Education Essay, Research Paper

Option for Prosperity

In an advanced information age economy, lifetime earning prospects depend on

the quality of education more than ever before. Americans are free to make

decisions about their health, college education and welfare. We can choose what

to eat, how to exercise, whom to marry and which candidate deserves our vote.

All of these choices shape us into the people we are today. The growing trend in

home schooled children demonstrates that parents are utilizing their freedom of

choice in order to help improve their child?s education. ?It is hard to

ignore indictment of the nation?s academically underachieving, morally

irresolute, disorderly, and often scary public schools? (Anderson). Home

schooling is a necessary option because it is more flexible than public schools,

it tailors learning to the needs of the children, and it provides a stable

environment for a well-rounded education.

Today?s public schools are engulfed so much in a specified curriculum,

instructors are there to inform other than teach. Home schooling gives families

more flexibility with teaching their children. ?Most home schooling students

spend their time at libraries, museums, factories, nursing homes, churches,

community colleges, a parks department, or elsewhere? (Lines). These varieties

of opportunities for students to experience positively broaden their adolescent

minds. Familiarities with knowledgeable occurrences outside of the classroom

help shape children?s understanding of the world.

Those people who are against the at home learning process feel that it

deprives the children of interactions necessary for learning. However, with the

freedom from a nine-hour school day, kids have the possibility to venture and

actually experience the books instead of just reading them. For example, ?John

was able to go to Africa with his grandfather for two weeks and we did not worry

about him missing school?southern Africa was his school? (Sale). Most home

schooled students do not have the opportunity to go to Africa but, there are

always possibilities opposed to spending much of one?s youth inside brick

buildings.

Other benefits of being schooled at home are that the learning process can be

tailored to fit the students? needs. Under the strict curriculum in which

public schools provide, the government determines the pace that students have to

learn. It is a known fact that there are not two children alike so how is it

possible to teach them all the same way. Some students need to learn at a faster

pace and some at a slower. Home schooling provides the best rate in which a

student can learn. ?No preconceived schedule forces them ahead or holds them

back? (Homeschool FAQ?s). It is often that children will complain that they

either do not understand the material or that it is boring. This is causing

parents to lose the faith they had in public educators and the system in which

they work for. The chance for one on one educating with home schooling is

opening many parents? eyes to the many beneficial possibilities. There can be

a focus on the children?s interests, help instill family virtues within their

child, and at the same time keeping their child safe from the possible harm

within today?s public schools.

With the increasing population among schools in mostly every school district

within the nation, there is an increase in violence. The recent shootings in the

Columbine and Santana schools have helped parents? contemplate home schooling

their children. There is hope that these events will never happen again but

obviously they are becoming more prevalent every day. ?Inside classrooms,

students waited in fear while teachers urged calm. Sheriff?s deputies ordered

many of the rooms locked down while they swept across campus to make sure there

were no accomplices? (McDonald). This is a parents? worst nightmare come

true. Places in which they trust that their child is safe to learn and prosper

constantly haunt them. Home schooling is the only true way to escape this fear.

Ever since I was a child I was told to look both ways before crossing the

street, it is about time that parents? started looking out for their children

because there does not seem to be any future help from the government.

Home schooling accounts for only three or four percent of America?s

schoolchildren but, there is a brisk movement with a fifteen percent annual

growth rate of at home students. In 1997, the top three National Spelling Bee

contest winners were products of the home-schooling system. On standardized

national tests of skills and achievement, home schooled kids scored better than

seventy or eighty percent of all test takers. In 1999 home-schooled students

scored 67 points better than the national average. By the eighth grade the

median performance of home-schooled students is almost four grade levels above

that of students nationwide. (Anderson) It seems that these students bring

motivation, curiosity and responsibility to their education, some things in

which public schools do not offer. Although public school officials constantly

frown upon at home education; these statistics prove that this form of

learning is very effective. I knew some home-schooled students from interactions

in after school activities. They seemed well educated, and were lucky to have

parents that encouraged them to learn.

Work Cited

Anderson, Brian C., ?An A for Home Schooling.? City Journal: pgs. 1-11.

Online. Internet. Available at www.city-journal.org/

?Homeschool FAQ?s.? Homeschool Information Library: pgs. 1-5. Online.

Internet. Available at www.home-ed-magazine.com/

Lines, Patricia M., ?Homeschooling comes of age.? Public Interest 140

(2000): pgs. 74-85. ProQuest. San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib. 10 March. 2001

<http://www.umi.com/proquest/>.

McDonald, Jeff. ?Terror Hits Home.? San Diego Union Tribune 6 March 2001.

NewsBank NewsFile. NewsBank InfoWeb. San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib. 10 March 2001

<http://www.infoweb.newsbank.com/>.

Sale, Bob. ?Sale family home school.? The American Enterprise 1 (2001):

pgs. 30-31. ProQuest. San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib. 10 March. 2001 <http://www.umi.com/proquest/>.