Claremont Independent

Last Updated: 12/19/06 Section: Opinion

Abraham Lincoln glowers in disapproval of government-dominated education

In the previous two issues of the Claremont Independent, I discussed the current state of the U.S. school system and two reforms that are necessary to improve it. Currently, underprivileged students face severe educational disadvantages because of the structure of the education market - a market that the government dominates. The two reforms that I presented in the last issue - development and expansion of charter schools, and a universal voucher program - would give the nation's poorest students a new opportunity to improve their situations. The following two reforms that I propose would introduce even more competition and funding into America's education system.

The third reform advocates state deregulation of home schooling. Currently, all 50 states and the District of Columbia allow parents to home school their children, but restrictions vary across the country. Some states heavily regulate home schooling by requiring parents to notify the state regarding their children's achievement scores or to undergo a professional evaluation. They also impose additional restrictions such as state approval of the parent's curriculum, teacher qualification of parents, or mandatory home visits by government officials. These regulations cost the government - and taxpayers - millions of dollars and reduce the number of families who choose home schooling. Other states have much less stringent home schooling laws; many simply require parents to notify the state about their individual approaches, and 10 states do not require parents to initiate any contact at all with officials.

Standardized test results show that home schooled students continually outperform students at both public and private schools. A 1997 study by the president of the National Home Education Research Institute, Brian D. Ray, found that home schooled students scored 30 to 37 percentile points higher than comparable public school students. He also found that achievement significantly increased for students who had been home schooled for two or more years and that race and extent of government regulation had negligible effects. A year later, Lawrence Rudner, former senior associate at the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement, released a study indicating that nearly 25 percent of home schooled students were enrolled in a higher grade level than public and private school students of the same age. According to his study, home school students in first through fourth grade, on average, perform one grade level higher on achievement tests than their peers at public and private schools - a gap that grows wider above grade four. Several government organizations throughout the country, including state education departments and local school districts, have obtained similar results when analyzing the successes of home schooling.

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