Homeschool Academic Achievements

by Debra Dragon, Homeschooling Columnist Note-niks.net

Whenever the topic of homeschooling is mentioned, people inevitably want to know how well the average homeschooled child is doing academically.

"Some people argue that parents should not be legally allowed to teach their children in their homes unless they themselves have been educated and formally trained as a teacher."
While standardized test scores are often used as the basis for evaluating academic achievements, the tests in of themselves are controversial as to whether they are testing the child’s knowledge, or just their ability to take tests. Nevertheless, over the years, hundreds of these studies have been conducted in an effort to compare the academic achievements of homeschooled children versus those who are traditionally schooled. The results are positive: one study of 5,402 homeschool students entitled: “Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America”, released in 1997, indicated that, on average, homeschooled children outscored traditionally-schooled children by around 34 percentile points across all subject matters.

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