I happened across your blog this evening while searching the web for ABeka homeschool materials. It was an old post (October 19, 2004) I believe. Because the post was so old, I was just going to leave it be and not make comments, but then I decided that I needed to inform you of a few things.

You made some rather uninformed statements regarding 'homeschooled' children. I am a homeschooling mother of 7 (YES, 7) children. YES, we are aware of what birth control is and we chose to have a large family. NO, we are not on any public aid. I always want to answer those questions right away, because everyone that sees our large family always seem curious about those issues.

Have you ever researched homeschooling or do you just have an opinion based on your limited personal experience from your neighborhood kids? I don’t even know where to start in providing you information and statistics showing how schooling your children at home vastly improves their chances of a good education. It has been proven (many times by many studies) that homeschooled children are testing better at ALL levels than public school kids! Below is 2 articles that you might find interesting:
1. “In 1991, a survey of standardized test scores was performed by the Home School Legal Defense Association in cooperation with the Psychological Corporation, which publishes the Stanford Achievement Test. The study involved the administering of the Stanford Achievement Test (8th Edition, Form J) to 5,124 homeschooled students. These students represented all 50 states and their grades ranged from K-12. This testing was administered in Spring 1991 under controlled test conditions in accordance with the test publisher's standards. All test administers were screened, trained, and approved pursuant to the publisher's requirements. All tests were machine-scored by the Psychological Corporation.
These 5,124 homeschoolers' composite scores on the basic battery of tests in reading, math, and language arts ranked 18 to 28 percentile points above public school averages. For instance, 692 homeschooled 4th graders averaged in the 77th percentile in reading, the 63rd percentile in math, and the 70th percentile in language arts. Sixth-grade homeschoolers, of 505 tested, scored in the 76th percentile in reading, the 65th percentile in math, and the 72nd percentile in language arts.
The homeschooled high schoolers did even better, which goes against the trend in public schools where studies show the longer a child is in the public schools, the lower he scores on standardized tests. One hundred and eighteen tenth-grade homeschool students, as a group, made an average score of the 82nd percentile in reading, the 70th percentile in math, and the 81st percentile in language arts.”

2. “In Pennsylvania, 171 homeschooled students took the CTBS standardized achievement test. The tests were all administered in group settings by Pennsylvania certified teachers. The middle reading score was the 89th percentile and the middle math score was the 72nd percentile. The middle science score was the 87th percentile and the middle social studies score was the 81st percentile. A survey conducted of all these homeschool families who participated in this testing found that the average student spent only 16 hours per week in formal schooling (i.e., structured lessons that were preplanned by either the parent or a provider of educational materials).”


These are just a couple I quickly found. If you are really interested (and aren’t afraid of being wrong) take a look at http://nche.hslda.org/docs/ study...Achievement.pdf

Thanks.
Pam | 12.03.07 - 2:05 am | #