinating today’s youth they controlled tomorrow’s politics. They could change the country fundamentally without ever setting off another bomb. And it worked perfectly, as propaganda always does when political debate is stifled and a compliant media endlessly amplifies the message. Such an environment puts the brain to sleep and supplants independent thought with militant slogans and threats of destruction to the old order. The teachers worked hand-in-glove with the union bosses, silencing, ostracizing and even punishing dissenters among the pedagogical ranks. The left took over curricula, faculty and administration. Opposing viewpoints need not apply. Our schools today are the enemies of intellectual discourse and the invigorating clash of ideas. Instead they toil to churn out mindless zombies, zealots of the left, masters of propaganda but ignorant of the reality of what they advocate.

I hope that quote encourages you to read the entire post here – and check out her most recent posts here. I particularly enjoyed her personal story recounted in her post “A Tale of Two Cities.” I’m looking forward to reading more.

Special thanks to Maggie at Maggie’s Notebook and NEO at nebraskaenergyobserver for bringing Ooobie to our attention. Please check out their blogs as well… there’s a lot of interesting reads… and plenty to think about.