Facts, peer-reviewed studies, and helpful information to encourage you on the journey to home education. 

What standards do you want for your child’s education? If the answer is “None. No standards; as long as someone else is teaching them, I don’t care,” then keep them in government school, and don’t waste your time reading this article. Also, move to Oregon. But if you have standards even so simple as, “If they graduate high school and can keep a job, then I’m happy,” you’ll want to keep reading.   

Full transparency: this homeschool mother of five is biased. But the facts ahead are not. When I reflect on the state of schools and the culture in which I’m raising my family, I can’t help wondering, Why isn’t everyone homeschooling? Then I remember the typical questions I hear from people who don’t know anything about the beautiful adventure that is homeschooling. They think that homeschoolers aren’t going to be adequately socialized or prepared for college, let alone the real world. So, let’s look at some homeschool data while shedding light on the gross negligence in institutional education. 

No longer in its infancy and gaining worldwide momentum, extensive studies show how home-educated students fare in many categories: their test scores, college performance, success as adults, and even psychological and emotional well-being.  

The homeschooling movement is growing worldwide. 

At least 3.7 million Americans are learning at home.¹ It may be the fastest-growing form of education in the United States and around the world, in places like Australia, Canada, France, Hungary, Japan, Kenya, Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.

Homeschooled students consistently perform better on reading and testing than their government and private school counterparts, and many studies over many years have concluded that this is true.²

Let’s not stop at reading and testing. Homeschoolers perform significantly better than those who attend school in many important areas: 

78% of 45 peer-reviewed studies found that “homeschooled students or graduates performed significantly better than their conventional or institutional school peers in terms of academic achievement, social, emotional, and psychological development, and success. 

A systematic review of the empirical research on selected aspects of homeschooling determined that these successes persist into adulthood and include post-secondary education and college or university³.

Homeschoolers have better sleep hygiene.⁴

Well, yeah. When you don’t have to get three kids to three different schools by 7:30 AM, not only are you less stressed and harried. Your kids and you will get more sleep. 

Homeschoolers do fewer drugs and do less underage drinking.⁵

Homeschooled kids were significantly less likely to report the use of alcohol, tobacco, and weed than their non-homeschooled counterparts, and are less likely to have access to illicit drugs or even be approached by drug dealers.⁶ Makes perfect sense, because there aren’t any drug dealers in my hallways.

Homeschoolers have less teenage sex and less premarital sex in young adulthood.⁷

33% of young adults today who were raised in a Christian home and attended government school engage in cohabitating and fornication. This is compared to only 9% of homeschooled individuals.⁸ Homeschooled adolescents claim fewer lifetime sexual partners.  

Homeschooling is linked to more frequent volunteering, greater forgiveness, and more frequent religious service attendance.⁹

The world could use more of these types of people, no?

Homeschoolers have a deeper faith. Homeschooled Millennials are less likely to leave the faith than individuals who attended private or public schools.¹⁰

Have you heard of the “Youth Exodus”? The statistics are both sad and scary. Generation X and Millennials are leaving the faith of their childhood in droves larger than even Moses himself could corral. Of the 18-29 year-olds that were raised in church, at least 64% leave the faith.¹¹ A Lifeway study has the number of those who left the church in their college years, going on to declare themselves atheists, agnostics, or “none” (no religious affiliation) at 70%, and they’re not coming back either. So don’t tell yourself the lie, “Oh, everyone rebels and comes back to the church once they have kids of their own.” That might’ve been the case with the Baby Boomers, but it drastically slowed with Gen. X, who are raising kids in a post-Christian world. Of the church drop-outs, only about 50% eventually return. Shockingly, only 9% of Generation Z and Millennials attend church.¹²

When pondering the decision to homeschool, consider not only the eighteen years your child will be in your care but also eternity. Not sending your child to an educational institution can reap huge spiritual benefits. Statistically, homeschooled young adults were six times as likely to be believers and seven times as likely to be stronger in their Christian beliefs as Millennials attending private schools.

As we compare government schools to home education,let’s briefly look back to the time before the government controlled our children’s education. In America’s infancy, our education system produced the most literate, best-educated population on the planet up until that time. As educational historian Alex Newman points out, “Early American schooling was dominated by homeschooling along with a vibrant, free market, education ecosystem. Outside of education at home, where most children learned to read, the landscape featured mostly schools, run by churches and entrepreneurs, and private tutors.”¹³ Americans used to be incredibly well-educated. Literacy data and vast anecdotal evidence from that era show that literacy levels were significantly higher in the mid to late 1700s than today.  Modern studies on the subject confirm that.¹⁴ According to University of Montana scholar Kenneth Lockridge’s study “Literacy in Colonial New England,” 90 percent were literate, with some cities like Boston at nearly 100 percent. Fast forward to the current state of government education; everything’s changed.

On September 9, 1993, the Boston Globe reported that “nearly half of Americans read and write so poorly that it is difficult for them to hold a decent job.”

In 1993, the U.S. government conducted the most comprehensive literacy study up until that time. The study found that the formerly literate U.S. had been severely dumbed down. Many analysts concluded from their findings that almost half the nation was illiterate or at least very close to functional literacy.¹⁵ When applied to our country’s youth, the numbers are even worse:

According to the federal government’s most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, only about one-third of high school seniors are proficient in reading.

While it is a shocking statistic, should we be surprised considering: 

Oregon has thrown out all standards for education.  A student isn’t required to show proficiency in essential learning skills like math or reading as a condition of receiving a high school diploma.

Thanks to Senate Bill 744, signed by former Gov. Kate Brown in 2021, students are not required to show that they can do simple math or reading to earn their high school diploma. While throwing out all the requirements sounds extreme to most Americans, the governor gave her reasons in an email, which I will paraphrase here: because it’s too hard for brown people to learn those things¹⁶. Instead of blaming melanin levels, let’s look at more government educational statistics.  

2/3 of eighth graders aren’t proficient in any core subject.¹⁷

Eesh. That’s tough. Indeed, you want better than that for your child. 

College-bound students are doing worse than they have ever done in the history of ACT examinations.

That’s a lot of bad news for institutional learning, and it’s only getting worse. Here’s the good news, though: You can homeschool. 

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”—Plutarch.

 Not only do we want our precious darlings to show proficiency in reading and math, but wouldn’t it be neat if they were passionate about what they were learning? Let’s raise our educational standards to the utmost, placing our offspring on the pedestal they deserve, like the royals and fortuitous students before them. Personal tutors tailor-made their education specifically for them, taking into account their interests, hobbies, learning methods, and learning differences. A gentle feast of subjects, oodles of imaginative playtime, and time in nature filled their days. When children are given unlimited time to pursue their passions and interests, they’ll develop critical skills for adulthood, like teaching themselves anything they want (or need) to learn. If these are some of the things you want for your progeny, then I pray that these facts have opened your eyes to homeschooling as the best educational model, the gold standard, and the crown jewel your child deserves. 

---

References:

1. National Home Education Research Institute. (2022). How many homeschool students are there in the United States during the 2021-2022 school year? https://www.nheri.org/how-many-homeschool-students-are-there-in-the-united-states-during-the-2021-2022-school-year/ ↩︎
2. (Meltzer et al., 2014; Tribby and Berrigan, 2021; Martin-Chang et al., 2011; Brewer and Lubienski, 2017; Morse and Bell, 2018; Sadorra, 2023; Yu et al., 2016; Valiente et al., 2022). ↩︎
3. All Education is Spiritual and Ergo Homeschooling is Resurging. https://doi.org/10.18778/2450-4491.12.16
   ↩︎
4. Meltzer, L. J., Shaheed, K., & Ambler, D. (2014). Start Later, Sleep Later: School Start Times and Adolescent Sleep in Homeschool Versus Public/Private School Students. Behavioral sleep medicine, 12(5), 343-354. https://doi.org/10.1080/15402002.2014.963584 ↩︎
5. Mason, C. A., & Narad, M. E. (2015). Homeschooling and the use of alcohol and other drugs: What research tells us. Journal of Drug Education, 45(1), 1-14. doi: 10.1177/0047237915572396 ↩︎
6. Ibid.  ↩︎
7. Vaughn, Michael G., et al. “Are Homeschooled Adolescents Less Likely to Use Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs?” National Library of Medicine, PubMed Central, 21 Aug. 2015, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4652803/. ↩︎
8. Christian News Network. (2015, February 16). Study Finds Homeschoolers Less Likely to Leave Faith Than Public/Private Schooled Students. https://christiannews.net/2015/02/16/study-finds-homeschoolers-less-likely-to-leave-faith-than-public-private-schooled-students/ ↩︎
9. Chen, Y., Hinton, C., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2021). School types in adolescence and subsequent health and well-being in young adulthood: an outcome-wide analysis. Plos One, 16(11), e0258723. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258723  ↩︎
10. Christian News Network. (2015, February 16). Study Finds Homeschoolers Less Likely to Leave Faith Than Public/Private Schooled Students. https://christiannews.net/2015/02/16/study-finds-homeschoolers-less-likely-to-leave-faith-than-public-private-schooled-students/ ↩︎
11. Barna Group. (2019). Resilient Disciples. https://www.barna.com/research/resilient-disciples/ ↩︎
12. Lifeway. (2007). Reasons 18-22 Year Olds Drop Out of Church. ↩︎
13. Newman, A. (2024). Indoctrinating Our Children to Death: Government Schools’ War on Faith, Family, and Freedom and How to Stop It. Page 6. Liberty Sentinel Press.  ↩︎
14. Ibid.  ↩︎
15. Irwin S. Kirsch, A. J. (1993) Adult Literacy in America: A First Look at the Findings of the National Adult Literacy Survey. National Center for Education Statistics. ↩︎
16. The Oregonian. (2021, August). Gov. Kate Brown signed a law to allow Oregon students to graduate without proving they can write or do math. She doesn’t want to talk about it. OregonLive. https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2021/08/gov-kate-brown-signed-a-law-to-allow-oregon-students-to-graduate-without-proving-they-can-write-or-do-math-she-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-it.html ↩︎
17. New Hampshire Department of state education. (2019, October 28) New Hampshire Department of Education YouTube channel. HTTPS://u2. BE/minus PMGSJX –l4? Sl ↩︎