Home Schooling

Causes and Effects of Home Schooling Children Imagine that a child is approaching the age when he or she will begin schooling. So many questions are racing through a parents mind. Is the child going to receive the best education possible? Can all of the child’s emotional, psychological, and intellectual needs be met at public school? Questions like these are the reason why, so many parents around the country have chosen to take education into their own hands. Parents lack confidence in public schools and desire that their children receive a good education. Another cause parents may choose to home school their kids is that they do not want their kids to be subjected to “bad influences.” Home schooling offers a wide array of benefits when it comes to the education of a child. Although many effects of home schooling are positive, there are some effects of home schooling that many would consider negative. Home schooling does have the effect of boosting academic performance. However, the effect of home schooling can in some cases lead to children becoming socially misfit. Home schooling is an interesting issue because parents decide the cause, while the child feels the effects. According to a survey in the Education Policy Analysis Archives, 50.8 percent of home schooling parents decided to home school their children to give them a better education. This is one of the biggest causes for parents to home school their children. There are many overcrowded cities that contain school systems with insufficient funding. These public school systems may not be up to par with systems in other areas of the country. An article in The Washington Post discusses the problems that many poorer school districts face when it comes to looking for good teachers. Many of the more skilled teachers will move to upper class school districts, leaving some schools with a lack of teaching ability (Matthews). The lack of good teachers decreases the American public's confidence in the public

Cited: Matthews , Jay. "Top Teachers Rare in Poor Schools." Washington Post Sep. 2002: Page A05. Print. "Homeschooling in the United States: Trends and Characteristics." Education Policy Analysis Archives 10.26 (2002): n. pag. Web. 27 May 2009. http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n26.html.  Basham, Patrick , John Merrifield, and Claudia Hepburn. "Homeschooling: From the extreme to mainstream." October 2007. The Fraser Institute, Web. 27 Oct 2009.  "Home Schooling: The Bad and the Ugly." www.gregladen.com. 14th March 2007. Web. 27 Oct 2009. http://gregladen.com/wordpress/?p=495.  Fontane; Joe. P.I. 4/28/10 ----------------------- 5