Some students find there’s no place like home to learn

by William Belson

Most people in this area send their kids to public school and not even bother with the idea of home schooling their children. However, nationally home schooling is on the rise. The number of home-schooled kids hit 1.5 million in 2007, up 74 percent from when the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics started keeping track in 1999. Home schooling can be good because the parents can set their own teaching hours and control the environment that their child (or children) is being taught in and possibly offer a more diverse and difficult curriculum than what may be in the local public schools.

Home schooling is being chosen by parent for several reasons, but the biggest are because of the possible negative influences at public schools from their peers and what is being taught in the every day curriculum. Home schooling may seem like a rarity but over one million kids in the United States from kindergarten to twelfth grade are being home schooled right now.

PHS sophomore Katie Fether was home schooled most of her elementary career and thinks home schooling is alright. “The benefits to home schooling are you can jump ahead in your studies and get your studies done quicker, but you can also fall behind and put every thing off and you just don’t do it,” said Katie. “With home schooling you can go at your own pace and you don’t have to deal with the drama that is involved with public school.”

Home schooling has its benefits to the children by giving them extra sleep and more of a mellow day. “You get to sleep in til’ eleven every day. It was awesome and if my parents were sick I did not have to do any work that day,” said sophomore Jackie Page.

Jackie was not the only one who appreciated the extra sleep due to their home schooling. “It is convenient, you can get up whenever you want and do whatever you want, and you get longer breaks, but it was more rigorous compared to public school,” said Jackie’s brother, senior Jeff Page.

Though they all liked their home school experience, all three of these student had to agree about the lack of interactions with people their own age.