Harris Poll: One-third of U.S. Adults Know Someone Who Homeschools Their Child

One-third of U.S. Adults Know Someone Who Homeschools Their Child

  Two-thirds of adults cite dissatisfaction with academic instruction as a
main reason why they think parents in general or they themselves homeschool
                              their children

   ROCHESTER, N.Y., April 14 /PRNewswire/ -- The passage of the No Child
Left Behind Act has focused attention not only on public education in the
United States, but on alternatives to public education as well. One such
alternative is homeschooling, a growing trend in recent years(1). One-third
(34%) of U.S. adults know someone who currently homeschools their child.
Among those households with children who are old enough to have attended
school, eight percent report that their child has been homeschooled at some
point in their education.
   These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,435 U.S. adults
surveyed online by Harris Interactive(R) between March 8 and 14, 2006.
   Reasons for homeschooling

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Homeschoolers A Small But Growing Minority- Harvard "Homeschool Anonymous" takes flight

by Rachel Pollack
The Harvard Crimson online edition

Crystal E. Winston ’06-’07 never had a prom. She never rode a school bus, went to gym class, or received a report card. Like a growing number of students around the country, Winston, went to school by staying at home—from kindergarten through senior year.

Winston, a history of art and architecture concentrator in Mather House, says her mother taught her at home because the St. Louis school district where she grew up was “way terrible.”

“There weren’t many options for us,” Winston says. “My mom wanted us to have a certain set of values growing up, and she wanted to make sure that we got those if we were homeschooled.”

The Department of Education reported in 2003 that 2.2 percent of the American school-age population was homeschooled. And experts at the Graduate School of Education say that a majority of those families choose to homeschool their children for religious reasons.

But even as the homeschooling trend takes root nationwide, a disproportionately tiny number of these students ever win entry to Harvard.

‘A GROWTH INDUSTRY’

In 1989, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said that around five to 10 homeschooled students applied to Harvard yearly.

Following the rise in the number of homeschoolers nationwide, between 100 and 200 homeschooled students applied to Harvard this year, says Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis ’70-’73. Lewis adds that many other applicants were homeschooled for part of their education.

“It’s a growth industry. We’ve probably had an increase in numbers over the past 10 years,” she says.

Lewis says she cannot give exact figures because the admissions office does not place homeschooled students’ applications into separate categories.

Despite this increase in the number of applicants, Lewis says Harvard usually only accepts between three and eight homeschooled students each year, a number significantly lower than this year’s overall acceptance rate of 9.3 percent.

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A baker's dozen: The Diel family believes in working, plaing and praying together

Great story about life, love and learning in a large family... (HEFT ed)

by Amy Siewart (GMToday) Greater Milwaukee 4/13/06

Size does not appear to be an issue for the tight-knit family, whose household is efficiently run, family members are healthy and most importantly happy. It would make any small family stand up and applaud.

To grasp how many years Diane Diel was pregnant or with a baby in her arms, she was 20 when she had James and 45 when she had Joseph ó a quarter of a century. "When I had my first one it was a great experience and I thought one is just fine," Diane laughs. "It really has been a journey. I didnít know they would all come from me!" she exclaims. Early in their marriage, Jim and Diane thought they would possibly adopt children instead of conceiving their own.

That whole idea was set aside after several pregnancies occurred.


The entire Diel family including son James (left) holding his baby with his wife sitting behind him, gathered for this family photo during the 2005 holiday season.

"This is an area of our lives where we are going to trust God," Diane says. "Weíve been blessed. Theyíve all been healthy."

The couple began reading the Bible after experiencing some difficult times early in their marriage. "We started taking God at his word and in the Bible we read that children are a blessing," Diane explains.

New Article from (Pacific) Time Magazine - School's Out Forever

http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/article/0,13673,503060417-1181679,00.html
Sunday, Apr. 09, 2006
It was several months before anastasia was born that her parents decided she wouldn't be going to school. Her mother, Katharina Russell-Head, had driven the idea, doubtful that schooling was the best way for children to learn. Without instruction, she reasoned, infants accomplish the astonishing feats of learning to walk and talk. "I wondered what would happen if you applied that same philosophy - just letting them be - to children after the age of five," she says. "Would they continue to do their job as children?" There's a twist in Russell-Head's case. A schoolteacher in Melbourne for 10 years before Anastasia came along, she might have been expected to regard teaching as a job best done by professionals. But that's not her view at all. While teacher training is worthwhile, she says, its main benefit is to prepare trainees for tutoring large groups. "Anyone can teach one-on-one," she says. "And my method wasn't really teaching, anyway. It was just being there." Academically, Anastasia seemed to thrive at home, an impression confirmed when - curious about school and keen to develop her musical talent - she started at the somewhat alternative Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School in Year 10. "She immediately excelled in everything," her mother says. "But after two weeks she came home and said, 'Mum, do you mind if I stop being top in everything? It's embarrassing.'" Anastasia is now 27 and concert manager at the Victorian College of the Arts. With her parents and sisters, she was a pioneer in a field that has grown markedly in Australia and New Zealand since the 1970s, when homeschooling reappeared after an absence of more than a century. Because a portion of homeschooling families choose not to tell authorities what they're doing, no one knows exactly how many children are involved in it. In Australia, estimates range from between 0.2% and 2% of the school-age population. Analysis of available numbers suggests the true figure is around 0.5% - or about 10,000 to 20,000 kids. Click on Title Above to read article.

Homeschooling Growing In Popularity

04/02/06

Homeschooling growing in popularity

NORTH PORT -- When his seventh-grade daughter was being bullied by classmates, John McKay took her out of public schools.

" I (felt) that the guidance counselors favored the bullies more than the ones being bullied," McKay said. Instead, the North Porter opted for homeschooling.

Leslie Valeska said she first started homeschooling when she found her son, now 14, was not being challenged enough in public schools.

"He was bored and the classes were not intense enough for him," she said. "Now I've been homeschooling him for four years, along with my three other children."

One of the surprises she found was how much her children support each other. "They all get excited when one of them gets a difficult concept or does something spectacular."

Families may choose homeschooling for many reasons.