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: 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.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Secretary King Is Right: Homeschoolers Need More Options
For Immediate Release: Small Changes Would Increase the Resources Available to Homeschooled Students
Canton, Ma., 9/23/16—This week, as reported by Politico, Education Secretary John B. King, Jr., made the following statements about homeschooling:
Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said today that he’s concerned that homeschooled students aren’t “getting the range of options that are good for all kids.”
But King also said he’s aware of homeschooling families “doing it incredibly well” and he knew of homeschooled students in college who had “very tremendous academic success.”
“Obviously, it’s up to families if they want to take a homeschool approach,” King said, when asked about the topic during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters.
King noted that research shows homeschooling is growing in popularity.
But King said he worries that “students who are homeschooled are not getting kind of the rapid instructional experience they would get in school”—unless parents are “very intentional about it.”
King said the school experience includes building relationships with peers, teachers and mentors—elements which are difficult to achieve in homeschooling, he said, unless parents focus on it.
“We appreciate that Secretary King understands the challenges involved in homeschooling and the importance of ensuring that homeschooled students have access to a wide range of resources and options,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, a 501(c)3 nonprofit founded by homeschool alumni. “We urge Secretary King to increase the options available to homeschooled students by encouraging states and individual school districts to open public school athletics, extracurriculars, and individual courses to homeschooled students.”
Homeschooled students are barred from participation in public school athletics in many states. A 2014 study of homeschool alumni found that respondents who had participated in public school athletics rated their homeschooling experience more highly than did other respondents, suggesting that such participation may improve the homeschool experience. Further, researcher Joseph Richard Barno found that college admissions officers place added weight on extracurriculars when evaluating homeschooled students, making adequate access to extracurriculars such as athletics especially important for homeschooled students who are college-bound. “It’s time to increase homeschooled students’ options by granting them access to public school athletics,” said Coleman.
Homeschooled students would also benefit from access to individual public school classes. One of the strongest findings in current research on homeschooling is a weakness in math attainment. Opening public school math clubs and STEM courses to homeschooled students would help ensure that these students have access to the resources they need to succeed in high school math and, ultimately, in STEM career fields. Data on homeschooled SAT-takers and homeschool graduates’ college attendance suggest that homeschool graduates may be less likely to attend college than other students. “Widening the opportunities available to homeschooled secondary students would help homeschool parents ensure that their children attain college readiness,” noted Coleman.
In addition to access to a wider range of resources, homeschooled students would benefit from greater accountability for homeschool outcomes. While some homeschooled students excel academically and go on to do well in college or the job market, others are left behind, held back by a lack of basic educational attainment. “Accountability is important in every area of life,” said Coleman. “Homeschool parents should be held accountable for educating their children.” Many young adults with bad homeschool experiences have spoken out in favor of greater oversight of homeschooling. “We urge Secretary King to encourage states to create assessment mechanisms that protect homeschooled children’s interest in receiving a good education in a safe home environment,” added Coleman.
We will be reaching out to Secretary King with an offer to introduce him to some homeschool alumni, and to express a willingness to speak further on these issues. We will also be sending his office facts and information about homeschooling and homeschool reform.
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: 26 October, 2023 by Rachel Coleman
The “Unsocialized Homeschooler” and “Uneducated Homeschooler” Narratives
Last month, I dealt with the narratives that surround homeschooled elite athletes like Simone Biles, musical wunderkind, and homeschoolers who attend college early or gain admission to Ivy League schools. Like many other homeschooled students I knew, I grew up hearing stories of homeschool success and greatness that our parents told perhaps in part to cover their concerns about how we would turn out. I called this the “homeschool prodigy” narrative, and expressed concern that this narrative treats homeschooling as a highway to brilliance and success without acknowledging that the method fails more students than it skyrockets to national success. I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t touch on other narratives about homeschoolers—less positive narratives.
Consider, for example, the “unsocialized homeschooler” and “uneducated homeschooler” narratives that often crop up. There’s also the “religious homeschooler” narrative that centers on fundamentalist churches and Bible-based curriculum and girls wearing long jean skirts. Like the “homeschool prodigy” narrative, each of these narratives holds some truth, inasmuch as there are some homeschooled children who fit into them. Unfortunately, though, these narratives sometimes become stereotypes that are applied to homeschoolers across the board, and in this capacity they do homeschoolers a grave disservice.
I have spoken with homeschool alumni who were so isolated during their homeschool years that as adults they suffered from crippling social phobias that took years or more to overcome, and with homeschool alumni who were socialized so narrowly that they have had trouble relating to peers outside of the homeschool world. I have spoken with homeschoolers who were educationally neglected, and whose science or history were woefully inadequate or twisted almost beyond recognition. And I have spoken with many homeschoolers who attended fundamentalist churches, studied from Bible-based curriculum, and wore long jean skirts. But these narratives do not reflect all homeschoolers.
But none of these narratives tell the whole truth about homeschoolers. Many homeschooled students are well socialized, receiving adequate social interaction and exposure to various groups of people (for more on homeschooling and socialization, see here and here). I have spoken with homeschool alumni who had friends who were homeschooled and friends who attended public school, and who never experienced any form of social awkwardness or otherness. Similarly, here on our website we have profiled numerous homeschoolers who were well-served educationally by homeschooling and who have gone on to lead successful careers. Finally, there are homeschoolers who are secular, or Jewish, or Muslim, or who are Christian but motivated to homeschool by factors other than religion.
Because each homeschool operates on an individual family basis, with all of the variation that comes along with that, homeschooling is perhaps better characterized by the diversity of the homeschool experience than it is by anything else. In my post about the “homeschool prodigy” narrative I noted that there is no one universal homeschool experience. It would be wrong to assume that a homeschool graduate or currently homeschooled student is brilliant or above average. It would also be wrong to assume that they are unsocialized, or uneducated, or religious. The homeschool experience is a diverse and individual one.
The only thing one can say for certain about all homeschoolers is that they do not attend a traditional school, and even this line can be blurred—some homeschooled students take individual classes at their local public school, or participate in cybercharters with a regular brick-and-mortar component. In 2007, a full 16% of homeschooled students were enrolled part-time in their local public school. Other homeschooled students take community college courses during their high school years, or are involved in private “umbrella” schools that provide regular classes or even coursework. Some homeschooled students, too, are enrolled in online public school programs, often with a teacher with whom they communicate virtually. As many as one-third of first-time homeschooling families stop homeschooling after the first year, returning their child or children to school, so there are many students who attend public school today who were previously homeschooled for one or more years.
What does the research say about various homeschools stereotypes? Research on homeschooling is tricky for several reasons. Most studies rely on volunteer samples, making it difficult to know whether their findings can be applied more widely. Additionally, much of this data is self-reported. But even if we could obtain accurate data, looking at averages risks masking the variety in experience. We can assume that public school students, regardless of their individual scores, experience some underlying similarities—trained teachers, common core standards, a school day that covers state-mandated subjects—but we cannot assume the same of homeschooled students. Even so, let’s take a moment to look at the research.
What do we know about socialization? When speaking about research on homeschooled students’ social skills, researcher Milton Gaither has noted that “homeschooling parents consistently rate their children higher than do parents of conventionally schooled children, though the children themselves don’t rate themselves much differently at all.” Studies of homeschooled children’s social interaction have consistently found that homeschooled students have fewer friends and a lower level of social interaction than other children, and that that homeschooled teens and graduates with a greater number of social opportunities have a more positive view of their homeschool experience than those with fewer social opportunities. This suggests that homeschooling parents should work to ensure that their children have the social opportunities they need, but tells us nothing about whether an individual homeschooled child is receiving those opportunities.
What about academics? Testing data from Arkansas puts homeschooled students between the 60th and 65th percentile in reading and between the 51st and 58th percentile in math. Because student demographic information was not collected—things like the student’s race, family income, and parental education—we cannot compare these students to their traditionally schooled peers (i.e. those with the same demographic factors). Data from Alaska consistently finds that homeschooled students in every demographic group score more poorly in math than their public schooled peers; their reading scores vary by demographic. This does not mean that a given homeschooled student is doing poorly in math. A homeschooled child with mathematically inclined parents and access to resources like community college courses may excel in math while one with more math-averse parents and fewer resources may struggle. Averages only tell us so much—there may be clusters of homeschooled students with sky-high scores and clusters of students who are significantly behind.
Finally, religion. What percentage of homeschoolers are evangelical or fundamentalist Christians? This is difficult to determine. As of 2011, nearly two-thirds of homeschool parents listed a desire to provide religious instruction as a reason they were homeschooling, but there’s no way to know these parents’ religion. Scholars tend to divide homeschooled students into three groups: (1) evangelical and fundamentalist Christians who homeschool for religious reasons and tend to exclude others from their groups or communities; (2) progressives who homeschool to free their children from the constraints of traditional school and typically “unschool,” letting their children follow their interests; and (3) individuals who did not initially intend to homeschool but ultimately adopted homeschooling for practical reasons when other educational methods didn’t work for their children. In other words, yes, there are evangelical and fundamentalist Christians who homeschool for religious reasons. But there are also lots of other people homeschooling for lots of other reasons.
Some homeschoolers—both parents and graduates—would like to see the “unsocialized homeschooler” and “uneducated homeschooler” narratives disappear. As stereotypes, they absolutely should disappear; as realities, they will not disappear until measures are put in place to ensure that homeschooled children receive adequate social interaction and quality instruction. Currently, the vast majority of states do not assess homeschooled students’ academic progress, and some states do not require homeschooled parents to educate their children to begin with. The lack of oversight of homeschooling gives homeschooling a bad name by allowing educationally neglectful homeschooling to take place unchecked.
Each of these narratives has something to communicate. The “homeschool prodigy” narrative reminds us of the ways homeschooling can serve needs traditional schools cannot meet—such as the need to perform, or to train, or to compete. The “uneducated homeschooler” narrative reminds us that without oversight of homeschooling, some children will fall through the cracks and experience lifelong consequences. The “unsocialized homeschooler” narrative reminds us that homeschooling parents need to take steps to ensure that their children receive the social interaction and socialization they need. As narratives, they inform. As stereotypes, they do the opposite.
As a homeschool graduate, I’m familiar with these narratives on a personal level. I also know what it is like to have people make assumptions about me. If you’re curious about someone’s homeschool experience, avoid falling back on stereotypes and instead ask them about it.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by Rachel Coleman
Public Funding for Homeschooling Is Not a Solution to Failing Public Schools
Discussions surrounding education have increasingly posited school choice as a solution to failing schools. Competition, the argument goes, will increase school quality overall. These discussions have often centered on the use of public funding to promote school choice in the form of charter, schools, vouchers and, more pertinently, money for homeschoolers. While there are arguments for making public funding available to homeschooled students—and ways to do so responsibly—no amount of public funding for homeschooling will make it a viable solution to failing schools, either short-term or long-term. This is especially true for impoverished families.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has consistently found that around 20% of homeschooled students are below the poverty rate, a number comparable with public school rates. However, looking at these numbers alone masks several differences in the respective populations. In 2007 the NCES found that 2.2% of students in households that made less than $20,000 were homeschooled while 3.1% of students in households that made between $20,000 and $50,000 were homeschooled, along with 4.0% of students in households that made between $50,000 and $75,000. This suggests that homeschooled students under the federal poverty line tend to be clustered closer to that line than public school students, and thus that students in extreme poverty are less likely to be homeschooled.
Families who homeschool typically give up a second income. As a result, the 20% poverty rate among homeschooled students may be more the result of originally non-poor homeschool families giving up a second income than of families already in poverty choosing to homeschool. Homeschooling is frequently not a viable option for impoverished families, which are often headed by a single working parent, or by two parents who must both work to make ends meet. Because of the intensive parenting required, homeschooling rarely takes place in single-parent households. Only 8% of homeschooled children live in a household headed by a single parent, compared with 24% of students overall.
Even when one parent can stay at home, homeschooling is not always the best option for families in poverty. Multiple studies have found that homeschooled students’ academic performance varies by the level of parental education. Homeschooled students whose parents have bachelor’s degrees tend to score very well. Students whose parents lack this qualification score less well. The 2014 HARO survey found that two-thirds of respondents homeschooled by parents without a high school degree or GED felt their homeschool upbringing had left them unprepared for the future.
Homeschooling is not a viable solution for many students living in poverty, especially those in extreme poverty. However, there are homeschooled students whose families are poor or near-poor who would benefit from access to state or federal education funds. At CRHE, we only support initiatives that provide education funding to homeschooled students if they are accompanied by reasonable accountability measures. In Alaska, most homeschool families voluntarily enroll in programs that provide them with up to $2000 in educational spending per child and require monthly teacher contact, regular progress reports, and annual testing. These programs are run by public and charter schools and often include access to resource rooms and enrichment programs, along with athletics and extracurriculars.
Programs like Alaska’s have the potential to help and support poor or near-poor homeschool families, but they are not a viable solution to greater limitations in current public school funding or policy. Policy makers should not abdicate their responsibility to provide a robust public education system by relying on the ability of some parents to take up the slack through homeschooling. Homeschooling can and does provide a useful option for some students zoned to attend schools with chronic funding or administration problems, but it is generally not an option for those most affected by failures in public education—children in extreme poverty.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by Rachel Coleman
Irresponsible Reporting on Homeschooling Benefits No One
Chris Weller’s article, “Why Homeschooling Is the Smartest Way to Teach Kids in the 21st Century,” exemplifies a pervasive form of irresponsible reporting on homeschooling. Weller paints an overly rosy picture of the practice and plays fast and loose with data on homeschool achievement. He does not interview any homeschool alumni, and fails to dig into the various issues involved in existing research on homeschooling. Instead, he parrots propaganda created by homeschool advocates and portrays homeschooling as both universally positive and fundamentally superior to any other method of education. This sort of reporting is not accurate, and it is not helpful to anyone, least of all the children whose lives will be affected by the decisions made by parents who read Weller’s writing.
Reaching out to homeschool alumni would have added to Weller’s discussion of socialization especially. Weller references a homeschooled 7-year-old in Texas whom he says has no friends other than his sister, and acknowledges that some homeschooled students struggle to find adequate social interaction. I’ve spoken with numerous homeschool graduates who found themselves in the same situation as this child, and none of them came away unaffected; having friends is an important social need. Weller points to the internet and extracurricular activities as solutions, but this doesn’t help homeschooled students too young to find friends over the internet, or those whose parents don’t take the time and effort to arrange enough extracurricular activities or playdates to meet their social needs.
Conversations with homeschool graduates might have alerted Weller to the role individual personality plays in shaping the homeschool experience. I was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school; the social interaction I received, while limited compared to that experienced in a formal school, was adequate for my introverted needs. Not so for my more outgoing and social sister. She spent her high school years miserable despite receiving the same amount of social interaction I did. Homeschooling works better for some students than it does for others. Of course, acknowledging this nuance would get in the way of Weller’s thesis that homeschooling is “the smartest way to teach kids” across the board.
Weller’s treatment of research on homeschool academics is equally problematic. Weller writes that “some of the most high-achieving, well-adjusted students are poring over math problems at their kitchen table,” but he doesn’t mention that some homeschooled children experience educational neglect or that one of the most consistent findings in research about homeschooling is the existence of a “math gap.” In fact, there is reason to believe that homeschooled students may underscore public school students in math; that they underscore private school students in math by a wide margins is not in dispute (see here and here).
Homeschool advocates have been spreading what can only be termed “propaganda” for decades now, promoting studies that claim to show, as Weller states, that homeschooled students score “in the 86th percentile.” The study Weller referenced, conducted by Brian Ray, relies on a volunteer sample weighted heavily toward white students with well-educated, non-poor parents. In other words, the study is not representative of overall homeschool performance and cannot be assumed to hold true for homeschoolers across the board. It also does not correct for background factors, meaning that we cannot know whether the study participants’ high scores were a result of being homeschooled or a result of growing up in well-educated, non-poor, largely white families. Weller does not acknowledge this.
In fact, Weller claims that Ray’s 86th percentile finding “held true even when controlling for parents’ income level, amount of education, teaching credentials, and level of state regulation.” This is simply not true. For one thing, Ray did not control for background factors. I suspect Weller has fallen prey to a problem we too often see in journalism—he does not completely understand the numbers he is reporting on. Ray did compare the performance of participants in his study who had parents with college degrees with those whose parents only completed high school, and so on, but in fact—contrary to Weller’s assertion—he found differences in performance based on family income and parental education level.
What would controlling for factors like family income or parental education actually look like? It would look like comparing a sample of homeschooled students with a sample of public school students with the same demographic factors—the same family income, the same parental education, the same race, the same family structure, and so on. Do we have any studies that have done this? As a matter of fact, we do. In 2011, Sandra Martin-Chang and a team of researchers compared three dozen homeschooled students with demographically matched public and private school students and found that some of the homeschooled students scored better on standardized tests than their schooled peers while others scored more poorly.
Do we have other numbers we can compare to Ray’s findings? As a matter of fact, we do. Homeschool testing data from Arkansas shows variation by grade level: In 2014, mean homeschool reading scores varied by grade between between the 60th and 65th percentile while mean homeschool math score varied between the 51st and 58th percentile. Because students’ demographic information was not collected, we have no way to know whether these scores were higher or lower than what would be expected given the students’ demographic factors. Testing data from Alaska finds that homeschooled students score more poorly in math than public school students across every demographic group, and that non-poor students who attend public school score better in both math and reading than non-poor students who are homeschooled. In other words, Ray’s findings of sky-high homeschool performance are not backed up in data that draw from mandatory testing of wider swaths of the homeschool population. Instead, his findings appear to be specific to his non-representative volunteer sample and thus cannot tell us anything the performance of the homeschool population overall, or of the “average” homeschooler.
I would be remiss if I did not address Weller’s reporting on homeschooled students’ college performance. Weller writes that research suggests “that homeschooled kids get into college more often and do better once they’re enrolled,” but he does not mention that fewer than 10% of homeschooled students take the SAT (the rate is similar for the ACT) or that there is reason to believe that homeschooled students under-attend college relative to their peers (and perhaps by a lot). When I was admitted to a public university in the midwest in 2005, fewer than a dozen of my fellow entering freshmen were homeschool graduates in a class of nearly 4,000 students, a tenth of what one would expect given the number of students being homeschooled at that time (2.5% of the student population). This discrepancy is backed up elsewhere and does not appear to have changed substantially in the years since. Why aren’t homeschool graduates attending college at the same rates as their peers? What are they doing instead? Why can’t Weller ask these questions?
My third and final problem with the way Weller writes about homeschooling is his suggestion that homeschooling is the best choice for every student. This is simply not the case. Like any other educational method, homeschooling has its pros and cons. Like any other educational method, homeschooling works better for some families than for others. Weller writes that homeschooling offers students individualized education, but he does not mention that some homeschooled students experience educational neglect, or that homeschooling can in some cases hold otherwise-capable students back. Weller has never spoken with a teenage homeschool student panicking as she realizes that her deficient homeschool education may put her dream of attending college out of reach. I have.
Weller insists that homeschooling is “the smartest way to teach kids in the 21st century.” He doesn’t mention that homeschooling does not always work for families, or that as many as a third of parents who start homeschooling quit after the first year. That’s another thing that would have added depth to Weller’s piece—interviewing a former homeschool parent who put her children back in school. As a child, I watched families try homeschooling and then re-enroll their children in public school. When homeschooling is presented as universally the best option, these parents are left feeling like failures. This is a problem.
I would like to see the narrative move away from whether or not homeschooling works (we know the answer to that—sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t) and toward questions of what practices make homeschooling work, and what factors contribute to failure. A conversation focused on how to homeschool effectively—and on what students, situations, and families homeschooling works best for—would give current and prospective homeschool parents what they really need—information on how best to support their children’s educational needs. It is irresponsible, for instance, to encourage families to homeschool with promises of academic success without mentioning the homeschool math gap. After all, parents need to know that homeschooled students have a weakness in math if they’re going to preemptively work to address this weakness. Overly positive and rosy reporting on homeschooling, in other words, fails homeschool parents, and any parent evaluating various educational methods.
As I recently wrote in another piece, homeschooling is a diverse and varied experience. Some homeschooled students are propelled forward and excel while others are failed and allowed to slip through the cracks of a system with little in the way of oversight or accountability. There is no underlying universal homeschool experience that fosters student success. Homeschooling is an individual thing—it may work well for one family but not at all for a family across the street. Portraying homeschooling as best for every child—and selectively covering research like Ray’s without also covering the “math gap” or low college attendance rates—does nobody any favors, least of all families simply trying to do the best by their kids.