One of the homeschool lobby’s most touted claims is that homeschooled students score higher than public school students on the SAT. This claim, highlighted in a June 2016 news release by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), is based on a self-selected sample of homeschooled students—those who choose to take the SAT—and is not representative of the entire homeschool population.[1] Nonetheless, NHERI’s report contains an interesting point that is briefly acknowledged but not fully explored. Using data from the College Board, NHERI reports that 13,549 seniors who graduated in 2014 and took the SAT at some point during their high school years identified as homeschooled.[2] This number is alarmingly low, and suggests that homeschooled students may be taking the SAT—and attending college—at much lower rates than their traditionally schooled counterparts.
An estimated 3.2 million students graduated from high school in 2014. Of these, 1.7 million students, or 53%, took the SAT at some point before graduating.[3] In 2014, an estimated 136,000 high school seniors were homeschooled.[4] The numbers reported by NHERI indicate that roughly 10% of these students (or 13,549 individuals) took the SAT before graduating. This data is not the first to indicate a low level of homeschool SAT-taking. Analyzing data from 2001, Clive Belfield, an economics professor at Queens College, found that “home-schoolers made up only 0.5% of all SAT test-takers, a proportion considerably below their representation in the student population and lower than any other school type.” At the time, roughly 2.0% of students in grades K-12 were being homeschooled.[5]
Low homeschool SAT-taking raises concern because the SAT is considered a proxy for intention to attend college.[6] Eighty percent of four-year colleges and universities require all applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. If homeschooled students take SAT at lower rates than other students, they likely also intend to apply for college at lower rates than other students. Because attending college is a sign of upward mobility, low college attendance rates could raise concern about homeschool outcomes.
While our analysis suggests that homeschool SAT-taking rates are lower than would be expected for this population, the rate is almost certainly higher than 10%. As we will explore, it is probable that as many as 50% of homeschooled students, possibly more, have access to non-homeschool SAT codes that they may use when taking the SAT. These students may be homeschooled through online charter schools, private “umbrella” schools, or correspondence schools. Assuming that these students use these non-homeschool SAT codes brings the rate of SAT-taking for the homeschooled students who remain up to 20%, a number still far lower than the 53% of public school students who take this same test—and concerningly low given the central role these scores play in college entrance requirements.
The remainder of this essay will address a variety of factors that help explain or provide context for homeschool SAT-taking rates. We will touch on the similarities we see in ACT-taking rates; homeschooled students with non-homeschool SAT codes; the role the SAT and ACT play for homeschoolers; the effect of background factors on SAT-taking rates; and whether community college attendance could help explain low SAT-taking. We will finish by discussing the implications of this data for both our current understanding of homeschooling and future research on homeschooling.
Homeschool ACT-Taking Rates
While the SAT is not the only test used to determine college admissions, homeschooled students’ low SAT-taking is not offset by a correspondingly higher rate of ACT-taking.[7] The ACT website reports that 57% of the 2014 graduating class took the ACT, slightly higher than the 53% of graduating 2014 seniors who took the SAT. That same year, 13,435 ACT-takers indicated that they were homeschooled. This number is nearly identical to the number of 2014 homeschool seniors who took the SAT before graduating, and amounts to 10% of all homeschooled seniors. As with the SAT code, it is likely that as many as 50% of homeschooled students, possibly more, had access to non-homeschool ACT codes.
As with SAT-taking, low homeschool ACT-taking appears to be consistent over time. In 2001, when 2% of students were homeschooled, 0.5% of ACT-takers indicated that they were homeschooled. Recall that Belfield found that homeschoolers made up 0.5% of SAT-takers that same year, a proportion he noted was lower than that of any other group.
Some students take both the SAT and the ACT, though it is difficult to tell how many do so; most colleges will accept scores from either the SAT or the ACT.[8] Removing the roughly 50% of homeschooled students who likely have access to non-homeschool SAT and ACT codes, 20% of the remaining students take the SAT, and 20% take the ACT. Even if no student took both tests—which is not the case—the combined rate of homeschooled students taking one of these two tests (40%) would be lower than the rate of students nationwide taking each test independently (53% for the SAT; 57% for the ACT).[9] ACT data does not explain low homeschool SAT-taking. Instead, it adds a second concern—low homeschool ACT-taking.
Using the SAT and ACT Homeschool Codes
The College Board (which administers the SAT) and the administrators of the ACT determine the number of homeschooled test-takers by asking homeschooled students to use a specific homeschool code when they fill out their testing information. While some students move in and out of homeschooling, data from the NCES suggest that high school students are homeschooled at a rate similar to younger students. In other words, low SAT-taking rates are not a symptom of lower numbers of high school students being homeschooled.
Both national and state-level homeschool organizations advise homeschool parents to have their children use the homeschool codes when taking these tests, and the College Board advises public high schools that allow homeschooled students to take the SAT in their facilities to have these students use the homeschool code. There is no evidence of any systematic effort to undermine the use of the homeschool codes provided by the College Board and the administrators of the ACT. However, some students are homeschooled through programs that give them alternate codes to use when taking the SAT.
Twelve states either allow or require homeschooling to take place through enrollment in private “umbrella” schools or homeschool associations, which frequently have their own SAT codes.[10] Other students are homeschooled through cyber charters or independent study programs run by public school districts, and would also not use the homeschool SAT code when taking the SAT. How popular these programs are is difficult to say. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ 2012 National Home Education Survey, as many as 50% of students being homeschooled in 2012 were homeschooled but enrolled in a school (public, private, or charter) part-time, or were enrolled in school (public, private, or charter) but homeschooled part-time. Many of these students, though not all, likely had access to a non-homeschool SAT code.
Does this explain seemingly low SAT-taking? Not completely. If 50% of homeschooled students are enrolled in programs that give them access to non-homeschool SAT codes, 20% of the remaining students take the SAT, a percentage still far lower than that of students taking the SAT overall.[11] It is possible, of course, that more than 50% of homeschooled students have access to non-homeschool SAT codes. However, to bring the SAT-taking rate up to its nationwide 53% among remaining homeschooled students, over 80% of homeschooled students would have to be enrolled in programs that would result in them being counted, for the purposes of taking the SAT, as public, private, or charter school students rather than as homeschooled students. While more research is merited, we find this unlikely.
Why are the SAT and ACT Important?
While tests such as the SAT and ACT have long been an important metric for all college-bound high school students, they have special importance for homeschooled students because they are frequently the only impartial third-party evaluation a homeschooled student can show a college admissions board. Indeed, colleges and universities place more weight on homeschooled students’ SAT and ACT scores than on those of other students.
The importance of the SAT for college-bound homeschooled students has been demonstrated by several researchers. A researcher who surveyed 51 colleges and universities in 1995 found that SAT or ACT scores were “the most common deciding factor” in homeschool graduates’ admission.[12] Another researcher surveyed colleges and universities in Pennsylvania in 2003 and compared the weight admissions officers placed on various admissions criteria for both traditionally schooled and homeschooled graduates. He found that “while . . . SAT scores are important for both groups . . . the outcomes suggest that these scores are significantly more important information for making an admission decision regarding the former home schooled.”[13] While admissions officers rated SAT scores as the third-most important admissions criterion for traditionally schooled students (less important than a student’s high school transcript and GPA), they rated SAT scores as the most important admissions criterion for graduates of homeschool programs.[14]
While some universities and colleges no longer require SAT or ACT scores, the vast majority (80%) continue to make these scores a requirement for admission; others require these scores for homeschooled students only. Even Christian colleges, which often portray themselves as homeschool-friendly, tend to require SAT or ACT scores. Because homeschool diplomas and transcripts continue to be overwhelmingly created and issued by students’ parents, the external verification that SAT or ACT scores provide to admissions officers has continuing importance in demonstrating homeschooled students’ credentials.
Could Demographics Explain low SAT-taking?
We know that various demographic factors affect the rate at which students take the SAT. Do homeschooled students have demographic factors that would predict a lower rate of SAT-taking? While demographic data on homeschooled students is sparse, the NCES does include questions about homeschooling in its quadrennial National Household Education Survey. Using the NCES and College Board data, we can analyze what impact homeschooled students’ parental education[15], household income[16], or race[17] should have on their SAT-taking.
In each demographic category, homeschooled students have factors that indicate more SAT-taking (more have parents with bachelor’s degrees, fewer live in low-income households, fewer are Hispanic) and factors that indicate less SAT-taking (fewer have parents with graduate degrees, fewer live in high-income households, fewer are Asian). In each category, these various factors even out, leaving homeschooled children with a roughly 1% increased likelihood of taking the SAT as compared to other students.
This is only part of the story, however. We carried out these calculations using the NCES adjusted demographic data for all homeschooled students. When we remove those students whose parents reported that they were homeschooled only part-time, the demographics change dramatically. Students homeschooled full-time—those most likely to be using the homeschool code rather than a code provided by another program—are substantially whiter and less poor than other students, and are less likely to have parents who have not completed high school and more likely to have parents with graduate degrees. Students with higher levels of parental education, in particular, take the SAT at a higher rate than other students. Given the demographics of full-time homeschooled students, we would expect them to be taking the SAT at a rate higher than the overall national SAT-taking rate of 53%.[18]
What about Community College?
There is still one more potential explanation for low homeschool SAT-taking: community college. Community colleges do not generally require SAT or ACT scores for admission. If large numbers of homeschool graduates are attending community college and then transferring to four-year institutions with enough credits to be considered transfer students, these individuals would not need to take the SAT. Unfortunately, no data exists on the overall rate of homeschool attendance at community colleges. This information has simply not been collected. All we currently have is data on homeschool attendance rates at four community colleges studied by researchers interested in homeschool performance.
When researcher Jack N. Bagwell looked at a community college in South Carolina, he found that 3.6% of students enrolled at York Technical College (a medium-sized open enrollment community college in South Carolina) in 2007 had been (or were being) homeschooled.[19] That rate is higher than the overall homeschool rate at the time (2.9% in 2007). However, Bagwell’s findings contrast with those of other researchers. When Molly H. Duggan looked at students at a multi-campus community college in 2010, she found that out of 39,000 students enrolled, only 171 students, or 0.4%, had previously been homeschooled. A large regional community college that responded to an exploratory query from CRHE in 2013 reported that only 0.1% of of its incoming students in 2012 were homeschooled.[20] Based on data Benjamin G. Kramer reported in his 2012 study of a mid-sized Mid-Atlantic community college, an estimated 1% of students enrolled between 2004 and 2011 were homeschooled.[21]
The research on homeschool community college enrollment is thus far limited to these four data points. More research is needed to determine whether homeschooled students are attending community colleges and transferring to four-year institutions in large enough numbers to offset their low SAT-taking. The information we currently have—the four data points provided by Bagwell, Duggan, Kramer, and our own exploratory study—do not suggest that homeschooled students are taking this route in significant numbers, adding to existing questions about what low SAT-taking may mean for homeschool college attendance.
What about data that suggest high rates of college attendance?
Homeschool advocates often claim that homeschool graduates have higher college attendance rates than other students. To make this argument they tend to cite Brian Ray’s 2003 study, Homeschooling Grows Up, which found that “[o]ver 74% of home-educated adults ages 18–24 have taken college-level courses, compared to 46% of the general United States population.” In a study of homeschool alumni conducted by Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out (HARO) in 2014, 87% of respondents reported that they had completed at least some college (CRHE provided the data analysis for this study). However, both studies relied on volunteer samples rather than using nationally representative randomly selected samples; while these studies’ results can be considered descriptive of their respondents, they cannot be assumed to be representative of the population of all homeschool graduates.
In a study of unschoolers (a term typically used for secular homeschoolers who take a child-led, hands-on approach to education) published in 2014, researcher Peter Gray found that 44% of respondents had completed a bachelor’s degree or were currently enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program. 83% of respondents had pursued at least some higher education. However, Gray’s study suffers from the same weakness that besets both Ray’s study and the HARO study—all three drew on volunteer samples rather than drawing on a representative cross-section of homeschoolers. Of the three, only the HARO survey reported the level of education obtained by respondents’ parents. The level of parental education reported by respondents was substantially higher than the average level of education held by homeschool parents as reported by the NCES, suggesting that the survey over-sampled homeschool graduates from college-educated homes.
The CARDUS Education Survey, conducted in 2011, is the only study of homeschool graduates that we are aware of to use a random sample. This survey, which looked only at individuals whose mothers attended religious services weekly, found that homeschooled students raised in religious homes had a lower level of educational attainment than non-homeschooled students raised in religious homes. Researchers found that homeschool graduates had lower SAT scores, completed fewer years of higher education, and were less likely to receive a college degree. In other words, the findings of the only study of homeschool graduates to use a random sample reinforce concerns raised by low homeschool SAT-taking.
A Call for Research
We could answer questions about low homeschool SAT-taking by looking directly at the rate of homeschooled students attending four-year colleges and universities, but such data does not currently exist. We do have data on the rate of homeschooled students attending a smattering of individual colleges. 7% of freshmen at Messiah College were homeschooled during their high school years, along with 12% of students at Grove City College; both are Christian colleges popular with evangelical homeschoolers. Other private colleges that report this data have far lower homeschool attendance rates. Elite private colleges and universities tend to report extremely low homeschool enrollment—Harvard, Princeton, and MIT report homeschool enrollment between 0.1% and 0.5%. The few data points we have on homeschool attendance at four-year state colleges or universities, institutions that educate far more students overall than private colleges, are troubling, ranging from 0.2% to 1%. A comprehensive study of homeschool college attendance is needed.
Homeschool advocates often point to positive studies of homeschooled students’ performance in college as proof that homeschooling not only works but actually has better results than other educational methods (there are also studies that find more mediocre performance). However, if only a narrow slice of homeschooled students take the SAT and attend college, it is to be expected that these students—the best and brightest—would both score better on the SAT and perform better in college than their traditionally schooled peers, not because homeschooling is a superior method of education but rather because lower-performing homeschooled students have been removed from the sample. CRHE believes that homeschooling should offer the same opportunities for success as other educational methods. If homeschoolers have a lower rate of college attendance than other students, this would indicate that they are not receiving these opportunities.
Given how little research has been conducted on homeschool graduates who do not attend college, there is not much we can say definitively about this group. Proponents of homeschooling argue that independent learning encourages entrepreneurship; perhaps these students have started their own businesses or found other ways to create careers without attending college. On the other hand, advocates for homeschooled alumni, such as HARO and CRHE, spotlight the stories of alumni who struggle, held back by their lack of education. We know very little about what goes into homeschool graduates’ decisions about college. Are they motivated by a desire to avoid debt, or by a distaste for traditional classroom learning? Are they held back by a lack of math attainment, or by a lack of knowledge about the admissions process in the absence of high school guidance counselors? We do not currently have the data we need to answer these critical questions. More research is needed on the full range of outcomes for homeschooled children—not just for the best of the best.
[1] NHERI’s president, Dr. Brian D. Ray, is a homeschool father and long-time promoter of homeschooling with a history of misrepresenting his findings and avoiding peer review.
[2] We submitted a research request to the College Board in September 2016, hoping to gain access to this and additional data, but were informed that the College Board no longer releases data on homeschooling.
[3] Some states have begun requiring all students to take the SAT (or ACT) before graduating, but students from these states made up only around 6% of 2014 graduating seniors who had taken the SAT. Even removing these states from the count, a full 50% of 2014 high school seniors in the remaining states took the SAT at some point before graduating.
[4] The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has estimated that 1.77 million students were being homeschooled in 2012; of these students, 514,000 were in grades 9-12. Assuming that the homeschooling continued to grow at the same 3% annual rate at which it grew between 2007 and 2012, we estimate that there were 545,000 homeschooled students in 2014. For a number of reasons, we have chosen to assume that these students were evenly distributed between grades 9-12. While some state enrollment data shows a decline in homeschool enrollment in the later grades of high school, this is likely due to these students passing the age of compulsory attendance.
[5] Belfield found that 6,033 SAT-takers indicated that they were homeschooled; the NCES data suggests that there were 275,000 homeschooled students in grades 9-12 at that time, roughly 68,750 of them seniors. Like the NHERI release, Belfield puts homeschool SAT-taking rates at below 10%.
[6] In 2014, over 40% of high school graduates immediately enrolled in a four-year college or university, while an additional 25% enrolled in a two-year college.
[7] The ACT has increased in popularity in the past decade, overtaking the SAT in 2012. While more students nationwide took the ACT than the SAT in 2014, homeschooled students were still equally likely to take the SAT as the ACT. It is possible that homeschool parents have yet to catch up with new trends in college admissions test-taking. It is also possible that higher ACT-taking nationwide is the result of more states using the ACT as a high school exit examination.
[8] Whether students take the SAT or ACT has traditionally varied widely by region. A study out of California, where students traditionally take the SAT, found that 39% of SAT-takers also took the ACT and 86% of ACT-takers also took the SAT. In other words, 37% of all California students who took the SAT or ACT took both tests. Whether the same percentage of test-takers take both tests nationwide is unclear.
[9] Using the data provided in footnote 8, we can estimate that roughly one-third of the estimated 50% of homeschooled students without access to a non-homeschool SAT code take at least one of the tests. However, we have no way of knowing whether California’s pattern of test-taking is reflected nationwide, or whether homeschooled students who the SAT or ACT take both at the same rate as other test-takers.
[10] These states are AL, AK, CA, CO, FL, LA, ME, MD, PA, SC, TN, and WA, home to approximately one-third of the nation’s school-age population, and roughly one-third of the nation’s SAT-takers. Alabama and South Carolina are the only states on this list that require all students to be homeschooled through umbrella schools or homeschool associations. We estimate that at least half of the students in these states are homeschooled independently, and not through alternate programs.
[11] 68,000 is half of the estimated 136,000 homeschooled high school seniors in 2014. 13,549, the number of SAT-takers indicating that year that they were homeschooled, is 20% of 68,000.
[12] Villanueva, Brian D. “An Investigation of the Admissions Standards of United States College and Universities for Home-Schooled Students.” Home School Researcher, 13, No. 2 (1999), 1-6.
[13] Barno, Richard Joseph. “The Selection Process and Performance of Former Home-Schooled Students at Pennsylvania’s Four-Year Colleges and Universities.” Lehigh University, Ed.D. (2003), 140.
[14] Barno, ibid., 141.
[15] When we compare 2012 student demographic data with demographic data on 2012 SAT-takers, we find that not having a parent with a bachelor’s degree has a negative effect on student SAT-taking, while having a parent with a bachelor’s degree has a positive effect and having a parent with a graduate degree has an even stronger positive effect. According to the NCES, students being homeschooled in 2012 were slightly more likely than other students to have a parent with a bachelor’s degree but slightly less likely than other students to have a parent with a graduate degree. When looking at parental education alone, this generation of homeschooled students should be taking the SAT at the same rate as, or a slightly higher rate than, students overall.
[16] We do not have detailed household income data for homeschooled students more recent than 2007. However, by comparing that data with 2007 student demographic data and demographic data on 2007 SAT-takers, we can ascertain how this measure might have affected homeschool SAT-taking at that time. In 2007, living in a household with an income of less than $20,000 had a negative effect on student SAT-taking while living in a household making over $100,000 had a positive effect on student SAT-taking. Students being homeschooled in 2007 were slightly less likely than other students to live in households with incomes under $20,000 and slightly less likely to live in households with incomes over $100,000. As with parental education, when considering household income alone, this generation of homeschooled students should be taking the SAT at the same rate as, or a slightly higher rate than, students overall.
[17] By comparing 2012 student demographic data with demographic data on 2012 SAT-takers, we find that Hispanic students are less likely than other students to take the SAT and that Asian students are substantially more likely than other students to take the SAT. In 2012, homeschooled students were more likely to be white and less likely to be black, Hispanic, or (especially) Asian. As with the previous two factors, when looking at student race alone, this generation of homeschooled students should be taking the SAT at the same rate as, or a slightly higher rate than, students overall.
[18] Because the NCES has only released the percentage of full-time homeschooled students who are poor or non-poor, we cannot make a direct comparison between this data and the College Board data, which is released by income level rather than by poverty status. As for race, the College Board data suggests that white students take the SAT in relative proportion to their share of the student population, even as Hispanic students take the test at a lower rate and Asian students take it at a higher rate. Our analysis of full-time homeschooled students’ level of parental education, as compared with data released by the College Board, suggests that this population should take the SAT at a rate nearly 10% higher than the nationwide average.
[19] Bagwell reported that 169 students enrolled at York Technical College during the 2007-2008 school year listed homeschooling as the school from which they matriculated. York Technical College reports having 4,731 students enrolled in fall 2007. Of Bagwell’s full sample (he looked at all homeschooled students enrolled in the college from spring 2001 through fall 2007), one-third were under 18. Bagwell notes that in many cases these students dual-enrolled, taking community college courses while completing other credits at home. Whether these students would be considered transfer students when enrolling in a four-year college or university would depend on how many credits they completed at York.
[20] Homeschooled students accounted for 20 out of 14,628 incoming students.
[21] Between 16 and 35 new homeschooled students were enrolled each year from 2014 through 2011, compared to a total enrollment of between 6,041 and 10,512 students. Assuming that newly enrolled homeschooled students accounted for about one third of total enrolled homeschooled students (based on Bagwell’s findings), this amounted to a total homeschool enrollment of between 0.7% and 1.2% each year.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Get Involved in Homeschool Reform
2017 has brought with it increased interest in political activism and in participation in the political process. This presents an opportunity for those interested in homeschool reform. While it may seem like there are so many issues at hand that no one could possibly take interest in yours, it is your legislators’ job to consider concerns from all of their constituents—and about every aspect of life in the district they represent. Because homeschooling is as diverse and geographically widespread as the United States itself, homeschool reform should matter to every lawmaker in every state.
Change is a long process that can seem intimidating from the outside, but depends on individuals like you who reach out to their legislators and stay engaged. If you are feeling inspired to get involved and advocate for homeschool students and families in your state, now is always the time. Your story belongs to you; by sharing it, you are empowering policymakers to make more thorough and thoughtful decisions. We have been working on new resources to help you as you navigate the issues, have meaningful interaction with your legislator’s office, and make your voice heard.
Start with our newly expanded page on how to contact your legislators. Since knowing the issues is key to having successful conversations with your legislator’s office, we’ve compiled background issues and some ideas on getting up-to-date on any home education bills in your state. From there, you can find out who represents you in your state legislature and the many ways to contact their offices. We have included tips for each method of contact; you may want to use multiple methods to follow up with your representatives. Our updated Share the Word page contains a detailed background on CRHE issues of interest, recommended reading on each, and some sample talking points you can use as guide for your conversations.
Once you’ve decided how to contact your legislator and what you want to say, you can use our new Legislative Handout to provide a broader context for your story. It contains concise points about the importance of homeschool oversight, and references our research and other home education data. The handout can be printed to a one-page (front and back) document and mailed to your legislator or handed to them at a meeting. You will notice that it includes space for personalization with your story and contact information–this is very important. If you are sending your legislator an email and want to attach this handout, that’s great, but make sure you include your own reasons for supporting homeschool reform and a way for them to respond to you in the body of your email.
As a constituent, your experience is ultimately what matters to your legislator.
If you meet legislators who seem supportive but might need further information, or if you otherwise need support, please reach out to us. We would love to hear about the variety of experiences CRHE supporters (whether they be students, alumni, parents, family or friends) have when talking about these issues so we can improve these resources to maximize impact.
The best way to create change is for many passionate people like you get involved early, stay engaged, and reach out to lawmakers often.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by Rachel Coleman
Reactionary Homeschooling
At CRHE, we sometimes receive questions from individuals planning in advance to homeschool. Sometimes they intend to homeschool because of negative experiences they had attending public school as children. In other cases they plan to homeschool because they have concerns about Common Core, or because they disagree with the education policies of the state or nation. We encourage these parents to consider and evaluate all available options, including the local public schools, before making the final decision to homeschool.
Schools today are not identical to schools when you were a child.
Public school teachers and administrators are always looking for ways to make education better. Since the 1980s there have been major shifts in how schools address bullying, for example, and an increasing move toward project-based learning. Don’t assume that today’s schools are the same as the ones you attended.
Your children are not destined to repeat your experience.
Every person is different, and that means you and your child are different, too. Your children will have different teachers, meet different classmates, and excel at different subjects from you. Let your children create their own stories.
Educational quality varies by state and region.
State and local policy have a large impact on the quality of any given school district. You may be concerned about the direction of federal education policy, or even state education policy, but you should give your local school district a look rather than pre-judging it based on the actions of bureaucracy.
Don’t judge a public school without visiting it first.
Test scores often have far more to do with student demographics than with school quality; school ratings based on test scores can contribute to segregation by race or class. Place more weight on the experiences of parents whose children attend the school than on its reputation in the wider community, and remember that diversity enhances children’s experiences.
Your child is not your political pawn.
While it is commendable to make political statements with your own choices, it is unfair to your child to let your political activism determine the quality of the education they receive. Your child’s education should be about what is best for your child, not about making a political statement.
Your child should have input in this decision.
Don’t make this call for your child without involving them in the decision making process! What your child wants should matter. Many homeschool advocates value homeschooling for its potential to be child-centered, but upholding this value necessitates centering the decision to homeschool on the child’s wishes.
Why would a homeschool advocacy group encourage parents to consider alternatives to homeschooling? Wise parents remain flexible and receptive to the changing needs of their children—different educational options may be best for your child at different seasons in their life. Evaluating the various options available is an important part of determining whether homeschooling is best for you—and, more importantly, for your child.
Last Updated: 23 March, 2021 by Rachel Lazerus
Arkansas Data Contradicts HSLDA’s Claims
Last week, Scott Woodruff of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) used homeschool testing data from Arkansas to argue that homeschool programs in that state are superior to those offered by public schools. We have been analysing Arkansas’ testing data for several years now, and were surprised to see Woodruff reference this data. Arkansas’ homeschool testing data runs in direct contradiction of both Woodruff’s specific claims about Arkansas’ students’ scores and HSLDA’s broader claims about homeschooled students’ performance nationwide.
Arkansas has long required homeschooling families to submit test scores for certain grades; this ended in 2015 under the HSLDA-supported House Bill 1381. The Arkansas Department of Education makes available homeschooling reports from 1997 to 2015 on their website. This data has limitations: The state does not collect demographic statistics on homeschoolers, and reports only the average of all students have taken the test for each grade, offering no way to know the distribution of homeschooled students’ scores scores. Furthermore, page 61 of the 2013-2014 Home School Report (the last year in which that test scores for homeschoolers were required) lists 13% of homeschoolers as “not known if they were tested or not.”
In his comments, Woodruff states that “[f]or many years, all Arkansas homeschool students were required to take standardized tests” and that these students “consistently out-scored their public school counterparts.” The actual records of the Arkansas department of education state otherwise. As seen on pages 35-54 of the 2006-2007 Home School Report (2006-2007 Home School Report), the last year a full battery of subject scores are reported, the average scores of homeschooled students and public school students varied. The mean score of the homeschooled students was often slightly better than the mean score of students attending the state’s public schools, but only slightly, and it is unclear whether this difference in scores is statistically significant or if it merely reflects underlying demographic patterns (students’ race, family income, and parental education levels were not reported).
Woodruff would have been only slightly inaccurate if he had stopped here, but he did not. Instead, he drew on two oft-misused national studies of homeschooled students’ test scores, those by Lawrence Rudner and Brian Ray, to claim that homeschooled students score 30 percentile points higher than public schooled students. At CRHE, we have frequently criticized these studies (see here and here), noting that both relied on volunteer samples and oversampled homeschooled students in two-parent, non-poor, college-educated families. But what makes Woodruff’s use of this data puzzling is that it stands in stark contradiction with the homeschool testing data Arkansas collects, which Woodruff already cited positively.
It is technically possible that homeschooled students in Arkansas score 20 to 30 percentile points lower than homeschooled students nationwide. It is more likely, however, that Arkansas’ testing data backs up what we have noted repeatedly—that Ray and Rudner’s national studies of homeschooled students’ performance dramatically oversample homeschooled students from families with background factors that correlate with high academic performance. As a result, their findings cannot be compared to the public school average (given the different demographic factors), and are not representative of the homeschool population as a whole, as the Arkansas data makes clear.
Woodruff also references homeschooled students’ higher than average SAT scores, failing to mention that the SAT is typically taken only by homeschooled students who plan to attend college, leaving out those for whom college has been rendered unobtainable. Further, CRHE recently published a study calling attention to the startlingly low number of homeschooled students who take the SAT, and highlighting concerns that homeschooled students may attend college at a lower rate than their public schooled peers.
We suspect that Woodruff felt he could play fast and loose with statistics in this piece because his readers may not know that Arkansas’ homeschool reports are public information. Unfortunately, Woodruff and the organization he represents, the Home School Legal Defense Association, have used this strategy to mislead lawmakers across the country for some time now. Only two states make available data from a wide cross-section of homeschooled students—Arkansas and Alaska—and neither state’s data backs up either Rudner’s or Ray’s findings. Until recently, data from Arkansas’ homeschool reports and Alaska’s popular homeschool charter programs have been little studied and little promoted, allowing Woodruff and others at HSLDA to make claims dramatically out of step with reality. In making these claims about Arkansas itself, Woodruff makes it clear that he cares more about claiming that homeschooling is academically superior to other methods of education than he does about the actual academic performance of homeschooled students.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Natalie Finn’s Death Points to Lack of Homeschool Oversight in Iowa
For Immediate Release: Recent Iowa child abuse fatality is not the first to implicate homeschooling and abuse
Canton, Ma., 01/03/2017—On October 24, 2016, sixteen-year-old Natalie Jasmine Finn died after suffering years of starvation and abuse. Natalie, who lived in West Des Moines, Iowa, was homeschooled by her parents, Nicole Marie Finn and Joseph Michael Finn II. “This is far from the first case where homeschooling has contributed to the concealment of child abuse,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE). “Natalie’s death is part of a larger pattern.” CRHE was founded in 2013 by homeschool alumni in order to advocate for homeschooled children..
State Senator Matt McCoy, who represents the district where Natalie lived, called Natalie’s abuse “one of the most torturous forms of death I could think of” and “absolutely tragic.” Some researchers have identified a correlation between homeschooling and severe child abuse or child torture. In a 2014 study of child torture, Barbara Knox of the University of Wisconsin found that 47% of the school-aged child torture cases she examined involved children who had been enrolled in school and were later removed to be homeschooled. According to Knox, this homeschooling “appears to have been designed to further isolate the child” and “typically occurred after closure of a previously opened CPS case.” As Knox noted, this isolation “was accompanied by an escalation of physically abusive events.”
Natalie attended an alternative school during the 2014-2015 school year, but was subsequently homeschooled. While few details have yet been released, Natalie’s parents were reported to child protective services on a number of occasions. However, Iowa allows parents to homeschool even when they have been repeatedly reported to child protective services. Because there are no background checks for homeschool parents, even those previously convicted of violent crimes, sexual assault, or child abuse are permitted to homeschool. Since 2000, over 100 homeschooled children have died of abuse or neglect in the United States. “Homeschooling works best in stable, healthy home environments,” said Coleman. “Homeschooling offers abusive parents a way to isolate their children and may lead to an escalation of abuse.”
Five years ago, Iowa had some of the most thorough oversight of homeschooling in the country. Then, in 2013, the state’s legislature passed a law repealing the state’s homeschool requirements; today, homeschooling takes place with no accountability. Previously, parents were required to homeschool under the supervision of a certified teacher or to submit an annual assessment providing evidence that the child had made adequate academic progress. Iowa’s defunct homeschooling requirements may have saved 11-year-old Sarah Neely’s life a decade ago; when Neely’s father began canceling their meetings, her supervising teacher made a report to the police. Neely was found locked in an empty room, thirty pounds underweight.
“It is time to say enough is enough,” said Coleman. “When the legislature gutted its protections for homeschooled children four years ago, it created conditions that contributed to Natalie’s death.” Two states, Pennsylvania and Arkansas, require background checks for homeschooling parents, and legislators in several other states, including Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, have sought to create protections for at-risk homeschooled children in recent years. “Homeschooling should be used to provide children with a solid education in a loving home environment,” said Coleman, “not to isolate children and hide child torture.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.
Last Updated: 21 November, 2017 by CRHE
Maria M.: “I’m still playing catch-up”
Ultimately, it is me who pays the price. I’m now 25 and I’m still playing catch-up. My Math and Science skills are at an 8th grade level and I’ll have to spend a few years in remedial classes that government aid won’t cover.
Homeschooling in our family didn’t start off as a choice at first; it was more of a necessity.
In 1991, shortly after I was born, my older sister was diagnosed with a devastating life-long illness, of which there is no known cure. She was in elementary school at the time doing extremely well in the gifted program of the local public school. My parents felt the school wasn’t cooperating very well with the demands that someone with a newly diagnosed disease needed—like more time and patience adjusting to her medications, weakness, etc. At the time, my sister could barely walk. It was then that my parents decided to homeschool.
For the year my sister was homeschooled, she did awesomely. My parents felt confident they could teach elementary-level coursework and my sister was well-behaved and took her work seriously. Homeschooling worked so well for her, that by the time she had her condition stabilized, she returned to public school a year ahead. My mom and dad never went to college. My dad had a full-time job and my mom was looking to find one also. This is why they returned my sister to school instead of continuing homeschooling.
When I was ready to go into kindergarten, my parents decided to try homeschooling with me. It went great before with my sister—surely it would go great with me! I can imagine that was the thought. In reality, I was unruly, didn’t want to do work, and didn’t take my parents seriously as teachers. I just wanted to play all day! I was homeschooled the entire school-year but not much kindergarten-ing got done!
My parents wisely noted that I did not have the right personality for homeschooling. I was entered into a private Christian school, where I would stay up until 7th grade. For 8th grade, money in our house was tight and my parents felt I needed a dose of “the real world.” So I went into public school, which was an incredible culture shock. Nonetheless, I not only survived, but thrived. I was on the National Honor Society, the first ever editor of our middle school newspaper, a member of President’s’ Council, and won a seat in the varsity band. At the end of the year, I won our school’s equivalent of valedictorian.
As my parents researched the local high school I’d be going to, they became more and more worried. I’d be one of approximately 3000+ students—much different from my class of 5 in private school or even the 800 at my middle school. The graduation rate was an abysmal 50%. The high school was known for gang recruiting and activity. There were metal detectors and security officers at the main entrance each day. My mom specifically was worried I was starting to lose my faith in Christianity due to public school influences. However, my parents decided to take a chance and remain optimistic as there were aspects they liked (like having a JROTC program).
Personally, I really hated my high school and I started doing very poorly in my classes. I felt my teachers didn’t care about me, they never helped me when I asked (or even when the entire class asked in unison). I fell further behind in Science and History classes while I did great in English and Math classes. In the middle of freshman year, my parents figured the best course of action was to pull me out of school to try homeschooling again. My parents still kept in touch all this time with our local homeschooling community. They helped us with the transition and at first everything went fairly smoothly.
My mom got really into the Charlotte Mason method, so that is what I would be using for the remainder of my education. My mom believed in shunning the use of workbooks for almost everything. Instead, I was given mounds of “living books” to read (a living book is a non-fiction book written by one author who is passionate about the subject). I loved these books and learned a lot from them. This was done for English, History, and some Science. For Math, I was given educational math computer games to play and my parents hired a private tutor for me. I also was required to read poetry everyday, and practice dictation. Each day of schooling was about 3 hours, 5 days a week, and I had no “summer vacation” that year.
That first year of homeschooling actually went really well. My mom made time to teach me, I loved my books, lessons with my tutor went well, and we were all enthusiastic and excited. However, by the middle of 10th grade, things started going downhill. Both of my parents were still working two jobs each so my school time got shortened to only 2 or 3 days per week since they were so tired. Funds were tight and I had to stop seeing my math tutor. By the time 11th grade rolled around, I was schooling only one day a week. There was no Math or Science being done—my parents didn’t know how to teach me those subjects. I was picking out my own living books for English and History. This is pretty much how it remained until I graduated. I “graduated” in 2010 but I didn’t receive my diploma from my parents until 2012 because they “just didn’t have time.” I spent those two years begging for it until finally my mom said she would order me one to “get [me] off [her] back about it.”
I never took any testing during this time. I never took the SAT or ACT. I didn’t even take the driving test (I still don’t have a license to this day!). My parents only ever kept track of that first year of homeschooling so I have no educational portfolio (or “proof”) of any work I did or books I read for the rest of high school. At the time, I didn’t think of any of this stuff. I was just a teenager and I was like, “Less stuff to do? Great!” You don’t think about these things and their consequences until you’re older and you suffer for them. But then, I shouldn’t have had to think about these things. My parents should have been responsible for it.
My parents were not bad parents and they were not purposefully educationally neglectful. Like a lot of homeschooling parents out there, I think they did the best they could and got overwhelmed. Instead of reaching out for help or re-enrolling me in school, they didn’t want to feel like they “failed” at homeschooling; so they kept us on this path even though it probably wasn’t the best path for me.
Ultimately, it is me who pays the price. It took a long time for me to decide to go to community college—I was extremely nervous about being in a normal school setting again and I was afraid I wouldn’t be up-to-par on general studies (which I wasn’t). I’m now 25 and I’m still playing catch-up. My Math and Science skills are at an 8th grade level and I’ll have to spend a few years in remedial classes that government aid won’t cover.
Compared to some of my friends, however, I feel like I am one of the lucky ones. My friend, “Lydia,” to my knowledge, did a good amount of schoolwork that she compiled entirely herself. Her parents never really cared. She has never gotten her diploma. When approaching her graduation date, her parents would threaten to not give her her diploma over her not “loaning” them money or other similar cruel things. My other friend, “Caitlyn,” to my knowledge, never did any work when she began homeschooling. Her parents were also homeschooling their two youngest children and Caitlyn hated schoolwork. She just wouldn’t do it or would run away for a few hours. Since Caitlyn’s mom is disabled, there wasn’t much she could do about it. Caitlyn is now also 25 and has been studying for her GED for the past few years but still doesn’t feel very confident.
We all live in Illinois and there is practically no oversight of homeschooling at all. Homeschooling in this state is categorized as being a “private school” and separate from the interference of the government. The law says we should be learning at the pace of public schools but there is nothing to prevent anyone from doing otherwise. There are no visits required, no testing required, no education portfolios required. As long as our parents give us a diploma, that means we are graduated, whether we have done the proper work or not. And if we are unlucky enough to have parents who, for whatever reason, don’t give us a diploma, then we are considered not graduated, regardless is we did do the work or not.
I can’t even image how different all our lives would be if there was any type of educational oversight in our lives. Maybe my parents would have been more motivated to work more with me in my last years of high school. Maybe I would have had some testing done, saying I was behind. Maybe my friends would be enrolled in regular schools and not be taken advantage of. I’m sure I would be much more confident in myself now, that’s for sure! I often times I feel dumb or inadequate around others my age. I also fear there are many children in my state being abused under the guise of “homeschooling.”
I am a strong advocate of CRHE because of my experience and that of my friends. All children deserve a proper education in our country and to have our communities looking out for their best interests. We need our laws to reflect the rights of our nation’s children and their safety.
Maria M. was home schooled in Illinois in 1997 and 2006-2010. For additional thoughts and experiences of homeschooled alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 6 February, 2020 by CRHE
Lillie S.: “I was never once asked if I felt safe at home”
“I was never once asked if I felt safe at home. I was never asked if lessons frequently degenerated into screaming and tears. I wasn’t asked if my sister and I were hit on a semi-daily basis. No one asked if we had a fear of government workers or if my sister and I had been instructed on what to say if a children’s services worker ever approached our door. No one asked if we’d hide when an unfamiliar car pulled up the driveway.”
I was the younger of two sisters, both homeschooled by our mother. I was homeschooled K-6 from around 1994 to 2002 while my sister was homeschooled until attending community college. We were a bit of an anomaly in the fundamentalist homeschool community due to our small family size. We were, in many ways, quite lucky—we didn’t have to raise other siblings, and the family had enough money and time to provide us with opportunities to travel, learn instruments, and pursue our interests.
Unfortunately, like many, our education was being supervised by a young mother with only a high school education who had never received any instruction on how to teach. She dove into her research at homeschool curriculum fairs and in homeschool groups with other like-minded conservative families. She discovered books and methodology such as Michael Pearl’s To Train Up a Child. She embedded herself in a community that looked at the outside world with fear and paranoia.
My mother had inherited her own parents’ short tempers and tendencies towards violent outbursts. I do believe that she did “the best she could” but that does little to minimize the damage. When a person with a hair-trigger temper places themselves in the position of trying to teach something they aren’t qualified to teach, to a frustrated child who isn’t understanding the lesson, add in the belief that parents need to squelch all signs of “willfulness” in their children, and you have a powderkeg waiting to blow.
Growing up in Ohio, my state is listed as “moderate” in terms of regulation for homeschool families. I have recollections of my mother packaging up a sampling of our school work to take to a woman from church to review. This woman, a certified teacher, would be bartered or paid for her time by my parents, she’d write up a favorable report, and we were then in compliance with the regulations for another year. Many years later I looked back on this exchange thinking that surely we had violated the regulation by paying the woman who evaluated us. After a bit of research I discovered that Ohio, as well as 10 other states, allows parents to pay a licensed teacher of their choice to review their children’s portfolio and write a narrative on their findings. On other occasions, I recall going into a school to take a state test. I remember how scary it was for me, an isolated kid, to enter the school and be surrounded by so many other children my age. I was hyper attentive to all the instructions to the point where I must have appeared to be a tiny toy soldier sitting rigidly in the desk following all directions to a “T”. After all—this was the dangerous place I’d heard so much about! I found the tests easy to pass.
For the most part, I received a decent education as a homeschooled child. My sister and I generally worked ahead of our grade levels. My sister knew how to read by the age of 3 (which was part of the rationale for homeschooling in the first place) and began community college at 14. No matter how far advanced of her age she was working, she was pressured to receive good grades.
By the time I reached 6th grade, my sister (only 3 years older than me) was full time at community college and Mom’s attention and interests were no longer fixed on homeschooling. My sixth grade year I sat at a desk alone drawing pictures of horses and working my way through my books while mom pursued her new hobbies. At the end of the year she made the decision to place me in public school—the place that had been used as a threat against us if we failed to be good homeschooled kids. At first I was horrified at the thought of attending public school, I thought I was being punished. When I realized Mom was being sincere about me enrolling in school, I eventually I gave into the idea—after all I was dreadfully bored and lonely at home.
When I went into public school in 7th grade I was shocked to find that I was smart. I had always felt like the dumb kid with only my brilliant older sister to compare myself to. It is hard to gain an accurate sense of self from a mother who will in-turn parade you like a prize in public and tell you how much better you are then the public school kids, then turn around and scream “what are you stupid?” when you fail to pick up on the subtle differences between spelling “witch” and “which.” Though I struggled socially in public school (I looked and felt like an alien dropped from space with no sense of fashion, social graces, or pop culture knowledge) I did well academically in junior high and high school. My teachers praised and encouraged me and slowly I started to lose the feeling that I was living my life under a microscope where each move I made would be subject for scrutiny. I was at the top of my class and I went on to college where I also received good grades.
I feel fortunate that my state provided some level of academic oversight. Necessity of meeting requirements may have played a role in my mother’s decision to enroll me in public school once her interest waned. However, though there was at least some level of academic review to ensure my sister and I actually received an education, I was never once asked if I felt safe at home. I was never asked if lessons frequently degenerated into screaming and tears. I wasn’t asked if my sister and I were hit on a semi-daily basis. No one asked if we had a fear of government workers or if my sister and I had been instructed on what to say if a children’s services worker ever approached our door. No one asked if we’d hide when an unfamiliar car pulled up the driveway. No one asked if I was a victim of religious or emotional abuse that caused me to spend my childhood feeling like, deep down, I was a very, very, bad person who didn’t deserve good things in life.
I strongly believe that there should be academic oversight and regulations regarding academic attainment of homeschooled children. Every child should have a right to a decent education and there needs to be a system for making sure those rights aren’t thwarted—even by a well intended parent. But academic regulation alone doesn’t illuminate the abuse that often goes unseen in isolated homes or communities. There are so many aspects of a child’s well being which can go neglected if a parent chooses to keep their children in isolated environments.
Ensuring the educational opportunity and safety of children in the homeschool community is not an attack on homeschooling, or on families who are providing a quality life and education for their kids, but rather an effort to ensure that all children are given their fair opportunities in life. In a community so concerned with family rights it can be shocking sometimes to take a step back and talk about parental responsibility and children’s rights. What rights does a child have? The right to an abuse-free childhood and a decent education? I would say so. And what responsibility does a parent have to ensure those rights? What responsibility does the homeschool community have to ensuring the rights of homeschooled children? If parents are violating a child’s rights, what responsibility does the broader community bear in ensuring that vulnerable children have their rights to education and a safe childhood fulfilled?
Lillie S. was homeschooled in Ohio in the 1990s and early 2000s. For additional thoughts and experiences of homeschooled parents, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 29 June, 2022 by Rachel Coleman
Should We Be Concerned about Low Homeschool SAT-Taking?
One of the homeschool lobby’s most touted claims is that homeschooled students score higher than public school students on the SAT. This claim, highlighted in a June 2016 news release by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), is based on a self-selected sample of homeschooled students—those who choose to take the SAT—and is not representative of the entire homeschool population.[1] Nonetheless, NHERI’s report contains an interesting point that is briefly acknowledged but not fully explored. Using data from the College Board, NHERI reports that 13,549 seniors who graduated in 2014 and took the SAT at some point during their high school years identified as homeschooled.[2] This number is alarmingly low, and suggests that homeschooled students may be taking the SAT—and attending college—at much lower rates than their traditionally schooled counterparts.
An estimated 3.2 million students graduated from high school in 2014. Of these, 1.7 million students, or 53%, took the SAT at some point before graduating.[3] In 2014, an estimated 136,000 high school seniors were homeschooled.[4] The numbers reported by NHERI indicate that roughly 10% of these students (or 13,549 individuals) took the SAT before graduating. This data is not the first to indicate a low level of homeschool SAT-taking. Analyzing data from 2001, Clive Belfield, an economics professor at Queens College, found that “home-schoolers made up only 0.5% of all SAT test-takers, a proportion considerably below their representation in the student population and lower than any other school type.” At the time, roughly 2.0% of students in grades K-12 were being homeschooled.[5]
Low homeschool SAT-taking raises concern because the SAT is considered a proxy for intention to attend college.[6] Eighty percent of four-year colleges and universities require all applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. If homeschooled students take SAT at lower rates than other students, they likely also intend to apply for college at lower rates than other students. Because attending college is a sign of upward mobility, low college attendance rates could raise concern about homeschool outcomes.
While our analysis suggests that homeschool SAT-taking rates are lower than would be expected for this population, the rate is almost certainly higher than 10%. As we will explore, it is probable that as many as 50% of homeschooled students, possibly more, have access to non-homeschool SAT codes that they may use when taking the SAT. These students may be homeschooled through online charter schools, private “umbrella” schools, or correspondence schools. Assuming that these students use these non-homeschool SAT codes brings the rate of SAT-taking for the homeschooled students who remain up to 20%, a number still far lower than the 53% of public school students who take this same test—and concerningly low given the central role these scores play in college entrance requirements.
The remainder of this essay will address a variety of factors that help explain or provide context for homeschool SAT-taking rates. We will touch on the similarities we see in ACT-taking rates; homeschooled students with non-homeschool SAT codes; the role the SAT and ACT play for homeschoolers; the effect of background factors on SAT-taking rates; and whether community college attendance could help explain low SAT-taking. We will finish by discussing the implications of this data for both our current understanding of homeschooling and future research on homeschooling.
Homeschool ACT-Taking Rates
While the SAT is not the only test used to determine college admissions, homeschooled students’ low SAT-taking is not offset by a correspondingly higher rate of ACT-taking.[7] The ACT website reports that 57% of the 2014 graduating class took the ACT, slightly higher than the 53% of graduating 2014 seniors who took the SAT. That same year, 13,435 ACT-takers indicated that they were homeschooled. This number is nearly identical to the number of 2014 homeschool seniors who took the SAT before graduating, and amounts to 10% of all homeschooled seniors. As with the SAT code, it is likely that as many as 50% of homeschooled students, possibly more, had access to non-homeschool ACT codes.
As with SAT-taking, low homeschool ACT-taking appears to be consistent over time. In 2001, when 2% of students were homeschooled, 0.5% of ACT-takers indicated that they were homeschooled. Recall that Belfield found that homeschoolers made up 0.5% of SAT-takers that same year, a proportion he noted was lower than that of any other group.
Some students take both the SAT and the ACT, though it is difficult to tell how many do so; most colleges will accept scores from either the SAT or the ACT.[8] Removing the roughly 50% of homeschooled students who likely have access to non-homeschool SAT and ACT codes, 20% of the remaining students take the SAT, and 20% take the ACT. Even if no student took both tests—which is not the case—the combined rate of homeschooled students taking one of these two tests (40%) would be lower than the rate of students nationwide taking each test independently (53% for the SAT; 57% for the ACT).[9] ACT data does not explain low homeschool SAT-taking. Instead, it adds a second concern—low homeschool ACT-taking.
Using the SAT and ACT Homeschool Codes
The College Board (which administers the SAT) and the administrators of the ACT determine the number of homeschooled test-takers by asking homeschooled students to use a specific homeschool code when they fill out their testing information. While some students move in and out of homeschooling, data from the NCES suggest that high school students are homeschooled at a rate similar to younger students. In other words, low SAT-taking rates are not a symptom of lower numbers of high school students being homeschooled.
Both national and state-level homeschool organizations advise homeschool parents to have their children use the homeschool codes when taking these tests, and the College Board advises public high schools that allow homeschooled students to take the SAT in their facilities to have these students use the homeschool code. There is no evidence of any systematic effort to undermine the use of the homeschool codes provided by the College Board and the administrators of the ACT. However, some students are homeschooled through programs that give them alternate codes to use when taking the SAT.
Twelve states either allow or require homeschooling to take place through enrollment in private “umbrella” schools or homeschool associations, which frequently have their own SAT codes.[10] Other students are homeschooled through cyber charters or independent study programs run by public school districts, and would also not use the homeschool SAT code when taking the SAT. How popular these programs are is difficult to say. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ 2012 National Home Education Survey, as many as 50% of students being homeschooled in 2012 were homeschooled but enrolled in a school (public, private, or charter) part-time, or were enrolled in school (public, private, or charter) but homeschooled part-time. Many of these students, though not all, likely had access to a non-homeschool SAT code.
Does this explain seemingly low SAT-taking? Not completely. If 50% of homeschooled students are enrolled in programs that give them access to non-homeschool SAT codes, 20% of the remaining students take the SAT, a percentage still far lower than that of students taking the SAT overall.[11] It is possible, of course, that more than 50% of homeschooled students have access to non-homeschool SAT codes. However, to bring the SAT-taking rate up to its nationwide 53% among remaining homeschooled students, over 80% of homeschooled students would have to be enrolled in programs that would result in them being counted, for the purposes of taking the SAT, as public, private, or charter school students rather than as homeschooled students. While more research is merited, we find this unlikely.
Why are the SAT and ACT Important?
While tests such as the SAT and ACT have long been an important metric for all college-bound high school students, they have special importance for homeschooled students because they are frequently the only impartial third-party evaluation a homeschooled student can show a college admissions board. Indeed, colleges and universities place more weight on homeschooled students’ SAT and ACT scores than on those of other students.
The importance of the SAT for college-bound homeschooled students has been demonstrated by several researchers. A researcher who surveyed 51 colleges and universities in 1995 found that SAT or ACT scores were “the most common deciding factor” in homeschool graduates’ admission.[12] Another researcher surveyed colleges and universities in Pennsylvania in 2003 and compared the weight admissions officers placed on various admissions criteria for both traditionally schooled and homeschooled graduates. He found that “while . . . SAT scores are important for both groups . . . the outcomes suggest that these scores are significantly more important information for making an admission decision regarding the former home schooled.”[13] While admissions officers rated SAT scores as the third-most important admissions criterion for traditionally schooled students (less important than a student’s high school transcript and GPA), they rated SAT scores as the most important admissions criterion for graduates of homeschool programs.[14]
While some universities and colleges no longer require SAT or ACT scores, the vast majority (80%) continue to make these scores a requirement for admission; others require these scores for homeschooled students only. Even Christian colleges, which often portray themselves as homeschool-friendly, tend to require SAT or ACT scores. Because homeschool diplomas and transcripts continue to be overwhelmingly created and issued by students’ parents, the external verification that SAT or ACT scores provide to admissions officers has continuing importance in demonstrating homeschooled students’ credentials.
Could Demographics Explain low SAT-taking?
We know that various demographic factors affect the rate at which students take the SAT. Do homeschooled students have demographic factors that would predict a lower rate of SAT-taking? While demographic data on homeschooled students is sparse, the NCES does include questions about homeschooling in its quadrennial National Household Education Survey. Using the NCES and College Board data, we can analyze what impact homeschooled students’ parental education[15], household income[16], or race[17] should have on their SAT-taking.
In each demographic category, homeschooled students have factors that indicate more SAT-taking (more have parents with bachelor’s degrees, fewer live in low-income households, fewer are Hispanic) and factors that indicate less SAT-taking (fewer have parents with graduate degrees, fewer live in high-income households, fewer are Asian). In each category, these various factors even out, leaving homeschooled children with a roughly 1% increased likelihood of taking the SAT as compared to other students.
This is only part of the story, however. We carried out these calculations using the NCES adjusted demographic data for all homeschooled students. When we remove those students whose parents reported that they were homeschooled only part-time, the demographics change dramatically. Students homeschooled full-time—those most likely to be using the homeschool code rather than a code provided by another program—are substantially whiter and less poor than other students, and are less likely to have parents who have not completed high school and more likely to have parents with graduate degrees. Students with higher levels of parental education, in particular, take the SAT at a higher rate than other students. Given the demographics of full-time homeschooled students, we would expect them to be taking the SAT at a rate higher than the overall national SAT-taking rate of 53%.[18]
What about Community College?
There is still one more potential explanation for low homeschool SAT-taking: community college. Community colleges do not generally require SAT or ACT scores for admission. If large numbers of homeschool graduates are attending community college and then transferring to four-year institutions with enough credits to be considered transfer students, these individuals would not need to take the SAT. Unfortunately, no data exists on the overall rate of homeschool attendance at community colleges. This information has simply not been collected. All we currently have is data on homeschool attendance rates at four community colleges studied by researchers interested in homeschool performance.
When researcher Jack N. Bagwell looked at a community college in South Carolina, he found that 3.6% of students enrolled at York Technical College (a medium-sized open enrollment community college in South Carolina) in 2007 had been (or were being) homeschooled.[19] That rate is higher than the overall homeschool rate at the time (2.9% in 2007). However, Bagwell’s findings contrast with those of other researchers. When Molly H. Duggan looked at students at a multi-campus community college in 2010, she found that out of 39,000 students enrolled, only 171 students, or 0.4%, had previously been homeschooled. A large regional community college that responded to an exploratory query from CRHE in 2013 reported that only 0.1% of of its incoming students in 2012 were homeschooled.[20] Based on data Benjamin G. Kramer reported in his 2012 study of a mid-sized Mid-Atlantic community college, an estimated 1% of students enrolled between 2004 and 2011 were homeschooled.[21]
The research on homeschool community college enrollment is thus far limited to these four data points. More research is needed to determine whether homeschooled students are attending community colleges and transferring to four-year institutions in large enough numbers to offset their low SAT-taking. The information we currently have—the four data points provided by Bagwell, Duggan, Kramer, and our own exploratory study—do not suggest that homeschooled students are taking this route in significant numbers, adding to existing questions about what low SAT-taking may mean for homeschool college attendance.
What about data that suggest high rates of college attendance?
Homeschool advocates often claim that homeschool graduates have higher college attendance rates than other students. To make this argument they tend to cite Brian Ray’s 2003 study, Homeschooling Grows Up, which found that “[o]ver 74% of home-educated adults ages 18–24 have taken college-level courses, compared to 46% of the general United States population.” In a study of homeschool alumni conducted by Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out (HARO) in 2014, 87% of respondents reported that they had completed at least some college (CRHE provided the data analysis for this study). However, both studies relied on volunteer samples rather than using nationally representative randomly selected samples; while these studies’ results can be considered descriptive of their respondents, they cannot be assumed to be representative of the population of all homeschool graduates.
In a study of unschoolers (a term typically used for secular homeschoolers who take a child-led, hands-on approach to education) published in 2014, researcher Peter Gray found that 44% of respondents had completed a bachelor’s degree or were currently enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program. 83% of respondents had pursued at least some higher education. However, Gray’s study suffers from the same weakness that besets both Ray’s study and the HARO study—all three drew on volunteer samples rather than drawing on a representative cross-section of homeschoolers. Of the three, only the HARO survey reported the level of education obtained by respondents’ parents. The level of parental education reported by respondents was substantially higher than the average level of education held by homeschool parents as reported by the NCES, suggesting that the survey over-sampled homeschool graduates from college-educated homes.
The CARDUS Education Survey, conducted in 2011, is the only study of homeschool graduates that we are aware of to use a random sample. This survey, which looked only at individuals whose mothers attended religious services weekly, found that homeschooled students raised in religious homes had a lower level of educational attainment than non-homeschooled students raised in religious homes. Researchers found that homeschool graduates had lower SAT scores, completed fewer years of higher education, and were less likely to receive a college degree. In other words, the findings of the only study of homeschool graduates to use a random sample reinforce concerns raised by low homeschool SAT-taking.
A Call for Research
We could answer questions about low homeschool SAT-taking by looking directly at the rate of homeschooled students attending four-year colleges and universities, but such data does not currently exist. We do have data on the rate of homeschooled students attending a smattering of individual colleges. 7% of freshmen at Messiah College were homeschooled during their high school years, along with 12% of students at Grove City College; both are Christian colleges popular with evangelical homeschoolers. Other private colleges that report this data have far lower homeschool attendance rates. Elite private colleges and universities tend to report extremely low homeschool enrollment—Harvard, Princeton, and MIT report homeschool enrollment between 0.1% and 0.5%. The few data points we have on homeschool attendance at four-year state colleges or universities, institutions that educate far more students overall than private colleges, are troubling, ranging from 0.2% to 1%. A comprehensive study of homeschool college attendance is needed.
Homeschool advocates often point to positive studies of homeschooled students’ performance in college as proof that homeschooling not only works but actually has better results than other educational methods (there are also studies that find more mediocre performance). However, if only a narrow slice of homeschooled students take the SAT and attend college, it is to be expected that these students—the best and brightest—would both score better on the SAT and perform better in college than their traditionally schooled peers, not because homeschooling is a superior method of education but rather because lower-performing homeschooled students have been removed from the sample. CRHE believes that homeschooling should offer the same opportunities for success as other educational methods. If homeschoolers have a lower rate of college attendance than other students, this would indicate that they are not receiving these opportunities.
Given how little research has been conducted on homeschool graduates who do not attend college, there is not much we can say definitively about this group. Proponents of homeschooling argue that independent learning encourages entrepreneurship; perhaps these students have started their own businesses or found other ways to create careers without attending college. On the other hand, advocates for homeschooled alumni, such as HARO and CRHE, spotlight the stories of alumni who struggle, held back by their lack of education. We know very little about what goes into homeschool graduates’ decisions about college. Are they motivated by a desire to avoid debt, or by a distaste for traditional classroom learning? Are they held back by a lack of math attainment, or by a lack of knowledge about the admissions process in the absence of high school guidance counselors? We do not currently have the data we need to answer these critical questions. More research is needed on the full range of outcomes for homeschooled children—not just for the best of the best.
[1] NHERI’s president, Dr. Brian D. Ray, is a homeschool father and long-time promoter of homeschooling with a history of misrepresenting his findings and avoiding peer review.
[2] We submitted a research request to the College Board in September 2016, hoping to gain access to this and additional data, but were informed that the College Board no longer releases data on homeschooling.
[3] Some states have begun requiring all students to take the SAT (or ACT) before graduating, but students from these states made up only around 6% of 2014 graduating seniors who had taken the SAT. Even removing these states from the count, a full 50% of 2014 high school seniors in the remaining states took the SAT at some point before graduating.
[4] The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has estimated that 1.77 million students were being homeschooled in 2012; of these students, 514,000 were in grades 9-12. Assuming that the homeschooling continued to grow at the same 3% annual rate at which it grew between 2007 and 2012, we estimate that there were 545,000 homeschooled students in 2014. For a number of reasons, we have chosen to assume that these students were evenly distributed between grades 9-12. While some state enrollment data shows a decline in homeschool enrollment in the later grades of high school, this is likely due to these students passing the age of compulsory attendance.
[5] Belfield found that 6,033 SAT-takers indicated that they were homeschooled; the NCES data suggests that there were 275,000 homeschooled students in grades 9-12 at that time, roughly 68,750 of them seniors. Like the NHERI release, Belfield puts homeschool SAT-taking rates at below 10%.
[6] In 2014, over 40% of high school graduates immediately enrolled in a four-year college or university, while an additional 25% enrolled in a two-year college.
[7] The ACT has increased in popularity in the past decade, overtaking the SAT in 2012. While more students nationwide took the ACT than the SAT in 2014, homeschooled students were still equally likely to take the SAT as the ACT. It is possible that homeschool parents have yet to catch up with new trends in college admissions test-taking. It is also possible that higher ACT-taking nationwide is the result of more states using the ACT as a high school exit examination.
[8] Whether students take the SAT or ACT has traditionally varied widely by region. A study out of California, where students traditionally take the SAT, found that 39% of SAT-takers also took the ACT and 86% of ACT-takers also took the SAT. In other words, 37% of all California students who took the SAT or ACT took both tests. Whether the same percentage of test-takers take both tests nationwide is unclear.
[9] Using the data provided in footnote 8, we can estimate that roughly one-third of the estimated 50% of homeschooled students without access to a non-homeschool SAT code take at least one of the tests. However, we have no way of knowing whether California’s pattern of test-taking is reflected nationwide, or whether homeschooled students who the SAT or ACT take both at the same rate as other test-takers.
[10] These states are AL, AK, CA, CO, FL, LA, ME, MD, PA, SC, TN, and WA, home to approximately one-third of the nation’s school-age population, and roughly one-third of the nation’s SAT-takers. Alabama and South Carolina are the only states on this list that require all students to be homeschooled through umbrella schools or homeschool associations. We estimate that at least half of the students in these states are homeschooled independently, and not through alternate programs.
[11] 68,000 is half of the estimated 136,000 homeschooled high school seniors in 2014. 13,549, the number of SAT-takers indicating that year that they were homeschooled, is 20% of 68,000.
[12] Villanueva, Brian D. “An Investigation of the Admissions Standards of United States College and Universities for Home-Schooled Students.” Home School Researcher, 13, No. 2 (1999), 1-6.
[13] Barno, Richard Joseph. “The Selection Process and Performance of Former Home-Schooled Students at Pennsylvania’s Four-Year Colleges and Universities.” Lehigh University, Ed.D. (2003), 140.
[14] Barno, ibid., 141.
[15] When we compare 2012 student demographic data with demographic data on 2012 SAT-takers, we find that not having a parent with a bachelor’s degree has a negative effect on student SAT-taking, while having a parent with a bachelor’s degree has a positive effect and having a parent with a graduate degree has an even stronger positive effect. According to the NCES, students being homeschooled in 2012 were slightly more likely than other students to have a parent with a bachelor’s degree but slightly less likely than other students to have a parent with a graduate degree. When looking at parental education alone, this generation of homeschooled students should be taking the SAT at the same rate as, or a slightly higher rate than, students overall.
[16] We do not have detailed household income data for homeschooled students more recent than 2007. However, by comparing that data with 2007 student demographic data and demographic data on 2007 SAT-takers, we can ascertain how this measure might have affected homeschool SAT-taking at that time. In 2007, living in a household with an income of less than $20,000 had a negative effect on student SAT-taking while living in a household making over $100,000 had a positive effect on student SAT-taking. Students being homeschooled in 2007 were slightly less likely than other students to live in households with incomes under $20,000 and slightly less likely to live in households with incomes over $100,000. As with parental education, when considering household income alone, this generation of homeschooled students should be taking the SAT at the same rate as, or a slightly higher rate than, students overall.
[17] By comparing 2012 student demographic data with demographic data on 2012 SAT-takers, we find that Hispanic students are less likely than other students to take the SAT and that Asian students are substantially more likely than other students to take the SAT. In 2012, homeschooled students were more likely to be white and less likely to be black, Hispanic, or (especially) Asian. As with the previous two factors, when looking at student race alone, this generation of homeschooled students should be taking the SAT at the same rate as, or a slightly higher rate than, students overall.
[18] Because the NCES has only released the percentage of full-time homeschooled students who are poor or non-poor, we cannot make a direct comparison between this data and the College Board data, which is released by income level rather than by poverty status. As for race, the College Board data suggests that white students take the SAT in relative proportion to their share of the student population, even as Hispanic students take the test at a lower rate and Asian students take it at a higher rate. Our analysis of full-time homeschooled students’ level of parental education, as compared with data released by the College Board, suggests that this population should take the SAT at a rate nearly 10% higher than the nationwide average.
[19] Bagwell reported that 169 students enrolled at York Technical College during the 2007-2008 school year listed homeschooling as the school from which they matriculated. York Technical College reports having 4,731 students enrolled in fall 2007. Of Bagwell’s full sample (he looked at all homeschooled students enrolled in the college from spring 2001 through fall 2007), one-third were under 18. Bagwell notes that in many cases these students dual-enrolled, taking community college courses while completing other credits at home. Whether these students would be considered transfer students when enrolling in a four-year college or university would depend on how many credits they completed at York.
[20] Homeschooled students accounted for 20 out of 14,628 incoming students.
[21] Between 16 and 35 new homeschooled students were enrolled each year from 2014 through 2011, compared to a total enrollment of between 6,041 and 10,512 students. Assuming that newly enrolled homeschooled students accounted for about one third of total enrolled homeschooled students (based on Bagwell’s findings), this amounted to a total homeschool enrollment of between 0.7% and 1.2% each year.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
New Homeschool Data Raises Questions about STEM Access
For Immediate Release: New data released by the NCES sparks concern over homeschoolers’ STEM access
Canton, Ma., 11/7/16—To date, most research on homeschooling has been limited by its reliance on volunteer convenience samples, because few states collect or report data on homeschooling. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) publishes some of the only data on homeschooling gathered using more scientifically reliable random sampling. This month, the NCES has released an analysis of data they collected in 2012, touching on homeschool numbers, demographics, and—for the first time—academics. “We appreciate the efforts the NCES puts into gathering this vitally important data on homeschooling,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, a 501(c)3 nonprofit founded by homeschool alumni. “The results of their study raise major concerns about homeschoolers’ access to education in STEM fields.”
The NCES asked parents of homeschooled high school students whether their children had studied a variety of STEM subjects. The number of students whose parents reported that they had taken chemistry or physics was concerningly low—only 34%. While some of these students were likely in the early years of high school and might still take these subjects, children who attend public school generally take chemistry in the 10th grade. According to parents’ reports, 69% of these students had taken biology; this course is typically offered to public school students as high school freshmen. Less than half (47%) of homeschooled high school students had instruction in scientific inquiry or experiments, indicating a lack of exposure to the scientific method. While a confluence of research and data points has long suggested that homeschooled students experience a math gap, these findings raise concerns about homeschooled students’ STEM attainment more broadly. “We are very concerned about homeschoolers’ lack of science education,” said Coleman. “STEM fields are vital to our nation’s economy; homeschoolers should be receiving the same opportunities as other children to succeed in these fields.”
The report also provides new information on homeschooled students’ use of online courses. According to the report, roughly one-tenth of elementary school students (11%) and one-third of middle school (35%) and high school (34%) students took online courses. A number of studies conducted in recent years have found that children enrolled in online public school programs do not succeed as well as students who attend a brick-and-mortar public school. Whether this holds true for homeschooled students, who may use online programs to augment other learning, is unclear, and merits further research. “While online courses can give homeschooled students access to course materials they might otherwise lack, there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction between students and their peers, students and their teacher/parents, hands-on science experiments, or field trips,” said Coleman. “Online teachers can be a vital resource for children who have no other person to go to, but children need in-person access to mandatory reporters and role models as well.”
According to the report, the number of families choosing homeschooling appears to be growing at a slower rate than it did in the early to mid 2000s. The NCES estimates that while homeschooling grew 32% between 2003 and 2007, it grew only 17% between 2007 and 2012. State-level data backs this up. Robert Lyon of the International Center for Home Education Research reported earlier this month that of the nine states that release homeschool enrollment data, the number of students homeschooled increased in six and decreased in three. “In the past, the rate of homeschooling grew as new families found out about it, but today’s parents are already familiar with homeschooling,” noted Coleman. “It makes sense that the growth rate would level out as homeschooling becomes more well-known; homeschooling is not for everyone, and most parents with the ability to homeschool and interest in doing so have heard of it by now.”
Finally, the report covers previously released demographic data, adding additional detail about its collection. When collecting its data in 2012, the NCES sent out two versions of its survey—one for parents who identified their child as homeschooled (either full-time or part-time) and one for parents who identified their child as enrolled in school. However, when looking at the data, researchers found that some parents who asked for the enrolled survey later identified their child as homeschooled part-time. These two groups—parents who asked for the homeschool survey, on the one hand, and parents who asked for the enrolled survey but listed their child as homeschooled part-time, on the other—had distinct demographic characteristics. In the new report, researchers included both the previously-released adjusted demographic data (which combined the two groups) and the unadjusted demographic data (which included only the group that took the homeschool survey).
The parents who asked for the homeschool survey were more likely to be white, have a high school diploma, and be living above the poverty line than those who asked for the enrolled survey and later marked that their child was homeschooled part-time. “It is likely that the parents who asked for the homeschool survey were those who identify strongly as homeschoolers,” Coleman said. “For years, researchers have differentiated between those who homeschool for ideological or pedagogical reasons and those who homeschool for more pragmatic reasons, and are often more open to combining homeschooling with other educational methods.” An increasing number of students in some states have enrolled in independent study programs run by local public schools, which allow parents to teach their children at home while receiving resources from the school district. “These data suggest that homeschool parents living below the poverty line or with low educational attainment may be less likely to self-identify as homeschoolers and more likely to use resources offered by a public school or cyber charter program.”
Studies of homeschool academics and outcomes have frequently relied on volunteer convenience samples from well-educated non-poor families. “This report should remind researchers that the predominantly white, college-educated homeschool families that often make up the public face of homeschooling are only one part of a larger story,” said Coleman. “Research on homeschool outcomes must include children in families with low socioeconomic status, like those captured in this NCES survey, rather than focusing solely on homeschooled children with non-poor, college-educated parents.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.
Last Updated: 12 October, 2016 by CRHE
Sarah M.: “These assessments turned out to be easily avoided”
“Although Pennsylvania had homeschooling oversight on the books, they failed to reliably enforce it. Even within my local school district I knew families with vastly different experiences with the district office”
I‘m the oldest of six children, raised in a conservative Christian family that homeschooled until I was sixteen. My home state of Pennsylvania was often described as “one of the worst states” in which to homeschool because of the accountability requirements. Looking back, I don’t think that “worst” was a fair way to describe it at all.
Like most homeschooling families I knew, education was my mother’s job. She stayed home and taught us, and when I was younger that worked fairly well. As my siblings and I grew older (and more numerous), she spent time with the younger kids while the older ones were mostly in charge of our own tasks. At times during my childhood and adolescence, my mom struggled with mental illness. Educating us became an additional stress for her, and our schoolwork inevitably suffered during these times.
Both of my parents are well educated and adept at subjects like literature and history, so my siblings and I were well off in that respect. The ability to be creative as we learned helped us to retain our enjoyment of learning; schoolwork was still “work” at times, but it could also be a lot of fun. The downside of this freedom was that structured learning skills like writing essays were not emphasized enough, and some subjects were neglected.
We participated in a homeschool co-op when I was a child; a monthly “class day” where we learned supplemental subjects like health and safety with other homeschooling families. When I was a teen, my family formed a smaller co-op with a few other families and we met weekly for biology labs, writing classes, and literature studies. All of these were beneficial, but they only accounted for a small part of my education.
I began to fall behind in math (and, to a lesser extent, science) when I reached high school age. I wasn’t particularly motivated to work on either subject, and my mom didn’t check in very often to make sure I was keeping up. Pennsylvania’s homeschool assessment requirements at the time included an annual portfolio review by a certified teacher and a daily log for high school students. The portfolio reviews were not rigorous, but they motivated us to keep some records and cover subjects that may have been neglected otherwise. Unfortunately, these assessments turned out to be easily avoided when they would have mattered most.
My parents enrolled us in a cyber charter school when I was in 9th grade. The material provided by the cyber school bored me and I had little contact with my teachers. There were few consequences when I failed to turn in my work; I may have had bad grades but I wasn’t familiar with the concept of a GPA. My education consisted mainly of reading books I liked as well as (sometimes) the textbooks and assignments provided by the cyber school.
When we switched back to homeschooling after a year or so at the cyber charter, my formal education (pre-college) essentially ended. My parents separated soon after and my younger siblings enrolled in public school. I was already sixteen and didn’t want to bother attending public school, so I didn’t. Part of my reluctance was influenced by other homeschooling parents in my life who told me I didn’t need to go to school. My fourteen year old sister was actively discouraged from enrolling, told by one homeschooling mom that she would “ruin her life” by going to public school. When I look back, I find this attitude towards public school to be seriously concerning. Neither of my parents was going to educate us during that time, and no one around us was offering to give us the consistent guidance and discipline we needed to finish high school. My sister did end up going to public school, and not only did she get an adequate high school education, but she (and my other siblings) also had many extracurricular opportunities that I never experienced.
At one point I visited the school district office to make sure I wasn’t showing up in their system as truant. The office staff seemed confused by my questions and were very unhelpful; I was sixteen, and old enough to drop out of school. I didn’t want to be considered a dropout, but if I was in their files at all, that’s probably how I ended up being classified at the time.
Despite that, I did go to college. My SAT scores were good, though my math and essay scores were average at best and could easily have been improved if I’d ever learned the material. I graduated with high honors, and most people I know consider me a homeschooling success story. What they don’t know, or would like to ignore perhaps, is that my college options were limited because I never officially graduated from high school – state schools would have asked for the homeschooling documentation I never submitted, so I only applied to private schools. Despite genuinely enjoying both math and science as an adult, I find myself lacking basic knowledge in both fields. As I prepare to take the GRE, I’m spending many of my precious study hours on high school level math that I’m encountering for the first time.
Although Pennsylvania had homeschooling oversight on the books, they failed to reliably enforce it. Even within my local school district I knew families with vastly different experiences with the district office – some were threatened with truancy charges for failing to turn in paperwork on time, while others never submitted a single page of documentation and experienced no consequences. If state education agencies properly trained their staff on homeschooling requirements, this type of inconsistency could be reduced.
I was lucky in many respects. Though some aspects of my education were very inadequate, other parts were excellent and helped to balance things out when I went to college. My parents, while not always perfect teachers, always encouraged my education. I didn’t have many friends growing up, but the internet allowed me to form and maintain close friendships with a few people, and my siblings and I are much closer than most families I know because of how much time we spent together as children.
Many homeschooled children aren’t as fortunate as I was. When a family homeschools, the children’s education is directly connected to the life of the family as a whole. Some homeschoolers consider this one of the best things about homeschooling, and it can be – but for children in unhealthy or disadvantaged situations, it can be extremely detrimental to their education.
Homeschoolers who do provide their children with a good education shouldn’t be content to stop there. If the homeschooling community is a community, they should take a moment to consider the welfare of children who aren’t so well off. If a homeschooled education is to be considered equal or better than one from a public school, then the state needs to fulfill its responsibility in ensuring that all children have access to a quality education.
Sarah M. was homeschooled in Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2008. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 5 July, 2017 by CRHE
Alex H.: “I often wonder at what cost”
“The goal was lofty, but our secular home education was primarily based on a fear of negative outside influence. What my parents did not understand is that safety by isolation has many consequences long into adulthood.”
While I have had both positive and negative experiences with homeschooling, I strongly believe in homeschool reform. I was educated at home by my mother, from 1st through 8th grade (no preschool or kindergarten), and went into community college instead of high school at the age of 15. To an outsider it would have appeared to be a success, as my two younger siblings and I began college at an early age, but we were far from ready for the demands. The reality is that when I began junior college, I only had an 8th grade education and had to frantically struggle to catch up, both with my education and with social skills.
My parents were, and still are, very liberal and used the county’s home education program as guidance for their teaching. This provided us used textbooks through the Unified School District, meetings with coordinators to track process and annual testing. While this program provides more structure than situations where parents go it alone, I’ve found it was still lacking in oversight, particularly in areas where specialized education for instructors is needed, such as advanced math, science, languages, guidance counseling, as well as identification and support for learning disabilities and mental health issues. It also allowed my parents to set the schedule, so throughout my home education we had only five hours of instruction 5 days a week, about 10 hours less each week than our peers in traditional school. Homework was never assigned and we only had tests once a year.
By homeschooling, my parents hoped to give us a better education than we would have received at a public school. One-on-one attention, coursework supplemented by advanced materials, no peer pressure or bullying and freedom from teachers who might harm us. The goal was lofty, but our secular home education was primarily based on a fear of negative outside influence. What my parents did not understand is that safety by isolation has many consequences long into adulthood.
My parents’ interest in homeschooling faded over the years. Teaching small children to read was quickly replaced by a need for advanced math and foreign languages that were well beyond their expertise. In another setting we might have been placed in gifted classes, but at home we had to truly go it alone. We were simply given a textbook with no instructions to work through. The inability to learn these crucial subjects on our own was attributed to me and my siblings, and not a lack of adequately trained teachers. This, combined with both my parents’ depression and anxiety, led to our final years of homeschooling becoming chaotic. Now that I am older, I can see their behavior as negligent.
Our socialization was extremely limited. My parents’ depression and anxiety made them seldom want to leave the house for anything that was not an absolute necessity. My sister and I did get to take ballet classes, but we were both serious about dance so our social time with other kids was limited to the time we spent changing into and out of our dance clothes and pointe shoes. For a brief time we were also Girls Scouts with our mother as troop leader. We got to spend an entire hour a week with other girls for a few years. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to any of us that our college experiences were marred by severe anxiety and panic attacks once we began spending all day with our peers.
With all the challenges of a sub par education, I struggled with the level of structure that college required. Somehow, I managed to do well in community college and transferred to a university to complete my bachelor’s degree and am now in graduate school. However, the gaps in my education and the issues caused by a previously undiagnosed learning disability were completely unnecessary and caused a lot of self-blame, shame and feelings of isolation that I am still working through in therapy. It took years to overcome the feeling that I was deficient and inadequate in some essential way. Due to the gaps in my education and learning how to cope with a learning disability so late in life, it took me almost twice as long as expected to obtain my AA and then my BA.
The educational and socialization skill deficit homeschooling can cause has the potential to create a lifetime of unintended consequences for its alumni. Even though the home education program provided a standardized curriculum, the oversight it provided was minimal. My parents only needed to provide small samples of our work, which meant that there were times when the only work completed at home was the bare minimum. It was far too easy to only produce small samples of the work required to demonstrate progress. In addition, our work was never graded.
There was no formal transition from the end of the program at 8th grade, leaving us to try several random forms of education until we began college. The few regular meetings with programs administrator left mental health and learning disabilities that would have been recognized immediately by teachers and administrators undiagnosed until college. Although I do feel that my experience being homeschooled has given me a unique perspective and insight, I often wonder at what cost.
Although the program we were enrolled in officially had county oversight, it was not effective oversight. Aside from the small work samples and yearly testing, nothing else was monitored. Requiring more frequent and larger samples and more testing throughout the year would more accurately demonstrate student progress. It would also show if parents needed additional supports when they found themselves in over their heads in certain subjects or working with students with special needs.
Alex H. was homeschooled in California from 1st through 8th grade. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.