Parents who home-school children increasingly are white, wealthy and well-educated — and their numbers have nearly doubled in a decade, a new federal government report says.
What else has nearly doubled? The percentage of girls who are home-schooled. They now outnumber home-schooled boys by a wide margin.
As of spring 2007, an estimated 1.5 million, or 2.9% of all school-age children in the USA, were home-schooled, up from 1.7% in 1999.
The new figures come from the U.S. Department of Education, which found that 36% of parents said their most important reason for home schooling was to provide "religious or moral instruction"; 21% cited concerns about school environment. Only 17% cited "dissatisfaction with academic instruction."
Perhaps most significant: The ratio of home-schooled boys to girls has shifted significantly. In 1999, it was 49% boys, 51% girls. Now boys account for only 42%; 58% are girls...
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
More higher-income families are home schooling their children
This from USA Today:
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4 comments:
Glad to see increased competition in the market for education from anywhere possible.
Sorry to see the gender numbers moving that direction. As a generalization, boys are more difficult to handle, but have more to gain, from homeschooling.
The benefits of home schooling are even more highly localized than any kind of formal school, but so be it. At least home schoolers have a lot more support these days than at first.
I've seen recent reports of similar kinds of racial divisions in charters.
And of course, private schools, particularly independent private schools, have a long history of inequity.
Right or wrong, choice options are disequalizing by nature, and an issue to deal with under Kentucky's constitution.
Localized? What do you mean?
If charters tend to be in cities, they would tend to have a *more* diverse population-- in a way that might look more positive than it is.
Private schools are famous for occasional racial division (is this what you meant by "inequity"?). But I thought a higher proportion of govt schools had a high % of minority enrollments. I'd also seen a paper awhile back on lunchroom segregation being higher in govt vs. private schools.
I don't understand (the transition to) your final paragraph. Are you saying that private and home schooling are unconstitutional-- or just those subsidized by the State?
The challenge under the state constitution is for the General Assembly to provide a public system of schools that is substantially equal in every part of the state.
I suspect most charters will exist in cities for reasons of physical plant. But wherever they exist, I think I can promise you that each charter principal will look for ways to be different. Perhaps that's a good thing. Obama seems to think so. But it's a challenge Constitutionally. That's not to suggest that the General Assembly won't simply ignore that requirement.
And I should not have been so broad as to suggest that "choice options" were unconstitutional. Private schools and homeschooling are constitutional - and disequalizing.
I believe Charters to be unconstitutionally disequalizing. I also think they're going to happen anyway, as soon as the federal money is held hostage which apparently will happen in the next round of funding.
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