by Sharon Meyer

Created on: January 27, 2009

The popularity of homeschooling over the years has moved away from being an odd or rare thing to do and more into the mainstream. As homeschooling has become more and more acceptable it has left society with a new dilemena.. How do we evaluate the academic and social development of homeschooled children ?

When I first started homeschooling our children over twenty years ago one of my greatest concerns was whether or not my children were keeping up to par with their peers who attended public schools. Then one day it hit me, I began to wonder if the public school was just as concerned about evaluating their educational performance against private schools?

I began to research the outcome of education between the public and private sector and clearly saw how private schools were doing a much better job at educating their children. This gave me a better idea of how to evaluate the academic and social development of my children since homeschooling is comparable to receiving a private education.

A major difference I have found over the years is that a homeschooled child is socially more adept than either a public or private schooled child. Most studies have found that a child who is homeschooled is happier, better adjusted and much more mature and socially adjusted than their peers who attend private or public schools. I believe much of this has to do with the lack of peer pressure or peer conformity which is seen within the institutional school setting. A child who attends either public or private school are limited in practicing their social skills by being placed in large groups with only peers who are their same age. On the other hand, a homeschooled child is given more opportunities to socialize with people of all ages

Academically homeschoolers are out-performing their peers who attend either public or private schools. On standardized testing, homeschooled children score 30-35 percentile points above their public schooled peers in all subject areas and grade levels. I think the results speak for themselves. Colleges across the nation have taken notice of just how well homeschoolers perform academically and are actively recruiting more admissions of children who have been homeschooled.

Considering all the media coverage in recent years covering everything from school shootings, rapes and bullying I am left to wonder if there is any possibility that one of the biggest reasons homeschoolers perform so well academically is due to the lack of a stressful atmosphere.

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