Homeschooling - once considered the education option of choice for gun-toting religious fanatics or a haven for social misfits - is coming of age as home-schooled students begin to find themselves welcomed at prestigious colleges and universities. It's hardly surprising that many homeschooled students, who get personalized attention in a nurturing educational environment, are doing well. As they do, they have become a beckoning market for reputable campuses that want mature self-starters among their freshman class. However, the growth of home-schooling (and the rise of other non-traditional options such as charter schools), is rattling an education establishment that can no longer dismiss these as the aberrant behaviors of the radical fringe. Boston Globe columnist Alan Lupo, for example, is concerned that the number of students leaving Massachusetts public schools for charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling threatens the health of Horace Mann's "common school" vision. Mostly, he's concerned that parents whose kids take advantage of non-public educational options won't vote for tax increases to support public schools, which is hardly the best measure of a system's health. And there's a chicken-egg problem: do parents weaken public schools by sending their kids elsewhere? Or are they going elsewhere in reaction to a troubled system?
"Schoolhouse rocked," by Michelle Bates, Boston Globe Magazine, March 21, 2004
"'Common schools' and common duty," by Alan Lupo, Boston Globe, March 21, 2004