Once considered “fringe,” homeschooling has risen in popularity over the last several years. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 5.2% of children were homeschooled during the 2022-2023 school year, an increase of 1.5% from 2018-2019.
Though the pandemic undoubtedly played a role in making homeschooling more mainstream, many families have discovered the benefits and advantages of homeschooling over sending their children to public school.
What Is Homeschooling?
Homeschooling is typically parent-organized or parent-led. Parents or other family members educate the children at home instead of sending them to public or private schools. In some cases, homeschooling families hire private tutors or other educators to instruct their children.
Some homeschooling families join together and create a homeschooling pod or homeschooling group. In this model, parents take turns educating a small group of homeschooled children or pool their resources to hire a teacher or private tutors.
Many homeschooling families choose homeschooling for a variety of reasons, including:
- Worries about the school environment (e.g. safety, peer pressure)
- Being dissatisfied with the education traditional schools provide to public school students
- Unable to receive supportive services for children with special needs
- Disagreement with the school curriculum
- A child who doesn’t thrive in a traditional school environment
What’s the Difference Between Homeschooling and Online School?
Online schooling is when an educator teaches a group of students online or virtually. While many classes are synchronous, there’s often an asynchronous component (like posting assignments to the virtual bulletin board). Some classes are entirely asynchronous, allowing for more flexibility and convenience in scheduling and completing assignments.
What’s the Difference Between Homeschooling and Alternative Schools?
Like homeschooling, alternative schools exist to provide education and support for students who don’t “fit” in traditional education. Alternative schools often have unique and individualized approaches to teaching and learning but often provide instruction in a structured classroom environment. While the teaching approach can be flexible, the teacher may still need to follow a curriculum that’s guided by specific standards or the school’s mission.
Charter schools, therapeutic schools, and continuation schools are all examples of alternative schools.
Benefits of Homeschooling
While homeschooling isn’t for every student (or parent), there are benefits to teaching children at home and outside of traditional school environments.
Individualized Teaching and Learning
Whether the parent is the teacher or they hire someone else, one of the biggest advantages of homeschooling is the individualized teaching and learning. Working one-on-one with a teacher allows the student to master the material at their own pace. They have the freedom and flexibility to work through the easy stuff as fast as they want and spend more time on the hard parts, something that doesn’t generally happen in a traditional classroom setting.
What’s more, the teacher can tailor the lesson plan to meet the needs of the student. If a student is enthusiastic about science, the teacher can spend more time on science lessons or incorporate more science concepts into other subject areas to help the student engage with more subjects.
Flexibility
Unlike traditional schools or even alternative schools that follow a traditional model, homeschooling is flexible.
The curriculum can flex to meet the student’s needs, learning process and style, and interests. If they aren’t up for a reading assignment that day, they can skip it. Likewise, if the math lesson runs over because the student needs more time with the material, that’s OK. The teacher and student can spend as much time as they need working through the concepts without worrying about being late for the next class.
Homeschooling also allows parents to educate their children on their own schedule. They aren’t beholden to the school schedule every day or every year and can create a flexible schedule that works for everyone. Late sleepers don’t have to drag themselves out of bed to get to school. Class can start later in the day, aligning with the student’s internal clock and making it more likely they’ll learn the material.
Families are also free to choose when their child’s education takes place. If Mondays are better for doctor’s appointments or field trips, every Monday can be a no-school day.
Eliminates Competition and Grade Inflation
One of the criticisms of traditional education is the competitive aspect of it. There can only be one valedictorian, and while some schools have eliminated it, students may still compete with one another for the highest GPA or leadership position in clubs to bolster their college admissions applications.
This has led to another problem: grade inflation. Knowing how competitive college admissions can be, grades have, in some way, become meaningless, which doesn’t stop students from competing for them.
Homeschooling, on the other hand, doesn’t have grades. Instead, the focus is generally on mastery. Once the student can demonstrate they know the material inside and out, they move to the next level.
Subject Matter Control
In addition to homeschooling being flexible, it also allows parents to have more control over the subject matter. While some states may tell parents they must teach certain topics, say language arts or science, there are generally no requirements that state what you must teach. If, for example, you don’t want to cover Shakespeare in your language arts class, you don’t have to.
Time Saver
Even if you live in a state that mandates how many hours of teaching your student has a day or week, homeschooling can still save time. You don’t have to worry about getting your student out of bed in time to eat breakfast, get dressed, and catch the school bus. They can wake up, go to school in their PJs, and eat breakfast while doing a few math problems.
Safe Learning Environment
Another benefit of homeschooling is that it’s a safe environment. In traditional, alternative, and online schools, children can be subject to bullying, peer pressure, and other negative influences. Educating children at home eliminates these risks, leaving a little sibling rivalry the only real “threat” in school.
Disadvantages of Homeschooling
While there are many advantages and benefits of homeschooling, there are a few downsides to consider before deciding to homeschool.
Lack of Peer Interactions
While one-on-one attention in instruction and lack of peer pressure are advantages, they can become disadvantages when you consider the lack of peer interaction. Homeschooling clubs exist for homeschooled students to get together and participate in activities and develop their social skills, but the solo learning environment can create problems if the homeschooled students go to college.
Part of the traditional school process is learning how to work in a group and behave in a classroom — things homeschooled students may not learn unless they are given the opportunity to work with other homeschooled students regularly on academic assignments.
Difficult to Evaluate Progress
Not every state requires homeschooling parents to report on their student’s academic achievement or for homeschooled students to take standardized tests, making it difficult to benchmark and evaluate their academic progress. And since most homeschoolers don’t receive grades, it’s hard to tell what they’ve mastered or how far they’ve progressed over time.
Lack of Resources
One of the advantages conventional schools have is its resources — a library, a gym, aides, and so on, all things that homeschool parents and students don’t have access to. While community resources like the library or a public rec center are available, they usually aren’t convenient.
Lack of Support
Another significant disadvantage of homeschooling is the lack of support for parents. While some online resources exist, many parents have difficulty finding local support from schools and the community. For example, if you’re not a math wiz but your child is, you may have difficulty teaching them advanced concepts, and you may be completely on your own to connect with a qualified, competent math teacher who can help.
Find Some Support
Children learn best when they’re excited about the material and engaged in the process. While a student may dislike math or language arts, the homeschooling environment can help parents educate their children in a comfortable, safe environment that encourages them to learn however they want.
If you’re a homeschooling parent looking for support educating your learners at home, Emergent Education can help. Our dedicated team of experienced tutors can provide you with the homeschool support you’re looking for in math, science, history and social studies, and more. Contact us today for a free consultation and see how we can support you and your family on your homeschooling journey.
