I am doing a research paper on homeschooling and need to find some information on homeschooling failures?

Question

Thanks everyone for your input! Just a note: for my paper I have to find positive AND negative information, and quite frankly, it's a little difficult to find much negative. Homeschooling seems to be working for quite a few kids! A few of the negativepoints that have come up are that 1) exceptional homeschooled kids would be exceptional anywhere, even in public schools. 2) the testing homeschoolers take is voluntary, so if a homeschooled kid hasn't learned much or anything, they won't take it, as such the results are skewed. 3) yes, homeschooled kids get into ivy league schools, but the ratio of applicants to homeschoolers is much lower than that of public schoolers. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

ADDITIONAL COMMENT IN RESPONSE TO YOUR ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: Mixed thoughts on testing. First you have to consider the reason for testing. Is it to measure what a child knows, or what they don't know, or is it to compare what a homeschool child knows to what a public school child knows? Example: I teach history in chronological order and we started when my oldest was in 7th gr. If she had taken a history test based on public school history curriculum, and they were not studying ancient civilizations, then she would have failed. But would that show what she knew? No. Same with math. She completely skipped 8th grade math and went in to 9th grade algebra due to her high acheivement in 7th grade, but what would happen on a standard 8th grade math test? Don't know.
Many many homeschool families test their children every year, but those results are not "posted" anywhere for comparison to other children. They are mainly for the parents information only. Testing has it's place, for example if you need to put your children back in the public system or if your child wants to go on to college. And as far as Ivy League schools go, I don't think that's a sound measure of academic success. If you want to look at how successful hs kids are at the secondary level, then concentrate on looking at how many are getting in to the college THEY want to be in, or are doing exactly what they want to be doing after high school. I guess that's the main focus of homeschooling: preparing your children for the life they want and enabling them to define success in their terms, not conforming to someone else's idea of what success looks like.
Good luck!
Homeschooling failures. That's a tough one, but i'm sure there's lots of info out there. Try looking at newspaper archives. The main reason it's hard to find true homeschool failures is that they don't go around talking about it. The success stories are the ones you hear about. i've been reading this forum for only a couple of weeks and I've read TONS about perceived failures: kids outside during school hours, no social interaction, things like that, but nothing on true failures.
You will find failures in situations where the parents have not researched homeschooling properly and they do not understand what it is all about. I've seen situations where parents pulled their children out of school due to a personal conflict with the administration or something, and then found themselves "stuck" so to speak. HS is HARD work, especially if you jump in without looking. A lack of social interaction is dependant on the lifestyle of the family. Families that are plugged in to their community, neighborhoods, and churches are going to to fare much better than those that are not. Today, it is so easy for children to have tons of social activities, through community sports, chruch activities, home school co ops and support groups....Even a short 10 years ago a majority of these opportunities did not exist.
Bottom line, I believe most homeschooling failures come from a lack of research and preparation on the parents part, from removing their children from schools for the wrong reasons, and from not having the time, discipline, or ability to stay on top of things. Failures also come from trying to recreate the public school atmosphere at home.
When I made the decision to homeschool my children, I consider it, researched it, talked to other hs parents for over a year before making the final decision. We live in a suburb of a very large city, in a neighborhood with tons of children. We take advantage of our community sports programs and activities, and we are very plugged in to our church. My daughter worried at first that she would lose her friends. She quickly found out, through joining our local support group, that the amount of friends she had tripled. we have tons of opportunites for learning and socialization that families in public or private schools do not have because they are "at school" all day. Our children have the opportunity to interact with people of all ages, which, in my opinion, makes them much more "socialized" than their schooled peers that are used to only hanging out with kids the exact same age as them. Failures? Yes, they are there. But be careful to distinguish between actual failures and perceived failures due to a lack of understanding of what homeschooling really is.
I hope you do well on your paper, but I really hope even more that you understand what you are looking for, and I hope this helps guide you.

Answer 2

Here are some homeschooling "failures:"
George Washington
Abraham Lincoln
FDR
Thomas Edison
Booker T. Washington
Mark Twain
Woodrow Wilson
Alexander Graham Bell
Claude Monet
Ansel Adams
Amadeus Mozart
Irving Berlin
Charlie Chaplin
Charles Dickens
Albert Einstein
George Washington Carver

Are there families out there who do a bad job of homeschooling? Of course, but contrary to the beliefs of many people on this site, they do not represent the majority. I personally, grew up in the homeschooling community, and never met anyone I would consider a homeschooling failure.

I think part of the lack of Ivy league representation has something to do with the fact that many homeschoolers are conservative, and the Ivy leagues aren't exactly bastions of conservatism.

Answer 3

I was homeschooled (as were my sister, best friend, and a few cousins). I began after I finished 7th grade, and skipped 8th grade altogether. Although I convinced my mom this would be wonderful for academic reasons, it was not and I cheated the entire time. I also missed out on peer interactions that most high schoolers get (which is extremely important). I spent most of my time working full time, and doing stuff with the friends I had known all my life.
I was able to go to college a year earlier, but I got a lowly 23 on the ACT and had a 7th grade education (e.g., only knowing pre-algebra when you are taking chemistry or college algebra is tough). I graduate this last year with a 3.86 GPA from a Jesuit university, and am now in grad school, but this is rare for people with similar educational experiences I think.
If you're doing a report, know that everyone I know would strongly advise against homeschooling.

Answer 4

I want to point out that, in many states, testing of homeschoolers is NOT voluntary. Many states require homeschoolers to take the same or at least equivalent standardized tests as public school kids.

Answer 5

homeschooling failures? what about public school failures kids that go to public schools may have alot of friends but they dont get the right attention from the teachers so they dont learn and so they slack off on home work and there is to much violence in public schools your kid would be safer to get homeschooled than sent to a public school.

Answer 6

Sorry, I can't help you. I don't know any homeschool failures. Homeschoolers are among the most awesome people I know!

Sure, there are homeschool failures, but there are also public and private school failures.

Answer 7

To monkersmom. My sister doesn't care about spelling on the computer, she deleted it to see if she could write a new answer but, she couldn't. Plus, the spell checker wasn't working.

My cousin is in 4Th grade, and scored "above level" on her testing, and she stumbles over the simplest word, for example, music. She's in public school.

Don't worry, my sister is in the ninth grade and, on her testing, (home school testing.) She scored as and above 11th grader.

I think you were picking on her because she's homeschooled and wanted to show that homeschooled kids (or at least my sister.) is a lower standard public school child.

One the kids I was testing next to, (I happened to look at her math, accidentally.) was in the 7th grade, she scored 5th grade, (they show how you scored as a public schooled kid.) And it showed that she was still 50% above level. No offense to any public schooled kids.

Answer 8

The homeschooling 'failures' I know of are of two types:

1) The parents who don't get involved in academics at all (we're talking extreme unschoolers, not just regular unschoolers)

and

2) Parents who doubt themselves too much and are too afraid of failing and bring about the failure they were fearing, at times ending up with the kids going back to school because they just don't know what else to do.

Answer 9

Home schooling is great for some kids, a disaster for others. When I was in college, the most well-adjusted, happiest, and dedicated students had been home schooled. They had great social skills. I also knew some who had no clue about how to interact with people not just like them. It is very important for home schooled kids to realize that not all kids who go to public school are stupid, ungodly heathens. Parents are the ones who have to educate their kids, and prepare them for a world with diversity.

Answer 10

When tested, homeschoolers score above average, i.e. higher than institutionally schooled kids, regardless of the educational background of the parents.

Answer 11

In reading Jennifer T's opinion, if she is homeschooled, did anybody teach her how to spell or at least use the spell check on her computer? That is usually taught in the public schools.