PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND NUTRITION: Comparing Home and Public Schooled Children

Record: Douglas E. Long, Lisa M. Gaetke, Stephen D. Perry, Mark G. Abel, and Jody L. Clasey, “The Assessment of Physical Activity and Nutrition in Home Schooled versus Public Schooled Children” in Pediatric Exercise Science 22, no. 1 (February 2010): 44-59. [Abstract Here]

Summary:  Previously I reviewed a recent article by Cardel et al. that found a sample of Alabama homeschoolers to consume on average 120 fewer calories per day than a comparable group of public schoolers.  That article cited this 2010 piece, which I had previously failed to notice.

In this 2010 article a similar study was conducted to compare the food intake and amount of exercise between comparable groups of home and public schooled children. 

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HOMESCHOOLING LAWS IN NEW JERSEY: An Argument for Increasing Scrutiny

Record: Elizabeth Richardson, “Homeschooling Laws (or Lack Thereof) in New Jersey–Are Children Slipping Through the Cracks?” in Journal of Law and Education 42, no. 1 (Winter 2013): 173-181 [Abstract Here]

Summary: Richardson, a law clerk at Lynch, Cox, Gilman, and Goodman in Kentucky, here summarizes and comments on New Jersey homeschooling law.  New Jersey law states that parents or guardians must cause children between ages 6 and 16

regularly to attend the public schools of the district or a day school in which there is given instruction equivalent to that provided in the public schools for children of similar grades and attainments or to receive equivalent instruction elsewhere than at school.

What does “equivalent instruction elsewhere” mean? In 1967’s State v. Massa decision

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VACCINE-PREVENTABLE DISEASE: Tetanus Among Oklahoma Homeschoolers

Record:  Matthew G. Johnson, Kristy K. Bradley, Susan Mendus, Laurence Burnsed, Rachel Clinton, and Tejpratap Tiwari, “Vaccine-Preventable Disease Among Homeschooled Children: Two Cases of Tetanus in Oklahoma” in Pediatrics 132 , no. 6 (December 2013): e1686-e1689. Available Here.

Summary:  Johnson and colleagues begin by noting that rates of vaccination among homeschoolers are unknown because in many states they are not subject to the same school-entry vaccination requirements as are other schoolchildren.  The authors then explain that tetanus has become extremely rare in the United States thanks to vaccinations.  In the entire United States there were only 37 reported cases of tetanus in 2012.  In Oklahoma there were only two.  Both were homeschoolers, one of whom had never received a vaccination and the other of whom had not received the 10 year booster shot.

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