Homeschool Bound

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Homeschooling is catering to new, more diverse demographics, according to Messiah College associate professor Milton Gaither. The author of Homeschool: An American History, Professor Gaither writes in his Education Next (EN) article that “Growth in home schooling can be spotted among other ethnic and religious groups as well,” including “Native Americans in Virginia and North Carolina,” “Hawaiian natives,” Orthodox Jews, and Muslims, joining with an already strong Catholic and conservative Christian homeschooling movement.

A 2006 report by the National Center for Education Statistics (the most recent data available), finds that in 2003 1.1 million students were homeschooled nationwide, accounting for approximately 2.2% of the overall student population. Gaither, citing “movement leaders,” suggests that the number may be closer to 2 or 2.5 million.

His article recounts how this growth has caused public school districts to lose millions of dollars in revenue, prompting novel innovations such as à la carte enrichment programs and virtual charter schools, known as “cybercharters.”

“The Maricopa County school district in Arizona, for example, had by the year 2000 lost $34 million due to the exodus of 7,526 home schoolers. In an effort to win some of them back, the district began offering à la carte services through satellite campuses at strip malls and other locations,” he writes. “Home schoolers there have attended weekly enrichment classes in such subjects as sign language, art, karate, and modern dance.”

“The district receives one-quarter of each pupil’s government allocation for every student it enrolls in one of the classes.”

(Full disclosure: this correspondent is a former student of Professor Gaither’s and graduated from Messiah College).

Cybercharters are publicly-funded and offer free classroom materials to homeschooling families. They have experienced numerous “growing pains” due to government, legal, and even parental opposition to these programs, asserts Prof. Gaither.

For example, in 2001 23 Pennsylvania school districts refused to pay the Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School (WPCCS) for services rendered, leading the state department of education to distribute funds directly to WPCCS. It also led to the 2002 Act 88, which shifted “authorization of cybercharters from local districts to the state department of education,” also “setting more rigorous requirements and accountability measures.”

“Despite increased scrutiny, virtual charters have continued to grow. By 2008 WPCCS, now called PA Cyber, was employing 500 people to educate 8,500 students on a $60 million budget,” writes Prof. Gaither.

The U.S. government spends, on average, $9,769 per pupil annually; a comparable public school district serving 8,500 students would therefore cost approximately $83 million each year, but would also have higher infrastructure and staffing costs.

Two of Professor Gaither’s four children are enrolled at cybercharters while the other two attend public schools. “We tend toward a pragmatic view of these matters—whatever seems to be best for each child given their individual circumstances,” Prof. Gaither writes in his blog. “Our eldest daughter, for example, is involved in a very intensive ballet program in [Pennsylvania] and was accelerated two grades in school because of her high test scores. For both of those reasons she and we decided together that homeschooling would be the best move for now.”

Homeschooling leaders continue to oppose virtual schools, many for religious reasons. “Right- and left-wing home-schooling leaders have set aside long-standing grudges to unite in protest of virtual schools. In 2003, dozens of home-school leaders from a wide range of ideological positions signed a resolution condemning virtual charter schools called “We Stand for Homeschooling,” he writes for EN.

“Christian homeschoolers who would otherwise be purchasing Christian curricula as independent homeschoolers now receive nonreligious, government-sanctioned curricula for free through cybercharters,” writes Gaither. “It is only natural that Christian companies would resent such a move and interpret it as a clandestine effort by the secularist state to destroy them.”

According to the EN press release, “there are now 22 states and several local districts with online learning programs which enable students to do some or all of their schooling at home.”

Ron Packard’s K12 curriculum is used by 20 different public virtual schools nationwide. One such program, the DC Community Academy Public Charter School (CAPCS) Online offers classes K-8 to 112 students. According to the website, the CAPCS “loans students a computer system and provides all instructional materials for the program,” and provides families with certified teachers who can be contacted “through e-mail, telephone, and online meetings.” Internet access is subsidized.

Professor Gaither is hopeful for the future of hybrid homeschooling programs. “The increasing diversity of home schoolers and institutional configurations should not obscure the fact that many who home school still choose this option out of frustration with or protest against formal, institution-based schooling and seek to impart an alternative usually conservative Christian,” he writes. “Trends toward accommodation, adaptation, and hybridization will likely increase as U.S. education policy seeks to catch up to the sweeping demographic, technological, and economic changes taking place,” Prof. Gaither later adds.

“A movement born in opposition to public schools ironically might offer public education its most promising reform paradigm for the 21st century,” he argues.

Bethany Stotts is a staff writer at Accuracy in Academia.