The Rapid Growth of Homeschooling

Unfortunately, many children are trapped in schools where they’re not only unsafe, but also unable to access a quality education. Sure, there are plenty of great public and private schools, but shouldn’t parents have more say in where and how their children are educated than to be stuck in the public school they’re zoned for?

Today there are plenty of stereotypical arguments against homeschooling, but the stigma that homeschooled children are introverted, narrow-minded, politically intolerant, or ill-prepared for college is being turned upside down by the facts.

Studies show that homeschooled children score higher on the SAT and ACT, the two standardized tests that most colleges and universities require for admission. At the same time, the scores of public-school students are dropping. As a result, colleges are more eager than ever to admit homeschooled students and in many cases actively seek them out.

Not only is homeschooling producing students ready to take on a college education, but these students are also arriving on campus as engaged and open-minded citizens. As David Cheng concludes in the Journal of School Choice, “Some have claimed that private schooling and homeschooling are institutions that propagate political intolerance by fostering separatism and an unwillingness to consider alternative viewpoints.” However, Cheng’s research reveals that “homeschooling is associated with more political tolerance.”

But what about the notion that homeschooled children are mainly from Christian families? The Pacific Standard reminds us, “Today’s homeschool advocates aren’t the Christian Right, trying to dismantle public education. Rather, they’re parents who don’t believe that the current school model is best, or enough, for their children.”

Of course, homeschooling simply isn’t a viable alternative for all families.

Mike McShane writes at Forbes, “For many families, the costs and obligations related to homeschooling are simply too burdensome. Some parents don’t have the confidence in their own abilities to teach every subject to their children. Others cannot devote themselves to homeschooling full-time. Perhaps most of all, many homeschooling families want their children to socialize with other children to learn how to share, cooperate and get along with others.”

Homeschooling may not be the best option for every student, and no one is suggesting that traditional methods of educating children don’t have merit. In fact, that’s just the point: Each child and family is different and deserves the opportunity for the right education model. The key is to make sure parents have the freedom and the flexibility to make choices that are best for their kids instead of being forced into a one-size-fits-all system.

One option that seems to be making its mark is known as hybrid schooling, a system in which children spend part of their time being educated in the home and the other part in a traditional classroom. This innovative idea is just one example of what great options parents could have if school choice initiatives were expanded across the country.

Despite some of the obstacles that parents face in deciding how and where to educate their children, the homeschooled numbers are increasing steadily. According to EdChoice’s Schooling in America survey, around 3% of students are currently homeschooled, while another 7% of parents would consider it for their children. Overall, the number of homeschooled students has more than doubled since 1999 to nearly two million.

One of the factors making it easier for parents to choose homeschooling is the implementation of education savings accounts. The Daily Signal’s Lindsey Burke writes, “Not only have the number of schooling options swelled in recent years, but so has innovation within the education sector. Education savings accounts, also established in 2011, enable families to direct the funds that would have been spent by the state on their child in the public system.”

Burke adds, “State funds for each pupil are deposited directly into a parent-controlled account, and families can then use those funds to pay for private school tuition, online learning, special education services and therapies, private tutoring, and a host of other education-related services, products, and providers. The innovation afforded through education savings accounts can put children on an entirely different educational trajectory.” Five states currently have these account systems in place, says Burke, while others are considering it as an option for parents.

All in all, these are good days for the homeschooling movement in America. And as we recognize School Choice Week, let’s hope our political leaders continue to work toward giving parents a greater say in how their children are educated.

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I’m a Single Mom From the City. School Choice Has Changed My Kids’ Lives Forever

Fifteen years ago, I found myself feeling hopeless and helpless in the nation’s capital. My children’s school situation was dismal. My older kids were academically driven, yet faced a steady stream of challenges. My youngest seemed completely overwhelmed and destined for failure. And when I looked around my neighborhood, I saw the same dismal situation playing out with my neighbors’ kids.

That was in 2004, just as Washington, D.C., was about to implement its Opportunity Scholarship Program. Although my son was awarded a scholarship from a neighbor, it was that action that pushed me to fight for all kids in D.C. to have the same choices.

Fifteen years later, fellow parents and I have witnessed a sea change in our kids’ education, with more than 10,000 scholarships awarded to attend private schools. These scholarships have helped deserving low-income kids escape to a school that will put them on track to a bright future.

With D.C. being under Congress’ jurisdiction, it was Congress that passed this school choice program.

It took D.C. parents years of advocating for their children before Congress responded. In 2003, Congress passed the D.C. Parental Choice Incentive Act, which President George W. Bush signed into law on Jan. 23, 2004.

Seeing the results in the lives of children has been so wonderful. I have watched children who received scholarships thrive in the schools that they and their parents chose. I’ve seen them graduate and go on to attend college, and then graduate there.

These are the same kids that many thought would never be successful. They are now holding good jobs and contributing to society in so many positive ways.

As we celebrate the 15th anniversary of this incredible program, my heart and my spirits are continually raised. I often run into families who have benefited and get an update on how their children are doing, and it always makes me proud.

As difficult as it was for us during the initial fight, and even afterward, seeing what this program has done to change the lives of so many families has made every tough moment worthwhile.

So many people didn’t think a ragtag group of low-income parents could effectively fight to ensure our kids the best education possible. But we knew differently. We knew that if we raised our voices, we could win for our children.

We did. And now our kids are winning as a result.

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China is using its universities to buy friendship in belt-and-road countries

In a restaurant in the backstreets of Beijing, 12 Pakistanis and Afghans studying at the China University of Communications tell stories of their arrival in China. No one came to pick them up; none of them spoke a word of Chinese. They have plenty of tales of getting lost, disoriented and ripped off by taxi drivers.

The students, all but two of them ethnic Pushtuns, roar with laughter as they swap yarns and savour the cuisine from Xinjiang, a Chinese region that borders on their home countries and has cultural bonds with them. Any ill feeling about those early days has long since dissipated. They agree that, apart from some taxi drivers, the Chinese are very helpful. Friendly relations between their countries and China mean they are welcomed as brothers. Most important, they are all on full scholarships—free tuition, free accommodation and a stipend of 3,000 yuan ($441) a month, more than three times Pakistan’s GDP per person. Beijing’s many Xinjiang restaurants serving halal food are a big plus.

There are nearly half a million foreign students in China, about 50% of whom are on degree programmes. South Koreans are the most numerous. They often come to China if they cannot get into good universities at home—unlike Americans, who come out of cultural and political curiosity, and because it looks good on their CVs. But the share of students from the developing world is growing fast, especially from the dozens of countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan that have signed up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global infrastructure-building project. Overall numbers of foreign students grew fourfold in 2004-16; student numbers from BRI-related countries expanded eightfold. In 2012, the year before BRI was launched, students from those countries on Chinese government scholarships were less than 53% of the total number of recipients. By 2016 they made up 61%. China says it reserves 10,000 of its scholarships every year for students from BRI countries. Local governments have been piling in with their own “Silk Road scholarship” schemes.

In countries such as Britain, Australia and America, foreign students are welcomed mostly because universities can make more money out of them than out of locals. In China it is the opposite. Foreign students enjoy big subsidies. Often they are more generously treated than local students. Last year the Ministry of Education budgeted 3.3bn yuan for them, 16% more than in 2017. The rich world is selling education. China is using it to buy influence.

The cheerful Pushtuns are one manifestation of China’s strategy. Another are the more than 500 Confucius Institutes which the government has set up on campuses around the world. Offering heavily subsidised classes in Mandarin, the institutes have aroused suspicions in the West that China may be using them to exert political influence. Such worries have prompted several universities in Europe and America to close them. There has been far less resistance to China’s stepped-up efforts to bring students to its own territory and, it hopes, to influence them there.

It is a familiar path among aspiring superpowers. Just as Cecil Rhodes endowed the Rhodes Scholarships a century ago to preach British imperial virtues, America set up the Fulbright programme in 1946 to spread American values and the Soviet Union created Patrice Lumumba University in 1961 to teach socialism to students from third-world countries, so China is using higher education for political ends. One of its aims is to strengthen ties with BRI countries. Global Times, a state tabloid, paraphrased a former Chinese envoy to Iran (a BRI participant) as saying that studying in China would help people to understand China’s political system and avoid “ignorant Western bias” against the country.

For many of the foreign students, a cheap degree is the main attraction. Several of the Pakistanis tried, but failed, to get European, North American and Australian scholarships; getting a degree at home would be much costlier than the one the Chinese are offering. And the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a huge BRI-related project in Pakistan, means that jobs are plentiful there for those with Mandarin. Bilal, one of the Pushtun students, says that when he was returning to China from a visit home, he was offered two jobs while waiting at Karachi airport.

For many of the students, language is a problem. Some universities have created English-medium courses—Richard Coward of China Admissions, a firm that helps students find university places, knows of 2,000 such programmes—but many students have to use Chinese and few speak it well. That is difficult for teachers. “The government and the universities don’t want the foreigners to fail, but as the number has increased, the quality has fallen,” says Shuiyun Liu of Beijing Normal University. There is some grumbling among young Chinese about the ease with which, in spite of this, foreigners walk into good universities and about the superior facilities they are sometimes offered.

Foreign students have reservations, too, says Ms Liu, who has researched foreigners’ satisfaction with teaching in China. “The rules are all hidden here,” she says. And the relationship between teacher and pupils is different. “There’s not much critical thinking. Students are not always encouraged to challenge the teachers.” Learning in China can be an endurance test. Lectures commonly go on for three or four hours, with only a ten-minute break. “This morning I fell asleep after three hours,” says one of the Pakistani students.

That said, students from developing countries tend to be more enthusiastic than students from the West. “The culture is amazing,” says Ugochukwu Izundu, a Nigerian who did a master’s degree in data analysis at Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University in the eastern city of Suzhou. “I believe China is a force for good in the world,” says Goodwill Mataranyika, a Zimbabwean at Shijiazhuang Tiedao University in Hebei, a northern province. “The Belt and Road Initiative is an economic corridor for mutual benefit, and China is also investing in Africa for a shared win-win benefit for all nations.” (Nigeria and Zimbabwe are signatories to BRI.)

For all such talk, personal relations between the foreigners and their Chinese fellow-students often remain distant. The Pakistanis and Afghans speak warmly of the friends they have made from other countries, but they do not have any Chinese ones. “I would try to talk to them,” says Bilal, who did his degree in Chinese. “But when we did group assignments, they would make their own groups, and the foreigners would be left to work together. I don’t know what it is. Maybe they’re shy.” Still, Bilal has no complaints. He has married a Brazilian he met in China and now works in the Pakistani embassy in Beijing. “I got a scholarship, a language, a job and a wife. God smiled on me.”

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