Home Schooling

Article: http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/home-schooling/

Detailed Reaction:
Home schooling is something that I didn't know much about before reading this article. I used to think that nepotism and cheating was the basis for home-schooled students to pass and get high scores on standardized achievement tests. I still have a firm belief in the fact that home-schooled students still have an unfair advantage over traditional school students. There has to be a reason as to why this type of students are academically achieving while regular students aren't.

The statistics actually show that most of the home-school students are from Caucasian middle-class Christian families. You'd expect the students to be socioeconomically disadvantaged. But the reason these families chose to home-school their children is because of the "poor learning environment" traditional schools have to offer nowadays. I agree that traditional schools aren't providing as much as a "parent-teacher" can. In my opinion, One-on-one teaching is superior to teaching a group of students. But still, parent-teachers can be the same people administering tests and you never know if they help their children to cheat or not. I, for one, would definitely help my child get scores that are in the top percentiles, so that he or she may get into a university of good stature. That's very much like nepotism, but only in this case, it's based on educational "hookups".

Also, regulations aren't really set in stone for this type of education. That means students aren't entitled to follow similar rules imposed on regular students in schools. Home-schooled students obviously have more freedom than students like me. There aren't many restrictions placed on such students and their families. This just further proves my belief that these students can cheat with ease on the tests they take at home. There is little to no third-party supervision when it comes to home-schooling. Simply stated, I don't think these students would achieve the same grades in a traditional school.