Homeschooling is a Viable Alternative to Public School Essay

Introduction

• Opening statement: Once seen as the exclusive province of deeply religious families, homeschooling has changed drastically in recent decades.
• General information: In public discourse, homeschooling can be seen as inferior to mainstream education and criticized as unregulated and ineffective from the standpoint of socialization.
• Context/rationale: Failing to reflect homeschooled children’s positive experiences and data from research, this viewpoint can be harmful and limit families’ decision-making power, so reviewing the benefits of home-based education is essential.
• Thesis statement: Homeschooling can promote academic excellence, offer more flexibility to students with unique need profiles, and remove factors that distract students from learning, thus being a good alternative to traditional education.

Homeschooling and Its Positive Influences on Performance and Skills

• Topic sentence: Home-based education has been shown to be related to above-average skills and performance.
• Point 1: The scores of homeschooled children aged from 6 to 12 on the Test of Problem-Solving (TOPS) exceed standard expectations based on the general population (Medlin and Butler 62).
• Point 2: In young adults, those who have been homeschooled tend to have greater satisfaction with their autonomy compared to former public school students (Medlin and Butler 68).
• Point 3: Based on large-scale comparative research in Canada and the U.S., homeschooled students score at “the 65^th to 80^th percentile on standardized achievement tests,” whereas public school students score at the 50^th percentile (Bosswell 27).
• Concluding sentence/implications: Based on these outcomes, homeschooling can promote better academic achievement, overall autonomy, and problem-solving skills.

Homeschooling as a Source of Flexible and Needs-Based Education

• Topic sentence: Being flexible, home-based education enables special needs children and those requiring attendance-related accommodations to learn at their own pace and receive professional support if necessary.
• Point 1: In the U.S., modern technology and homeschool assistance programs provide families with vast opportunities for homeschooling customization, including access to online courses taught by professional teachers. For instance, the Olympic Regional Learning Academy offers online grade-specific courses for homeschooled students (Hirsh 4).
• Point 2: As opposed to inclusive public school education, homeschooling enables special needs students, including autistic children, to learn at a comfortable pace and prepare for post-secondary education more effectively (Peters 10). Home-based education, therefore, eliminates excessive pressure to keep up with faster-learning peers.
• Point 3: Homeschooling offers the necessary flexibility and fluidity to military families and children that change places of residence frequently (Kile 41). Without educational opportunities aligned with certain families’ nomadic lifestyles, the stress of going to new schools could be a tremendous barrier to children’s holistic well-being.
• Concluding sentence/implications: The flexibility of homeschooling offers the necessary accommodations to various student categories, making this form of education a good option for families.

Homeschooling Can Reduce Harmful Distractions from Learning

• Topic sentence: Another reason why homeschooling is a viable alternative to public education refers to the absence of peer-induced distractions that could affect learning.
• Point 1: Mainstream public schools are known to have a higher incidence of bullying compared to Steiner/Montessori schools, whereas homeschooling takes the child’s psychological safety even further (Peters 1). This implies that being homeschooled is a viable choice for children at risk of being bullied.
• Point 2: In neurodivergent children, going to a public school creates social anxiety that hinders academic progress, and homeschooling removes this barrier to successful knowledge acquisition (Peters 9). Social anxiety gives rise to excessive concerns and addressing it can enable the homeschooled child to devote all energy to studying.
• Point 3: Based on preliminary research, homeschooling can provide non-conforming youth, including LGBTQ populations, with an opportunity to learn without being distracted by peer pressure or social rejection (Hirsh 4). This form of education can, therefore, create safer educational environments for those at risk of experiencing misunderstanding and violence.
• Concluding sentence/implications: Thus, home-based instruction enables students to focus on the content rather than relationships, making it a suitable substitute for public education in certain cases.

Arguments against Homeschooling and Response to Them

• Topic sentence: Those opposing homeschooling may argue that it does not promote socialization, which has implications for personal progress.
• Explanation of the opposing side’s position: The critics of home-based education suppose that it deprives children of exposure to situations that stimulate healthy socialization. It results in the absence of skills required for academic and personal success later in life. According to this viewpoint, only traditional learning environments support “proficient thinking skills” by exposing children to social contacts (Medlin and Butler 63).
• Refutation: Firstly, the perception that home-based schooling means the absence of interaction with anyone apart from parents is flawed as homeschooled children can learn with siblings or actively communicate with peers after classes. Secondly, the suggestion that homeschooled individuals’ thinking skills are underdeveloped does not find reflection in current research. Quite the opposite, homeschooled students have been shown to outperform their peers from public schools in problem-solving (Boswell 27; Medlin and Butler 62).
• Concluding sentence: Therefore, the position that home-based education does not promote skill sets required for success is not based on solid evidence.

Conclusion

• Restatement of the paper’s thesis: Finally, the effects of homeschooling on performance, meeting individual needs, and concentration explain why it should be seen as a suitable alternative to public school education.
• Summary of main points: Homeschooled children demonstrate optimal performance when it comes to solving problems and knowledge tests, and home-based education’s flexible nature benefits special needs populations and military families. This form of learning can also eliminate the negative influences of peer groups and the resulting impacts on academic performance.
• Concluding remarks: With these points in mind, spreading families’ awareness of homeschooling and its advantages is essential.

Works Cited

Bosswell, Alexander R. “Homeschooling and Learners’ Academic Achievement: Evidence from the United States of America.”Journal of Education, vol. 4, no. 5, 2021, pp. 25-36. Stratford Database.

Hirsh, Aaron. The Changing Landscape of Homeschooling in the United States. Center on Reinventing Public Education, 2019. ERIC Digital Library.

Kile, Michelle L. Parents Self-Report Why They Choose to Homeschool. 2018. Master’s Thesis. CSU Scholar Works.

Medlin, Richard G., and Jessica L. Butler. “Thinking Skills, Academic Intrinsic Motivation, Academic Self-Concept, and Academic Independence in Homeschooled Children.”Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning, vol. 12, no. 24, 2018, pp. 62-90. Nipissing University Library.

Peters, Chris. “Is Alternative Schooling Associated with Lower Bullying Incidence?”Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning, vol. 15, 2021, pp. 1-15. Nipissing University Library.