What If . . .
A Thought
Experiment
www.TheOldSchoolhouse.com
What is behind many scholars’ disapproval of homeschooling? There are a number of negative critics of homeschooling who think
parent-led education cannot be good for
children. There are also a number of research critics who say research on homeschooling basically tells us nothing. Both
are pretty grumpy about the idea that
homeschooling is good for students and
society.
Context
At the same time, 30 years of research has
found many positive things, and basically
nothing negative, to be associated with
homeschooling. 1 Homeschool students
consistently score 15 to 30 percentile
points above the public school average on
standardized tests. Homeschooled stu-
dents from low-income and high-income
homes and with both low-education and
high-education parents are doing well.
The home educated are doing as well or
better than the classroom schooled on
measures of social development. And
adults who were home educated are doing
well in college and on many other measures of success in adulthood.
So what, if anything, would help those
who are grumpy about homeschooling
be at least neutral about it? Let us try a
thought experiment.
Methods
Imagine that the “perfect study” were
to be done. The researchers have a
sizable budget of perhaps a half-mil-
lion dollars or so. They are able to
randomly select and get a very high
participation rate from 200 graduates
of twelve years of homeschooling, and
compare them to 200 randomly selec-
ted and comparable graduates of pub-
lic schooling.
These 18-year-olds are given a standardized achievement test that is valid
and reliable for both the home educated
and the public schooled. Further, they
are given a test of social skills that is valid
and reliable for both groups.
We then see that the top-notch researchers carefully control all the typically relevant background variables
such as parents’ formal education level,
family income, parents’ marital status,
The
Informed
Homeschooler
Brian Ray
There are a number of negative
critics of homeschooling who
think parent-led education
cannot be good for children.
