New HSLDA Survey Lacks Depth it Promises

HSLDA and the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) are teaming up to conduct what they call the “the largest and most in-depth study ever conducted on homeschool families and their academic ability.”

A look at the survey suggests “in-depth” is a real stretch. While there is a need for good, well documented and far reaching homeschool studies, some good ones do exist, and from far less biased sources than NHERI and HSLDA. One of the most widely used studies is that provided by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2003 (and due to be updated soon)that, despite some limitations, at least has the benefit of neutrality and enables a truer comparison of homeschooling to other educational choices.

As if HSLDA “studies” aren’t already biased, to further skew results this time around, participants must be among a select group who have ordered a test from BJU Press, Family Learning Organization, Piedmont Educational Services or Seton Testing Services.

This very specific requirement does two things (at least):

• It limits respondents to those who have chosen to formally evaluate their children with standardized testing -- which a large number of homeschoolers do not do;
  
• It limits, hailing as the whole project does, from HSLDA, respondents largely to those of a conservative religious background. Thus, few respondents will register religious background responses of “non-religious,” “agnostic” , “atheist,”or other non-Christian choices, enabling test results to suggest that few individuals of those backgrounds homeschool, which will be incorrect;
  

And true “depth” is definitely lacking, regarding academics or anything else truly telling about our national homeschool community. The survey falls short on many points, although reasons why some of these questions aren’t included are fairly obvious:

• It fails to ask a number of valuable questions that would be useful in a truly comprehensive survey, including the tired, but useful question “Why have you chosen to homeschool?”, or truly searching questions about family compositions, like children being raised and taught by family members other than parents (grandparents are commonly homeschooling grandchildren these days), or homeschool families headed by same sex parents;
• It doesn't inquire about public school services homeschool families may use, like speech or physical therapy;
• It doesn't inquire about public school sports, music or other involvement;
  
• It assumes the use of purchased curricula for learning, and fails to ask questions about learning styles and methods, use of community resources (and reasons for using them) like libraries and museums, youth groups like scouts ,4H or FIRST Robotics, homeschool cooperatives and more;
• It asks about owning a computer, but doesn't delve into how the computer might be used, including numbers of computers, ages of student users, types of learning programs used, gaming, or Internet use habits;
  
• While it does inquire about student career goals, the inquiry is vague at best. It doesn’t ask anything about student community involvement, volunteering, levels of civic engagement, or special interests;
• It doesn’t ask any specific questions about test scores (although test results are probably provided by the testing services), scholarships awarded, college programs entered, or even to which colleges homeschoolers are being admitted;
  
• It doesn’t ask respondents about possible broader concerns at either a state or national level;

The survey appears to be mostly a demographic survey for HSLDA use, inquiring about several aspects of HSLDA membership, including Generation Joshua involvement and provides advertising for HSLDA by delineating aspects of support it says it provides. As a result, HSLDA will also be able to claim a no doubt high number of respondents are HSLDA members, thereby providing justification (and probably funding) for its continued actions on behalf of more homeschoolers than it actually represents, not to mention its actions on issues outside of homeschooling.

HSLDA says the survey “results will help inform lawmakers, policymakers, and the general public about the benefits of a home-based education.”

Lawmakers and policymakers expecting a real picture of homeschooling will only be getting a very small, narrowly defined slice of the diverse, multicultural and deeply layered tapestry that is truly homeschooling in America.

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Some existing homeschool studies include:

• Home Schooling: School Choice and Women's Time Use December 2002 Eric Isenberg
• Home Schooling in the United States: Trends and Characteristics, Kurt J. Bauman U.S. Census Bureau, 2002
• Modeling School Choice: A Comparison of Public, Private-Independent, Private-Religious and Home-Schooled Students June 2002 by Clive R. Belfield
• Homeschooling of Children with Special Needs. Boston, MA: Graduate Paper
• Home-Schooling in the US January 2004 Clive R. Belfield
• Home-Education: Aims, Practices and Outcomes by Paula Rothermel University of Durham, 2002 (Working paper)
• The Characteristics of Home-Schoolers Who Take the SAT December 2002 Clive R. Belfield
• Home Schooling and the Question of Socialization 2000 by Richard G. Medlin in Peabody Journal of Education, 75(2&2) 107-123

More research resources at Bibliography of scholarly research on home schooling.

PHF