Thursday, June 14, 2007

Richard Sousa extolls the benefits of Homeschooling

Richard Sousa has a very positive column in the SFGate.com titled Homeschooling is a viable alternative to public schools. (Richard Sousa and Hanna Skandera wrote School Figures: The Data behind the Debate. Here is my review of their book.)

In his column Richard Sousa covers the growing acceptance and popularity of homeschooling. He explains some of the reasons why homeschooling is so successful. Near the end of his column he says:

"Keep in mind that the performance of these children is generally accomplished without certified teachers, without standardized curricula, without approved and mandated text books and teaching materials, and -- possibly most important -- without the often intrusive rules and regulations imposed by school boards and administrators."

If you have a friend or family member who is considering homeschooling, have them read this column. Richard Sousa has one of the best understandings of public education of anyone. If he says that homeschooling is viable, your friends might listen to him.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree that it was a really positive article. (Except that statistics thing will always bug me. :-) )
Your suggestion was excellent that Chronicle article be pointed out to those considering homeschooling as information that would make sense to them.

I've been getting frustrated with the amount of attention that homeschooling gets in the media. A lot has been positive, even as officials seem to be stepping up trying to see who and what and how many we are. I've wondered if the extra attention isn't one reason.

But I guess it can be compared to a 'problem child' (public school realm) acting worse when the attention (and funding) is drifting away from them. I dunno.
But thanks for making some very good points for those who are thinking about homeschooling.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing. I've recently blogged about two recent articles that were published that gave homeschooling some long overdue credit. I have noticed that homeschooling has been in the news a lot lately, some good and some bad.