Home schooling heads into mainstream

Monday, November 29, 2004

By The Leader-Chicago Bureau
The Illinois Leader

The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that about 1.1 million students, or 2.2 percent of school-age children, were home-schooled last year.

That is up from 850,000 students, or 1.7 percent, in 1999, Monday's St. Louis Post Dispatch reports.

ST. LOUIS -- Home schooling families fit no stereotypes, according to a featured story in Monday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

In some families, two working parents schedule their work days so that one or the other is available to oversee their children's school days. In other cases, home schooling families cooperate and parents share their expertises in higher maths and sciences. Some dads stay at home and teach while their wives earn the family income.

And the reasons for home schooling are just as diverse as the families who choose to shun public schools or traditional private schools and teach their kids at home.

Found in Kavita Kumar's story, "Home schooling is attracting mainstream families," is a list of reasons why parents choose to home school:

Why do parents home-school?

An analysis released this year by the National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education gave the following breakdown based on a survey from last year:

31 percent said they home-schooled because of concern about the environment of schools.
30 percent said they wanted to provide religious or moral instruction.
16 percent said they were dissatisfied with the academic instruction of other schools.
9 percent gave other reasons, such as family unity and individualized teaching.
7 percent said their child had a physical or mental health problem.
7 percent said their child had other special needs.

The story says that Illinois, as well as Missouri, has "liberal" laws concerning home schooling:

Missouri and Illinois have liberal laws regarding home schooling. Neither state requires parents to notify their school district or the state if they are home-schooling, and so does not monitor or track home-schooled students. And neither state has any education requirements nor mandates any testing of home-schooled students.

For information about Illinois home schooling, see: www.illinoishouse.org www.chec.cc, or www.iche.org.

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