This is a rather long report, but it makes a very interesting read nonetheless:
J. Michael Smith, Esq.
President
Michael P. Farris, Esq.
Chairman
New Nationwide Study Confirms Homeschool Academic Achievement
Ian Slatter
Director of Media Relations
August 10, 2009
Each year, the homeschool movement graduates at least 100,000 students. Due
to the fact that both the United States government and homeschool advocates
agree that homeschooling has been growing at around 7% per annum for the
past decade, it is not surprising that homeschooling is gaining increased
attention. Consequently, many people have been asking questions about
homeschooling, usually with a focus on either the academic or social
abilities of homeschool graduates.
As an organization advocating on behalf of homeschoolers, Home School Legal
Defense Association (HSLDA) long ago committed itself to demonstrating that
homeschooling should be viewed as a mainstream educational alternative.
We strongly believe that homeschooling is a thriving education movement
capable of producing millions of academically and socially able students who
will have a tremendously positive effect on society.
Despite much resistance from outside the homeschool movement, whether from
teachers unions, politicians, school administrators, judges, social service
workers, or even family members, over the past few decades homeschoolers
have slowly but surely won acceptance as a mainstream education alternative.
This has been due in part to the commissioning of research which
demonstrates the academic success of the average homeschooler.
The last piece of major research looking at homeschool academic achievement
was completed in 1998 by Dr. Lawrence Rudner. Rudner, a professor at the
ERIC Clearinghouse, which is part of the University of Maryland, surveyed
over 20,000 homeschooled students. His study, titled Home Schooling Works,
discovered that homeschoolers (on average) scored about 30 percentile points
higher than the national average on standardized achievement tests.
This research and several other studies supporting the claims of
homeschoolers have helped the homeschool cause tremendously. Today, you
would be hard pressed to find an opponent of homeschooling who says that
homeschoolers, on average, are poor academic achievers.
There is one problem, however. Rudner’s research was conducted over a decade
ago. Without another look at the level of academic achievement among
homeschooled students, critics could begin to say that research on
homeschool achievement is outdated and no longer relevant.
Recognizing this problem, HSLDA commissioned Dr. Brian Ray, an
internationally recognized scholar and president of the non-profit National
Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), to collect data for the 2007-08
academic year for a new study which would build upon 25 years of homeschool
academic scholarship conducted by Ray himself, Rudner, and many others.
Drawing from 15 independent testing services, the Progress Report 2009:
Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics included 11,739
homeschooled students from all 50 states who took three well-known
tests-California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford
Achievement Test for the 2007-08 academic year. The Progress Report is the
most comprehensive homeschool academic study ever completed.
The Results
Overall the study showed significant advances in homeschool academic
achievement as well as revealing that issues such as student gender,
parents’ education level, and family income had little bearing on the
results of homeschooled students.
National Average Percentile Scores
Subtest
Homeschool
Public School
Reading
89
50
Language
84
50
Math
84
50
Science
86
50
Social Studies
84
50
Corea
88
50
Compositeb
86
50
a. Core is a combination of Reading, Language, and Math.
b. Composite is a combination of all subtests that the student took on the
test.
There was little difference between the results of homeschooled boys and
girls on core scores.
Boys-87th percentile
Girls-88th percentile
Household income had little impact on the results of homeschooled students.
$34,999 or less-85th percentile
$35,000-$49,999-86th percentile
$50,000-$69,999-86th percentile
$70,000 or more-89th percentile
The education level of the parents made a noticeable difference, but the
homeschooled children of non-college educated parents still scored in the
83rd percentile, which is well above the national average.
Neither parent has a college degree-83rd percentile
One parent has a college degree-86th percentile
Both parents have a college degree-90th percentile
Whether either parent was a certified teacher did not matter.
Certified (i.e., either parent ever certified)-87th percentile
Not certified (i.e., neither parent ever certified)-88th percentile
Parental spending on home education made little difference.
Spent $600 or more on the student-89th percentile
Spent under $600 on the student-86th percentile
The extent of government regulation on homeschoolers did not affect the
results.
Low state regulation-87th percentile
Medium state regulation-88th percentile
High state regulation-87th percentile
HSLDA defines the extent of government regulation this way:
States with low regulation: No state requirement for parents to initiate any
contact or State requires parental notification only.
States with moderate regulation: State requires parents to send
notification, test scores, and/or professional evaluation of student
progress.
State with high regulation: State requires parents to send notification or
achievement test scores and/or professional evaluation, plus other
requirements (e.g. curriculum approval by the state, teacher qualification
of parents, or home visits by state officials).
The question HSLDA regularly puts before state legislatures is, “If
government regulation does not improve the results of homeschoolers why is
it necessary?”
In short, the results found in the new study are consistent with 25 years of
research, which show that as a group homeschoolers consistently perform
above average academically. The Progress Report also shows that, even as the
numbers and diversity of homeschoolers have grown tremendously over the past
10 years, homeschoolers have actually increased the already sizeable gap in
academic achievement between themselves and their public school
counterparts-moving from about 30 percentile points higher in the Rudner
study (1998) to 37 percentile points higher in the Progress Report (2009).
As mentioned earlier, the achievement gaps that are well-documented in
public school between boys and girls, parents with lower incomes, and
parents with lower levels of education are not found among homeschoolers.
While it is not possible to draw a definitive conclusion, it does appear
from all the existing research that homeschooling equalizes every student
upwards. Homeschoolers are actually achieving every day what the public
schools claim are their goals-to narrow achievement gaps and to educate each
child to a high level.
Of course, an education movement which consistently shows that children can
be educated to a standard significantly above the average public school
student at a fraction of the cost-the average spent by participants in the
Progress Report was about $500 per child per year as opposed to the public
school average of nearly $10,000 per child per year-will inevitably draw
attention from the K-12 public education industry.
Answering the Critics
This particular study is the most comprehensive ever undertaken. It attempts
to build upon and improve on the previous research. One criticism of the
Rudner study was that it only drew students from one large testing service.
Although there was no reason to believe that homeschoolers participating
with that service were automatically non-representative of the broader
homeschool community, HSLDA decided to answer this criticism by using 15
independent testing services for this new study. There can be no doubt that
homeschoolers from all walks of life and backgrounds participated in the
Progress Report.
While it is true that not every homeschooler in America was part of this
study, it is also true that the Progress Report provides clear evidence of
the success of homeschool programs.
The reason is that all social science studies are based on samples. The goal
is to make the sample as representative as possible because then more
confident conclusions can be drawn about the larger population. Those
conclusions are then validated when other studies find the same or similar
results.
Critics tend to focus on this narrow point and maintain that they will not
be satisfied until every homeschooler is submitted to a test. This is not a
reasonable request because not all homeschoolers take standardized
achievement tests. In fact, while the majority of homeschool parents do
indeed test their children simply to track their progress and also to
provide them with the experience of test-taking, it is far from a
comprehensive and universal practice among homeschoolers.
The best researchers can do is provide a sample of homeschooling families
and compare the results of their children to those of public school
students, in order to give the most accurate picture of how homeschoolers in
general are faring academically.
The concern that the only families who chose to participate are the most
successful homeschoolers can be alleviated by the fact that the overwhelming
majority of parents did not know their children’s test results before
agreeing to participate in the study.
HSLDA believes that this study along with the several that have been done in
the past are clear evidence that homeschoolers are succeeding academically.
Final Thought
Homeschooling is making great strides and hundreds of thousands of parents
across America are showing every day what can be achieved when parents
exercise their right to homeschool and make tremendous sacrifices to provide
their children with the best education available.
Other Resources
Read the full <http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/ray2009/default.asp> report.
