From Mothering Magazine.
Homeschooling's True Colors: investigating the myths—and the facts—about America's fastest-growing educational movement
"Myth: Homeschoolers are insulated from the real world, democracy, and diversity.
Fact: Homeschooling families live and learn in the real world (see methods outlined above), typically interacting with real people of various ages and backgrounds on a real-world basis rather than just with peers in a classroom. They have time and proximity to observe firsthand the social and political activities of their parents, who, according to Patricia M. Lines's report in the ERIC Digest, "are more likely to vote, contribute money to political causes, contact elected officials about their views, attend public meetings or rallies, or join community and volunteer associations" than are the parents of conventionally schooled children. (57) "This holds true even when researchers compare only families with similar characteristics, including education, age, race, family structure, geographic region, and number of hours worked per week." (58) Moreover, homeschoolers are a diverse population (see above) and often have lots of freedom to travel to diverse locations for both educational and social purposes.
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Myth: Homeschooling is a threat to the public schools. Homeschoolers abandon or "suck the life out of" public schools in their choice to homeschool.
Fact: Homeschoolers and public schools are, in many ways, boons to one another. By removing their children from public schools, homeschoolers inadvertently help the schools by relieving overcrowding and freeing up resources for other students while still paying the taxes that fund public education. In this way, homeschoolers actually save taxpayers millions of dollars per year. (69) To put it another way, every child who is homeschooled opens up a free seat in a classroom for another child. In this sense, every time 3 to 10 new taxpaying families (or about 20 new homeschooled kids) choose to homeschool, it is as if a new teacher has been hired for the public schools at no cost to taxpayers. Thus the growth of homeschooling is the equivalent of a host of new, high-achieving schools being built to relieve overcrowding and reduce class size at no expense to taxpayers."
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