Can We Fix Public Education?
Christian parents who send their kids to public school should read the following very carefully if they are concerned about the salvation of their children.
Homeschooled: 94%
Public Schooled: 15%
(source)
I want to offer a big thanks to Dana over at Principled Discovery for leading me to these statistics. You will find an awesome answer to the most popular question raised to homeschooling parents, “What About Socialization?”
May 1st, 2006 at 8:55 am
I knew the stats were high. But I hadn’t realized just how high. I wonder if the survey used to get the results were regionalized, and if the questioning considered what percentage of those kids believed going INto high school.
We’ve begun the process for homeschooling even though our kids are a little too young. But that’s more to set them up to be ready for the real thing in Sept. of this year.
Are you homeschooling?
May 1st, 2006 at 10:10 am
Hey there! Thanks for the link! Here is an interesting study, if you haven’t seen it already. Information varies between different studies, but it is all encouraging.
There is, of course, some difficulty with sampling which I’m not quite sure how to overcome. With free and compulsory education, just about every subsection of society is represented in the public school, except, perhaps, the very rich and the children of high profile parents (po;iticians and such.)
Homeschoolers don’t tend to represent the economically disadvantaged and minority populations. Since these groups score significantly lower, it may not be entirely “fair” to compare homeschooled children with the PS system as a whole. It might be interesting to compare the statistics to particular groups of PS students, such as middle class, suburban youth. The single greatest factor in PS success is parental involvement…something that homeschoolers obviously have to their advantage. Still, at least we know that homeschooling is not detrimental in any area, except perhaps how many times per week they read the newspaper (you have to look at the studies to see why I sat that : )
http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/default.asp
I find the spiritual advantages much more encouraging. Perhaps because that is my predominant reason for homeschooling. But if you take 200 Chrisitan youth and place half in public school and half in homeschool, most of the PS students will leave the faith while most of the homeschooled students will not. I’ll have to see if I can find the information on that. I may post it on my blog if I find it.
May 1st, 2006 at 10:15 am
oh, and to answer your question, I believe it is theoretically possible to fix public education…if it is brought back under the authority of the parents of the children attending the school. Complete local control.