Top 10 Reasons They Homeschool
post at http://www.ncregister.com/daily/top_10_reasons_they_homeschool/
Posted by Tim Drake
Tuesday, June 09, 2009 4:41 PM

Delving into the Department of Education’s 2007 and 2003 reports on homeschooling, one can find interesting information. We’ve already reported the news that homeschooling has nearly doubled over the last 8 years, resulting in 1.5 million homeschooled students.

According to the 2007 report, here are the Top 10 Reasons Parents Homeschool:
1. Provide Religious or Moral Instruction
2. Concern about the Environment of other Schools
3. Dissatisfaction with the Academic Instruction Available Elsewhere
4. Child has a Physical or Mental Health Problem
5. Child has other Special Needs
6. Interest in nontraditional approach to education
7. More family time
8. Family finances
9. Ability to travel
10. Distance to school

One statistic is of note. Between 2003 to 2007, the percentage of students whose parents reported homeschooling to provide religious or moral instruction increased from 72 percent to 83 percent. In 2003, that reason came in second, behind Concern about the Environment in other Schools.

Hmmmm....after reading the list, I pondered a bit if my reason for homeschooling even made the list. I suppose I could say that I have an " Interest in nontraditional approach to education", since we are unschoolers which is definitely a nontraditional approach, but it wasn't the reason that we homeschool.

We brought our children home because we discovered that they were merely a NUMBER and that NO ONE in the school truly cared about their safety and well being. They almost killed Brett by allowing him to go on the playground AGAINST DOCTOR'S ORDERS after he had spend over a month at home recovering from a concussion. Some kid knocked him flat on his back that day, fortunately he didn't hit his head and guess what? we would have NEVER known it had happened if one of his friends didn't mention it to Jay. Another child BIT Emily and broke the skin on her arm, and despite the fact that she was taken to the nurses office to have the wound cleaned, no one bothered to call us or even send a note home. I wish I knew then that I could have pulled them out of school that MINUTE, but I was stupid...eeerrrr....I mean....uninformed....and I left them there to complete the school year, my heart pouding loudly in my chest each day as they left and the lump in my throat only disappearing once they returned safely home.

We homeschool because we believe that the best place for our children to learn is WITHIN the family because NO ONE cares more about the outcome of their education than their father and I do. They won't be FORCE FED information for the sake of any test or herded through the learning process as if they were cattle. We embrace their strengths and work around their weaknesses. Using life as a curriculum, it is impossible for them to fail. We only fail when we don't learn from our mistakes.

So if you homeschool, does the list accurately reflect the reason you either brought your children home or never sent them to school in the first place?