Public School Vs Homeschooling

The time has come for your child to begin his education, and you are faced with the ever present question: What should I choose? Homeschooling or Public Schooling?
Both offer advantages and disadvantages and we will discuss some of them in this article as it is best to know all the facts before making the decision.

Advantages of Homeschooling

Probably the main advantage that home based schooling has over public schooling is the flexibility. You can set the learning periods after your schedule and the lessons can be fitted to suit your child’s learning style. Also the homeschooling system allows a lot of changes to the curriculum thus making it easier for you and your child.

The learning activities are more practical as home based schooling is an unstructured educational program and parents can develop the lessons in a fun way that will make the child more eager to learn.

The other big advantage of homeschooling is of course lower expenses as nowadays public or private schools can be very costly. You can save the money for involving your child in different social activities that will develop his or her social skills.

Advantages of Public Schooling

The biggest advantage of Public Schooling is the social development of a child. While you can definitely involve him in other social activities none will be as effective as being part of the same group for several years.

Public schooling also gives you more time for yourself, your job and for the many household chores you need to do. Homeschooling can prove to be very time consuming for the parents as they have to be with their child all through out the lessons and also correct the worksheets.

You should make the decision by taking into consideration all these facts, by thinking about the time you can invest and the effects that homeschooling or public schooling will have over you child.

One of the very first questions that most parents ask about home schooling is whether it actually works. They are only too well aware of the fact that the public schools have problems, but really wonder whether they can do any better. One natural response for some parents is to try a little harder to see if they can afford private schooling but, even if this were possible, are the private schools faring any better than the public schools?

The simple fact of the matter is that there are many, quality studies which show that, on average, home schooling produces superior students. To an extent of course this is understandable as parents clearly have an effect on education no matter which route they take. A parent who is genuinely interested in the education of his or her children will help to motivate them, producing better results.

But there is certainly more to it that this and there are many cases, in a great enough variety of situations, to take even this into account and still come to the conclusion that home schooling produces better results.

Even the Unites States Department of Education agrees. In one study which they sponsored themselves home schooled students produced exceptionally high test scores. The median scores in every grade were far higher than those of public schools and even higher than those of private school students. The average home schooled student in grades one through four was a grade level above that of public school peers and, by the time home schooled students reached the equivalent of the 8th grade, they were as much as four years ahead of students attending public school.

As if this were not enough, costs were also lower. On average, government schools spent $6,500 per student each year and private schools spent $3,500. By contrast, parents undertaking home schooling spent about $550 per student each year. This figure for home schooling does not of course take into account the time spent by parents on home schooling for which a public school teacher would be paid.

The public school system as we know it today evolved during the second half of the 19th century as one state after another made school attendance compulsory. Perhaps the most interesting question however, and one which rarely seems to be asked, is why, if public schooling offered such superior value, it was necessary for the states to make it compulsory and to force parents to put their children into the public school system.

It could be, and sometimes is, argue that this was due to the ignorance of rural parents who did not see the value of education. However, it is interesting to note that adult illiteracy rates in 1840 Massachusetts were a low 2% and that, by 1995, this figure had risen to 19%, in spite of apparently enormous advances in the intervening years. In 1840 libraries were rare and today they are everywhere as books are both relatively inexpensive and easy to trade.

Today over a million children are home schooled in the United States and thousands of home schooled students have attended colleges and universities, including many of the most prestigious and difficult to get into.