Homeschooling Research

Homeschooling Research Shows that Home Education Works

– and produces well-educated learners who become successful and socially responsible citizens as adults.

Home education succeeds because it is child-centred. The education is tailored to suit each individual child to ensure mastery and the parents are highly motivated to help their children achieve success in education and in life!

For many, public schooling fails for many reasons – its focus is on policies, procedures, administrators, teachers and controlling large groups of children. The needs of the individual are super ceded by the needs of the System, in which many children fail to learn.

While there are ‘islands of excellence’ in the South African school system, the majority of children who are compelled to attend schools do not receive adequate education, adding to the economic and social problems our country faces.

Homeschooling has been legal in South Africa since the mid-nineties. However, despite evidence from other countries which shows that parents can generally be trusted to successfully  educate their children, South African education officials still seek to regulate homeschooling, and impose unlawful requirements on families who choose to comply with their registration requirements.

As a result, the majority of homeschoolers choose not to register with the Department of Education and so there are no accurate statics regarding homeschooling in South Africa.

It is estimated that there are currently (in 2020) about 300 000 children being educated at home in South Africa. If one imagines a school of 1000 learners, then the number home educated children would  be equivalent to 3 000 schools of learners, being educated at their parent’s expense and NOT dependent on public, tax-funded resources! Research from some years ago, showed that South Africa spends roughly R12 000 per annum per pupil on the education system. ($1225)[i]

Those in the South Africa homeschooling communities at grass roots level are experiencing an explosive growth in their home schooling networks locally and online, largely fuelled by dissatisfaction with public schools.

Besides social problems in schools such as negative peer pressure, bullying, substance abuse and violence, it is common knowledge that the national educational system is in a crisis and that most of the schooling system is effectively dysfunctional.

Research shows that the majority of the primary schools in South Africa perform worse than poorer schools in poorer African countries. Children in South Africa may be going to school, but they are certainly not being educated the way they should be! Every survey testifies to this.[ii]

It is ironic, that government officials, whose own education system is performing so abysmally, would attempt to control homeschoolers!

Research in the USA[iii] has shown that the degree of state control and regulation of homeschooling is not related to academic achievement of home learners. The achievement of home learners in states that are highly regulated is no different from states where there is no regulation!

While there are no official statistics on the performance of homeschoolers in South Africa, data from the United States is very encouraging and anecdotal evidence suggests that similar statistics could be found in South Africa:

Academically, homeschoolers in the USA far outperform their school-going peers. This has been shown over and over, in numerous studies by the National Home Education Research Institute (http://www.nheri.org/) and reported by Dr Brian Ray at the Global Home Education Conference in Berlin, November 2012.

 In a comparison of the performance of homeschoolers and public school students on three standardized tests, the California Achievement Test, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Stanford Achievement Test, in the academic year 2007-2008, Dr Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute found that with public school students at the 50th percentile, homeschoolers were at the 89th percentile in reading, the 86th percentile in science, the 84th percentile in language, math, and social studies.

(The percentile is not the test score, the 89th percentile means that 89% of all students scored lower than homeschoolers in reading, for example.)

Socio-economic factors are believed to play a significant part in the success of homeschoolers. Nearly all have a mother and a father who are living together.

Nearly two thirds of fathers and 62 percent of mothers of homeschoolers have a university degree in the United States. However, the level of education of the parents had little effect on the academic achievement of homeschooled children: In families where neither parent had tertiary education, homeschoolers scored in the 83rd percentile. If one parent had a college degree, they scored in the 86th percentile. If both parents were college graduates, the students scored in the 90th percentile.

Surprisingly, whether homeschool parents were certified teachers or not had no effect on their children’s academic achievement!

Interestingly, Dr. Ray found that variation in income also had little effect on the performance of home educated students.

Children from families with an income of $49,000 or less scored in the 86th percentile in core studies (reading, language, math), while children whose parents had an income of more than $70,000 scored in the 89th percentile.

One of the biggest criticisms, falsely aimed at homeschoolers is a lack of socialisation. Research has found that homeschoolers are better socialised than their public school counterparts. In a 1997 study of the activities of homeschooled children, Dr Ray found that 98% of the participants took part in two or more activities outside the home, such as scouts, ballet or dance classes, 4H, volunteer work, ministry, bible classes, music lessons, group sports, Sunday school, field trips and play dates with people outside the family.

The research in the USA, which focused on adults who were home educated, indicates that they are considerably more active in community service than the general population. According to a 2006 study, 71% of home school graduates versus 37% of all adults of similar age, participate in community service. Eighty eight percent of homeschoolers, but just 50 percent of all adults in the population, belong to a church, civic or professional group.

Adults who were home educated also vote and attend public meetings more frequently than the general population, they attend and succeed at university at an equal or higher rate than the general population and they share the values and beliefs of their parents at a very high rate.

This research from the USA shows that homeschooling works – for families who are motivated to choose this option.

You would think that with such good evidence in favour of homeschooling that governments around the world would be encouraging this educational option, but sadly, education is a political arena for control of the masses and in some countries, homeschoolers are persecuted and jailed, as was the case in South Africa too, before 1994.

Nelson Mandela said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

If this is true, then the children of the homeschool movement have the potential to be world changers, because homeschooling is an educational choice that works.