Homeschoolers are known to score higher than public school students on standardized academic performance tests. The average for public schools is around the 50th percentile, with scores ranging from 1 to 99. But why do students who learn at home do better? It's because they have more control over their school experience. Remote learning is effective, flexible, relaxed and every student has the opportunity to “choose their own adventure”. From improvised nature walks to virtual study sessions, the life of a student learning at home can be unique and exciting. The individual time children can have, as well as the kind encouragement of loved ones and the lack of social pressure or harassment from their peers, allow students to feel comfortable in their learning environments and to excel in their academic endeavors.
Remote learning and everything it offers provides students with a platform that will catapult them to long-term success. Studies have shown that “structured homeschooling may offer opportunities for academic achievement beyond those normally experienced in public schools. First-year students who study at home have a higher GPA in their first semester at university, with 3.37 GPA for those who study at home and 3.08 for the rest. This trend continues with an overall average of 3.41 for first-year students, compared to a minority of homeschooling parents who said they rarely or never used pre-established curricula and structured lesson plans. While opponents of homeschooling question the quality of the home-based curriculum, the truth is that students who learn at home often score better on pre-university tests and on standardized tests.
For example, the administration of standardized tests isn't always overseen for students who learn at home. NHERI research on the real-world success of adulthood concluded that graduates who study at home participate in community service, voting, and public meetings more frequently than the general population. Having knowledge of private, charter (non-profit and for-profit) and public schools, it makes sense that students score better if they are homeschooled. The review also found that the majority (78%) of higher education admissions officers “expect graduates who study at home to generally perform equally or better in their first year of college than traditional high school graduates. I believe that a student can progress in their studies at a faster pace in the homeschooling environment. Traditional Students found that “when 732 homeschooling students were compared to the full sample of traditional students, without controlling for any demographic data, students who studied at home had, on average, a higher GPA in high school, a higher SAT score and a higher GPA in the first University year.
However, this correlation is generally weaker for students who study at home than for students in public schools. According to this study, students who study at home have significantly higher test scores than the national average. When academics like Bartholet, Fineman and Worthington, and Dwyer and Peters advocate a total or presumptive ban on homeschooling, they do so without strong support from the empirical literature. Homeschooling households where neither parent had a college degree performed worse than households with one or more parents who graduated from college. While most of the United States has adopted homeschooling as a viable and positive educational option, and 55 million K-12 students and their parents have been forced to “teach in crisis” at home, some academics' distress over homeschooling has erupted abruptly.
