subject: Public, Private, Or Home Education . . . What Are My Options? [print this page] If you (or a friend) are considering your educational options for the next school year, I think I might be able to offer some insight, perspective, and just possibly a bit of guidance. One thing that helps me make decisions is to look at comparisons. Id like you to join me in looking at the options offered by a public or private education and home education. I have broken these comparisons into the following categories: responsibility, academics, supplementary curriculum, values, safety, and environment.
RESPONSIBILITY
Who is responsible for the instruction of our children? Is it the U.S. government, the state you live in, the church, or you, the parent? Your answer to this question of responsibility will be a huge deciding factor in what educational option you choose. Here are the options as they relate to responsibility:
Public School
The U.S. Department of Education website states in their Q&A section: Education is primarily a state and local responsibility in the U.S.1 Thus, the Federal Government is passing the bulk of the responsibility for the education of your children on to your local state government, although they do like to keep an overarching hand on the meeting of standards and the implementation of related agendas, as can easily be seen on their website (www.ed.gov). When a child is enrolled in a public school, that child is placed under the jurisdiction of the state government and all legal stipulations related to the states administration of its public school system. The state governments take their responsibility seriously, enforcing their standards and codes as they deem appropriate.
Private School
Parents who choose to assign the responsibility of the childs education to a private school give its various administrators and teachers governance over most aspects of the childs education and in many cases, the childs moral instruction. In addition, the private school must meet the State government regulations in the following areas: Accreditation/Registration/Licensing/Approval, Teacher Certification, Length of School Year/Days, Curriculum, Recordkeeping/Reports, Health and Safety Requirements, Transportation, Textbooks, Testing, Special Education, Nursing and Health, Technology, Professional Development, Reimbursement for Performing State/Local Functions, Tax Exemption, Public Aid for Private Education, Homeschooling, and Information Resources.2 These regulations should not be confused with each states separate laws that regulate private homeschools.
Homeschool
Homeschooling parents believe the Biblical mandate that the responsibility for the instruction of a child falls squarely on their parental shoulders. Homeschooling parents take full responsibility for the instruction of their children in all areas of life, including, but not limited to, academics. Their belief is that God has given parents His children to instruct in His ways, and home education is the best stewardship of that responsibility. The majority of Christian homeschool parents believe that home education is not a choice among other options but rather is a command from God as directed throughout a myriad of Old and New Testament passages and application of numerous Scriptural principles. Christian homeschool parents believe that God has given us everything we need for life and Godliness (see 2 Peter 1:3), which would include the instruction of our children. Biblos.com provides at least 150 results for the word instruction in the Bible, many of them referring to children or sons (biblez.com/search.php?q=instruction). In addition to those references, following is a sampling of other Scriptures related to the instruction of children:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up (Deuteronomy 6:47). (Deuteronomy Chapter 28 talks about the blessings of those who obey Gods commands.)
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you (2 Corinthians 6:1415, 17).
Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen . . . (Jeremiah 10:12).
The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master (Luke 6:40). The English Standard Version of the Bibles translation of this verse helps clarify its meaning: A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6).
He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed (Proverbs 13:20).
If you are looking for good Biblical reasons for why you should consider home education for your children, here is a free online class called Why Homeschool? (scroll down to the second class session offered by Deborah Wuehler).
ACADEMICS
Academics play the next big role in decision-making. Parents usually want to know which school has the best teachers, which has the best curriculum, and what school ranks the highest in academic progress. Lets look at the options:
Public School
The overall academic report card for public schools in the United States could easily read as follows: Needs improvement. As of 2009, in rankings among all other countries, sixteen countries are ranked higher than the U.S. in the areas of reading, math and science (www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf). Failing grades of U.S. public school students has been the bane and blight of the country for decades. There seems to be no way to resolve this issue at the government or state level, though many remedies have been tried over the years.
Private School
The academic scores of private schools (not to be confused with private homeschools) weigh in above the public norm (www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED523060.pdf, page 1). Although this option appears to be more benign, the overall results comparing private to public schooling might not be. The PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) pamphlet titled Private Schools: Who Benefits? states:
Students who attend private schools tend to perform significantly better in the PISA assessments than students who attend public schools; but students in public schools in a similar socio-economic context as private schools tend to do equally well. . . . When parents choose a private school over a public school for their child, they are selecting the greater probability that their child will attend classes with peers of similar or higher socio-economic status, that the resources devoted to those classes, in the form of teachers and materials, will be of higher quality, and that those classes will be orderly and even inspiring. PISA shows, however, that public schools with comparable student populations offer the same advantages, even if the average public school, with a more diverse student body, generally does not.3
Homeschool
According to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), homeschoolers excel at least 1530 percentile points above their average public school peers on achievement tests across the academic board. (You may download Dr. Brian Rays article titled Research Facts on Homeschooling at this website address: www.nheri.org/research/research-facts-on-homeschooling.html.)
The results show that the academic performance of homeschooled children does not depend on how much money is spent on educational resources per child, nor on how much formal schooling the parent has, nor on what kind of curriculum or teaching style is used. Regardless of which specific variables have been compared in a wide variety of studies about this subject, all results indicate that the vast majority of homeschooled children excel academically.
SUPPLEMENTARY CURRICULUM
Parents want to know what their children are being taught. This includes supplementary ideas, philosophies, materials, and school goals or agendas. The extracurricular ideas, values, and supported plans may or may not relate to academic subjects but rather to personal or governmental ethics, whether good or bad. Here is some helpful information about your options as they relate to this subject:
Public School
Whereas each state government school is distinct in its philosophies, the Federal Department of Education oversees the actions of states. Although the Department of Educations website makes this statement: In creating the Department of Education, Congress made clear its intention that the secretary of education and other Department officials be prohibited from exercising any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, the current administrations Secretary of Education in fact seems to provide direction in several extracurricular agendas at www.ed.gov, such as LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual) education, and the website supported views on bullying and environmentalism, among others. However, because they are promoted from the governmental or national level (www.nea.org), they eventually show up in our local public schools as part of the academic enrichment to create a socially well-rounded child, whether or not the parent agrees to such teaching. Here are some examples to help you decide:
Homosexuality (LGBT) Issues The National Education Associations website, which offers lessons plans about homosexuality, leads you to these partners in education: http://www.glsen.org/readysetrespect.html.
Bullying Also www.stopbullying.gov consolidates all Federal resources.
Environmentalism
Sex Education
Although many state schools provide safe sex instruction to young children, the results are dreadful: In 2004, the estimated number of pregnancies in girls aged 10 to14 was 16,000. In ages 15 to 17, the number jumped to 252,000. The stats included the high number of sexually transmitted diseases for these young ages (www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/ss/ss5806.pdf). And, of course, Planned Parenthood has major influence in public schools sex education curricula and proposes that abstinence-only education does not work: www.plannedparenthood.org/resources/implementing-sex-education-23516.htm.
Early Childhood Intervention
The No Child Left Behind mandate is quickly becoming the No Child Left at Home objective. One of the goals for the future in education includes programs to intercede on behalf of all childrenstarting at birth. This goes well beyond the educational realm and into the personal integrity of a childs family. Here is the stated goal from the Department of Education: Develop an infrastructure for a birth-to-grade-three system that includes readiness data, and aligned standards/assessment, curriculum, and professional development (accessed July 11, 2012).
Private School
Each private school is distinct in its choice of supplemental programs and curricula. Often a school specializes in a particular area, for example, military schools, schools for gifted children, boarding schools, progressive schools, international schools, art schools, special needs schools, Catholic schools, Waldorf or Montessori schools, and Christian private schools. Therefore, a schools supplemental curriculum would naturally support its philosophy of education, whether secular or not.
Homeschool
Supplementary curriculum comes in a multitude of forms for the homeschool family. We teach children to make it their aim to please God through excellence in character and service to their families, their churches, and their communities. Extra research, field trips, museums, job shadowing, community classes, and volunteer opportunities all enhance the childs education and provide wholesome supplementary resources for learning. Homeschool parents are not required to teach diversity, tolerance, safe sex, environmentalism, or evolutionary theories to their children. Homeschooling offers a Biblically based education that avoids the normalization of negative social and anti-spiritual theories fed to traditionally schooled children in which their inborn sensitivities are immunized or disregarded.
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ (Colossians 2:8).
VALUES
Public School
Values promoted in the public schools include humanism, based on atheismthe doctrine that man is supreme in all things, thereby necessitating a complete and total rejection of God. Textbooks have been revised to promote the public schools endorsement of a non-religious history, making it palatable to the masses. Revisionist history and Godless evolution are taught as fact.
Public schools also value hedonisma pleasing of the self as the highest principle in life. Self-pleasure and self-exaltation are upheld in classrooms and curricula, as exposed in these examples of statements that support those principles: You can reach for the stars. You can do whatever you want to do. Do what makes you happy.
Public-schooled children who were raised in the church frequently exchange their value systems as they age. Peer pressure and indoctrination of social agendas from a young age are causing children to leave their faith (88% of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church by the age of 18, never to return)4 and their families. Their values shift away from God and family to a more self-directed secular focus.
Private School
Teachers and students do not always hold to the same faith or value systems. Children can be harassed or embarrassed when they dont agree with a teacher. Many children adopt the value system of their private school instructors because they believe them either to be right or more educated than their parents. And, many children value their teachers input over their own parents. The childrens hearts can be tied strongly to their teachers and their schools rather than to their family.
Some private schools support secular values and hire teachers who will promote those values. A Quaker prep school in Pennsylvania, Friends Central School, boasts its employment of a gay sex education teacher who admits, I dont necessarily see the decision to become sexually active when youre 17 as an unhealthy one. (See www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/magazine/teaching-good-sex.html.) It is probably teaching like this that leads to the depressing statistics about private school graduates who obtained abortions; those statistics are documented here: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090601091930.htm.
Although many private schools claim to support a Judeo-Christian worldview, a good amount of them continue to remove mention of the Bible from their science textbooks and endorse the teaching of evolution as fact, often supplementing that teaching by talking about the Creation story. This de-valuing of the true history of origins might be one of the reasons we have children who are confused and disillusioned by the end of their high school years.
Homeschool
The values that homeschool parents are privileged to teach include these: God created and upholds all things by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3); He alone is Supreme, and His Word is absolute truth. Parents can teach the truth that God created the family, starting with one man for one woman for life, with children as the outpouring of blessing upon that union. Homeschool parents can teach the values of the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the loving of God and their neighbor, and the value of prayer and Bible study. Family devotions create family unity, and family values are sustained and strengthened. Parents pass on Biblical values to their children, the vast majority of whom maintain those values into adulthood.
SAFETY
Is my childs school safe? Will my child be harmed? How safe will my child be? Lets take a look at our options:
Public School
Figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences (IES), Student Victimization in U.S. Schools, show that children from the ages of 12 through 18 who reported violent victimization at school also reported unfavorable conditions in the following areas: 43% reported the presence of gangs at school, 3% had observed a student with a gun, 34% had engaged in a physical fight, 54% reported observing the use or sale of drugs at school, and 35% reported observing use of alcohol at school.5 The table includes these notes: Includes students who reported that marijuana, crack, other forms of cocaine, uppers, downers, LSD, PCP, heroin, prescription drugs, or other drugs were available at school. Violent includes rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. At school includes inside the school building, on school property, on the school bus, and on the way to or from school.6
Another report from IES, Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2011, states the following statistics in its key findings: Preliminary data show that there were 33 school-associated violent deathsfrom July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010 (Indicator 1). In 2010, among students ages 1218, there were about 828,000 nonfatal victimizations at school,which include 470,000 victims of theftand 359,000 victims of violence (simple assault and serious violence) (Indicator 2). In 200910, about 74 percent of public schools recorded one or more violent incidents of crime, 16 percent recorded one or more serious violent incidents, and 44 percent recorded one or more thefts (Indicator 6).7
The sexual abuse of children by their teachers runs at a high level in public schools and is a blight on the public education system. Certainly, few children are really safe in public schools if 74 percent reported one or more violent incidents of crime in one year.
Private School
If we think crime, abuse, and other problems exist solely in the public school realm, think again. Here are some sites that report on the somewhat surprising news about safety in private schools:
