Commentary: Eight Resources to Get People Started in Homeschool

Homeschool

If you’re feeling unqualified to homeschool, you’re not alone. The question of what and how to teach stressed me out early on in my homeschooling journey.

I found that having a good curriculum did a great deal to reduce my fears of not being qualified to teach. I wanted to strike a balance between bookwork, memorization, and fun interactive activities. I wanted to make sure to impart to my kids the basic body of knowledge necessary for a good education, yet I didn’t want to burn them out with endless worksheets.

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Commentary: Homeschooling Isn’t What I Expected It to Be

Homeschooling Child

I’ve heard it said, “I was a great parent before I had kids.” The same can be said of being a homeschooling parent.

Homeschooling circles are full of idealistic moms and dads who often have very high standards for themselves and their children. Certainly, having strong ideals can work as a guide and benchmark for navigating what can be a very challenging endeavor. However, these high standards can also backfire and leave even the best of us feeling like failures.

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Commentary: Dual Enrollment Is a Homeschool Resource

Mom and daughter learning

This year marks the completion of high school for two of my children. Navigating the high school years has been both exciting and challenging. By the time our children had reached high school age, two things were apparent. First, homeschooling had allowed my kids to find and pursue their special interests—ones that had future career potential.

Second, while mastery of most subjects had been relatively easy, math and science were a bit more difficult. Despite overall higher testing outcomes within the homeschool community, there is a documented math gap for many homeschoolers. In other words, most homeschoolers score slightly lower than their non-homeschooled peers in math and science. (This is understandable, of course: I don’t know many mothers qualified to teach high-level math or science, and most of us don’t want our kitchens being turned into chemistry labs.)

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Commentary: Four Things People Can Do to Change the Culture in 2024

People Praying

Maybe I am on a new year high, but as I consider the West’s cultural renewal, I sense an optimism in the air I haven’t felt for years.

In 2023, we saw a growing public awareness about the dangers and futility of transgender surgery. Alongside that, many woke up to the hypocrisy of the climate alarmists. And building on the success of Roe v. Wade’s demise, many states have now passed heartbeat bills, providing robust protections for many of the nation’s unborn. Surprisingly, pollsters even picked up on a decline in support for same-sex relationships.

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Commentary: ‘To Have and to Hold’: Marrying Young and Making It Last

Marriage

Kate Z. works in childcare and as a part-time barista in my local coffee shop. She’s the oldest of 10 children, with seven brothers and two sisters. Home-educated during elementary school, Kate then entered Padre Pio Academy here in Front Royal, Virginia, a hybrid school which combines homeschooling with three days a week in the classroom. She graduated in 2021 and currently lives in an apartment.

Jesse R. is adopted and the youngest of three siblings. For the most part, he was homeschooled before entering Padre Pio. He also graduated in 2021 and works as a chef de partie in the restaurant of a retirement community. He shares a house with a friend.

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Commentary: As Education Decentralizes, Those Who Like Control Are Nervous

As more parents gain the opportunity to abandon a compulsory schooling assignment for other options, including homeschooling and microschooling, it’s no surprise that those who favor top-down control of education feel anxious about this bottom-up education transformation. This nervousness is occurring on both ends of the political spectrum.

On the political left, The Washington Post did some pearl-clutching last week around the possibility that “no government official will ever check on what, or how well, [homeschoolers] are being taught.” On the political right, the Fordham Institute expressed similar concerns about hybrid homeschoolers and microschoolers: “To ensure that those children receive the education they deserve, it will require policymakers to craft smart laws to govern these new institutions….”

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Commentary: Students and Teachers Are Ditching Public Schools in Droves

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report titled, “A Nation at Risk,” which was an important point in the history of American education. The document used dire language, asserting that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

The report also stated: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

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Commentary: The Question of Socialization in Homeschooling

Questions about the socialization of homeschooled children are by far the most frequently asked of a homeschooling parent. The misconception is that without the traditional school experience to provide social training, homeschooled children will grow up having no idea how to function and fit into society.

My own children have been peppered with questions about their socialization training, or lack thereof, by complete strangers while the adult doing the questioning ignores all social cues and boundaries about the appropriateness of such an inquisition of a child. I myself have also been questioned, sometimes quite aggressively, about the issue of socialization as it relates to my homeschooled children.

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Commentary: I Love Homeschooling Our Eight Kids

This year I will graduate my first homeschooler. It seems like only yesterday I was teaching our oldest child to read, and now she’s an adult taking college courses. For the last 14 years I’ve been knee-deep in educating our eight children, recently as many as five grade levels at a time, in a one-room schoolhouse style approach.

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Commentary: The Things Students Are Learning After They Left Public Schools During Pandemic

The education disruption caused by mass school closures and prolonged remote instruction beginning three years ago this month led many families to seek other learning options beyond an assigned district school. Emerging research reveals just how significant and sustained that shift was.

In a new report, “Where the Kids Went: Nonpublic Schooling and Demographic Change during the Pandemic Exodus from Public Schools,” Stanford economist Thomas Dee reveals that more than 1.2 million students left district schools during the pandemic response. That exodus endured throughout the 2021/2022 academic year, as families continued to opt for private schools and homeschooling even though most district schools reopened. 

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Dr. Mark McDonald Tells Parents What They Need to Do to Save Their Children from Government Schools

Los Angeles-based psychiatrist Dr. Mark McDonald said “America’s schools are broken” beyond repair and have now become “dangerous” centers of leftist indoctrination – a problem parents must solve by changing their lifestyles, if necessary, to save their children.

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Government School Districts Plan K-12 Closures as Student Enrollment Plunges

Some of the largest public school districts in the nation are planning to close K-12 schools as they face plummeting student enrollment rates. “Nationwide, public school enrollment fell by more than 1.4 million students to 49.4 million between fall 2019 and fall 2020—a decline of roughly 3%, according to data from the U.S. Education Department,” reported the Wall Street Journal in January. “The following school year, enrollment failed to return to prepandemic levels and remained roughly flat.”

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Commentary: With States Hands-Off, Homeschooling Takes Off

South Dakota epitomizes the rapid growth of homeschooling in America. Guided by the principle that parents, not the government, have the right to determine what and how their kids are taught, homeschooling families have overturned existing rules and batted down attempts over the last decade to impose new ones in many states, including South Dakota. 

What’s left in much of the United States today is essentially an honor system in which parents are expected to do a good job without much input or oversight. The rollback of regulations, coupled with the  ill effects of remote learning during the pandemic, have boosted the number of families opting out of public schools in favor of educating their kids at home.  

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Data Expert Predicts ‘Homeschool Boom’ After CDC Committee Votes to Add COVID Shot to Children’s Routine Immunizations

Data journalist and pollster Rich Baris posted to social media he predicts a “homeschool boom” following the news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory committee unanimously voted to add the COVID shot to the children and adolescent immunization schedule, a move that will likely lead many states to require COVID shots for school attendance.

Baris, also known as “The People’s Pundit,” tweeted Wednesday, “Parents will flip the F–k out, with good reason. Homeschool boom.”

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Survey: 61 Percent of Americans Say Public Education on Wrong Track

EdChoice’s annual Schooling in America survey found 61 percent of Americans believe government-run education is headed in the wrong direction, while 76% of the public back parental choice programs such as education savings accounts (ESAs).

In 2022, the poll’s tenth anniversary, the survey found 61 percent of Americans and 52 percent of school parents say public schools are on the wrong track, while 34 percent of Americans and 48 percent of school parents state government-led education is headed in the right direction.

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Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona Blames Abysmal U.S. Student National Test Scores on Trump

The Biden education department announced Thursday that U.S. students’ plummeting scores in reading and math during the COVID-19 pandemic is all due to former President Donald Trump.

“Today’s data confirm the significant impact the prior Administration’s mismanagement of the pandemic has had on our children’s progress and academic wellbeing,” said Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona Thursday, following the report that U.S. students showed their steepest decline in decades in math and reading scores during the COVID school shutdowns.

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School Choice Gaining Favor over Teachers’ Unions and Socialist Bureaucrats

“School choice is good for everybody but unions, socialist bureaucrats and the tired education establishment,” libertarian John Stossel wrote Wednesday at the New York Post.

The author and journalist observed the “silver lining” of the COVID pandemic is that parents discovered alternatives to public schools and, as the statistics are telling us, they continue to act on that discovery by removing their children from them – in droves.

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Michael Bloomberg Blames Teachers’ Unions for Keeping Money Flowing to Traditional Government Schools and Away from Charter Schools

Former Democrat New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says teachers’ unions were responsible for keeping schools locked down during the pandemic, a move that has enabled a mass exodus of students from traditional government schools throughout the country.

Given the generally poor academic achievement of America’s students, the steep drop in enrollment means states are now paying more to educate fewer children, and, “paying more for failure,” he asserts.

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Michael Bloomberg Blames Teachers’ Unions for Keeping Money Flowing to Traditional Government Schools and Away from Charter Schools

Former Democrat New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says teachers’ unions were responsible for keeping schools locked down during the pandemic, a move that has enabled a mass exodus of students from traditional government schools throughout the country.

Given the generally poor academic achievement of America’s students, the steep drop in enrollment means states are now paying more to educate fewer children, and, “paying more for failure,” he asserts.

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MSNBC: Homeschooling a Racist ‘Evangelical War’ to Undermine Integration Policies

An opinion author at MSNBC has condemned homeschooling as a racist tool of evangelical Christians seeking to undermine public schools and policies that promote integration.

“It should come as no surprise that evangelicals, fundamentalists and other religious conservatives have fought against public education since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education,” Anthea Butler wrote at MSNBC in a column published Thursday.

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Kirk Cameron Presents ‘The Homeschool Awakening’: ‘The Public School System Has Become Public Enemy No. 1’

A new documentary presented by actor and filmmaker Kirk Cameron urges American parents to embark on the journey of homeschooling in order to regain control of their children’s education and protect the future of America.

Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), CAMFAM Studios, and Fathom Events announced on Monday the debut of Kirk Cameron Presents: The Homeschool Awakening, which will be in theaters for two nights only, on June 13 and 14, at 7:00 p.m. local time.

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Surge in Homeschooling Families Continues after Schools Reopen

The number of families homeschooling in the United States has remained significantly above pre-pandemic levels even though government schools have reopened.

The number of homeschooling students increased by 63% during the 2020-2021 school year in 18 states that shared data, AP reported. That percentage then dropped by only 17% in the next academic year.

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Kerry McDonald: Parents’ Demand for More Education Options Has Been Met with Greater Innovation in Providing Alternatives to Public Schools

Kerry McDonald

Senior Education Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) Kerry McDonald told The Star News Network the time is ripe in America for greater innovation and entrepreneurship in providing new education models for parents exiting the government school system.

Many parents got an up-close look at what their children are learning in public schools for the first time during the pandemic school closures and subsequent remote learning, leading them to consider education alternatives.

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Commentary: Failing Public Schools Motivate More Black Families to Home-School

As the United States observes Black History Month, African-American families are making history by leaving failing public schools and home-schooling their children in record numbers.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, parents, and especially black parents, found public schools incapable of handling the crisis. Even prior to the pandemic, public schools were failing to improve learning among African-American children.

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Commentary: Four Education Trends That Will Continue in 2022

There is a lot to be frustrated about as 2021 concludes. Some places are back in lockdown over rising coronavirus cases, while others are re-imposing previous restrictions and introducing new ones—including my city.

But at this joyful time of the year, I choose to be optimistic and focus on all the good things happening right now, particularly in the world of education.

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Commentary: Dear Policymakers, Homeschooling Is Here to Stay

Homeschooling is here to stay and the time has come for policymakers to acknowledge that fact. After years of increasing at a rate of about 3 percent a year, the number of parents choosing to homeschool their children has spiked, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the portion of children being homeschooled doubled from 5.4 percent during the 2019-20 school year to 11 percent in 2020-21. Among Black families, homeschooling jumped nearly five-fold during that time, from 3.3 percent to 16.1 percent.

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