Posted by Tina
A study made by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics suggests that the number of home schooled children is growing and the reasons becoming more varied:
Home Schooling Grows, by Janice Lloyd USA Today
** The number of home-schooled kids hit 1.5 million in 2007, up 74% from when the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics started keeping track in 1999, and up 36% since 2003. The percentage of the school-age population that was home-schooled increased from 2.2% in 2003 to 2.9% in 2007. “There’s no reason to believe it would not keep going up,” says Gail Mulligan, a statistician at the center. *** Traditionally, the biggest motivations for parents to teach their children at home have been moral or religious reasons, and that remains a top pick when parents are asked to explain their choice. *** The 2003 survey gave parents six reasons to pick as their motivation. (They could choose more than one.) The 2007 survey added a seventh: an interest in a “non-traditional approach,” a reference to parents dubbed “unschoolers,” who regard standard curriculum methods and standardized testing as counterproductive to a quality education. *** Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute, says the estimates are low because home-schooling parents “are significantly less likely to answer government-sponsored surveys.”
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