Home-School Report Card

By Francine Russo

Ben Allison, 27, of Hosmer, S.D., recently landed an associate's job at the prestigious New York City law firm of Dewey Ballantine. It was something of a surprise, since, although he was editor of law review at Notre Dame, for most of his education, Allison didn't go to school--at least not to a formal one. Neither did Tad Heuer, 22, of Holliston, Mass., who won a Marshall Scholarship to the London School of Economics following his graduation from Brown University.

For those parents who are considering home schooling as an alternative to America's often politicized and sometimes dangerous public and private schools, Allison and Heuer are attractive models. But they may not be representative. Not all products of home ed turn out to be academic stars. Many home-educated students, like apprentice chef Rebecca Durkee, 22, of Livonia, N.Y., and Katie Harwood, 22, of Logan, Utah, a hospital accounting clerk, don't go to college at all. Nor are all home-schooling parents Bible-thumping Christians teaching their kids at apron-string length to protect them from sex, drugs and Darwin. In the gruesome wake of recent school shootings, a new cadre of parents are wondering whether home schooling is the best way to shield their kids from bullets. Ben's and Rebecca's parents did keep them close in a highly structured setting, mostly to instill Christian values. These families are from the right wing of home ed, while Katie's family is from the secular left or "unschooling" tradition whose clarion cry was "do your own thing." Tad's folks are among a host of middle-grounders who feel they are combining the best of both.

Home schoolers today total more than a million nationwide, estimates Patricia Lines of the U.S. Department of Education, who says their numbers tripled between 1990 and 1995 and are still growing. Yet how good an education they get is not well documented. Now, however, as the first wave reach their 20s, a glimpse of how they might turn out, academically and socially, is beginning to take shape.

The most recent research, published last March, backs up previous studies that came to favorable conclusions. Funded by the Home School Legal Defense Association but conducted by Lawrence M. Rudner, a respected independent statistician, the study found that 20,760 K-12 home-schooled students had median scores typically in the 70th to 80th percentile. But the sample, like previous ones, was overwhelmingly white, Christian, educated and affluent--and not comparable to a control group of public school children. "Given the education level and affluence of the parents," observes Gerald Bracey, an educational analyst in Alexandria, Va., "you could say, 'Gosh, these kids could do better.'" Mitchell Stevens, who is writing Kingdom of Children: Pedagogy and Politics in the Home Schooling Movement for the Princeton University Press, concludes, "At worst, home schoolers are doing as well as the average public school kid."

Joseph Cirasuolo, superintendent of schools in Wallingford, Conn., has seen the best and worst of home ed: "An excellent education, with computers plugged in," he says, and "horrible, with rote learning and outdated books." Teachers' groups, like the National Education Association, urge stricter regulation, but all 50 states now permit home schooling, with regulations ranging from degree requirements for parents in North Dakota to little or no oversight in Texas and Oklahoma.

Home schooling, as it is currently practiced, is something of a misnomer. There are a wealth of options--many of them centered outside the home. You can buy a prepackaged curriculum or make it up as you go. Many families mix and match kitchen-table lessons with classes at other parents' houses, apprenticeships and even--where permitted--public school or college courses.

Rebecca Durkee's mom taught her exclusively at home from structured lesson plans--no evolution, thank you. Studying to be a chef, Rebecca had to learn how to do "self-motivated work," while Katie Harwood recalls "learning what we wanted, mostly arty things." Tad Heuer took violin and art classes at public school to supplement home-taught history and literature studies that included visits to Civil War battlefields and 19th century authors' homes.

Nowadays, nearly all home-schooling families belong to one or more of a growing number of local support networks, which organize field trips, soccer teams, even orchestras. Though some educators are worried that these families are opting out of a common society, others note that private schools and even some public ones can be just as insular.

A slew of doctoral dissertations, none definitive, have been written on the social adjustment of home schoolers. Mary Anne Pitman, a social anthropologist at the University of Cincinnati, says, "The preponderance of evidence is, they're fine."

But are you the best person to teach your child? What if your kid yearns to clamber up the school steps every day clutching her Hello Kitty lunch pail? "When people are trying to teach unwilling children," says Dorothy Werner, a 1970s "unschooler" from Chicago, "it doesn't work well. But home schooling is very affirming to children because they get a tremendous amount of attention."

Tremendous is the operative word if you're considering home ed. Although some dual-career couples and single parents attempt it, 95% of home-schooling families have one parent who is not working outside the home. Parents have to act as teachers, administrators, social directors and more. Many just plain burn out before high school.

For his children, Ben Allison believes home schooling is a feasible and beneficial option. "My mother will be disappointed if I don't home-school my kids," says Katie Harwood plaintively. Will she? "No."