IMPACT OF REGULATION: One Mother’s Story

Record: Giuliana Liberto, “Child-led and interest-inspired learning, home education, learning differences and the impact of regulation.” Cogent Education, 3 (2016): 1-10. [Abstract]

Summary: Giuliana Liberto is a home educator who researched the effects of increased regulation on children’s learning and well-being in the home education community of New South Wales, Australia.

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AFRICAN AMERICAN HOMESCHOOLERS: Parental Motivations and Student Achievement

Record: Brian Ray, “African American Homeschool Parents’ Motivations for Homeschooling and Their Black Children’s Academic Achievement” in Journal of School Choice, 9, no. 1 (2015): 71-96. [Abstract]

Summary: Brian D. Ray is the founder and current president of the National Home Education Research Institute. In this study he explores the academic achievement of Black homeschool students in grades 4 through 8 as well as their parents’ motivations for homeschooling. The rate of Black homeschoolers nearly doubled from 1999 to 2012, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In that time, many Black parents became actively involved in the choice of their children’s school. Ray ponders why so many African Americans are choosing homeschooling when they fought so hard to be mainstreamed into the public-school system.

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HOME SCHOOLING IN CANADA: A Fraser Institute Report

Record: Deani Neven Van Pelt, “Home Schooling in Canada: The Current Picture–2015 Edition.”  Barbara Mitchell Center for Improvement in Education (June 2015).  [Available Here]

Summary: Van Pelt, who has published occasional studies of home education since 2003, is director of the Barbara Mitchell Center for Improvement in Education at theFraser Institute, a libertarian think-tank based in Canada with a long history of advocating market-based policies drawn from libertarian economists like Friedrich Hayek, Edwin G. West, and George Stigler.  This report updates a 2007 update of the widely cited 2001 report the Fraser Institute published called Homeschooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream.  The 2001 report was written by Patrick Basham, who has since moved on to be a prominent voice at the Cato Institute, another libertarian think-tank based in the United States.

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HOW TO MISLEAD WITH DATA: A Critique of Brian Ray’s Methodology

Record: Chelsea McCracken, “How to Mislead with Data: A Critical Review of Ray’s ‘Academic Achievement and Demographic Traits of Homeschool Students: A Nationwide Study’ (2010).” Coalition for Responsible Home Education (15 January, 2014).  [Available Here]

Summary:  McCracken, who serves as the senior research analyst for the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an organization advocating for increased regulatory protection of homeschooled children in the United States, here scrutinizes Brian Ray’s most recent study of homeschooler academic achievement.  For my own summary and critique of Ray’s study click here.

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HOME SCHOOLING: A CQ Researcher Report

Record: Marcia Clemmitt, “Home Schooling: Do Parents Give their Children A Good Education?” CQ Researcher 24, no. 10 (7 March 2014), pp. 217-240. [Available Here]

Summary:

The CQ Researcher has long been an influential publication, especially among politicians and others connected to the United States Congress.  Clemmitt is a veteran journalist who has provided in-depth analysis of several educational issues in the past.  She brings her wide experience and the publication’s resources together here on the topic of homeschooling.

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THE TRANSMISSION OF VALUES: Do Homeschooled Christian Kids Keep the Faith as Adults?

Record: Braden Ryan Hoelzle, “The Transmission of Values and the Transition into Adulthood Within the Context of Home Education” in Journal of Research on Christian Education 22, no. 3 (2013), pp. 244-263.

Summary:  Hoelzle, a doctoral student in education at Southern Methodist University, here presents the results of a qualitative study of four young adults, all of whom had been homeschooled for eight or more years.  His goal was to assess the success of the strategy of using homeschooling to pass on parental religious and moral values.

Hoelzle reveals at the outset that he himself is an evangelical Christian who is hoping to use homeschooling as a way to transmit his values to his own children.  But so far the scholarship on this question is very thin.  He mentions Brian Ray’s oft-cited but methodologically weak 2004 survey of young adults who had been homeschooled, finding its generalizations too generic.  He wants to know in a deeper, richer way just what homeschooled children think about the religious convictions of their parents once they leave.

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RELIGION, VOLUNTEERING, AND EDUCATIONAL SETTING: How Does Homeschooling Impact Civic Engagement?

Record: Jonathan P. Hill and Kevin R. Den Dulk, “Religion, Volunteering, and Educational Setting: The Effect of Youth Schooling Type on Civic Engagement” in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 52, no. 1 (2013): 179-197 [Available Here]

Summary:

Hill and Den Dulk, both professors at Calvin College, here present results drawn from the massive National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) directed by Christian Smith and Lisa Pearce.  Read my summary of an excellent earlier study by Jeremy Uecker using this data set here.

In the piece before us today Hill and Den Dulk want to know whether the type of schooling a child receives goes on to have an impact on that individual’s habits of volunteering in young adulthood, and if so, why.  As the NSYR was a multi-stage longitudinal study of a representative sample of the American population, it can answer this question.

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Brian Ray’s Philosophical Argument for Homeschooling

Record: Brian D. Ray, “Homeschooling Associated with Beneficial Learner and Societal Outcomes but Educators Do Not Promote It” in Peabody Journal of Education 88, no. 3 (2013): 324-341.

Summary:

Ray is without question the most influential researcher in homeschooling given his many decades of work as the head of the high profile National Home Education Research Institute, a research/advocacy organization that has produced a steady stream of reports demonstrating the academic and social benefits of homeschooling, most of them funded by the Home School Legal Defense Association.  Ray has also for decades worked the homeschooling lecture circuit and has appeared as a pro-homeschooling expert witness in dozens of court cases.  In this article he moves beyond his usual empirical arguments to make more philosophical arguments in favor of homeschooling and against its critics.

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Why do South Dakota Parents Homeschool?

This post reviews Bonnie F. Boschee and Floyd Boschee, “A Profile of Homeschooling in South Dakota” in Journal of School Choice: Research, Theory, and Reform 5, no. 3 (2011): 281-299.

Floyd Boschee, emeritus professor of education at University of South Dakota, and Bonnie Boschee, assistant professor of education at Northern State University, here present the results of a survey of South Dakota homeschooling parents concerning their motivations for doing so.

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The Cardus Education Survey and Homeschooling

This post reviews Ray Pennings, et. al.,  Cardus Education Survey (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 2011)  [available here]

Phase 1 of the Cardus Education Survey was released a few weeks ago and has garnered significant national attention for its insights into private Christian schooling.  Though not the report’s major emphasis, it also includes some very interesting information about homeschooling. 

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