Homeschoolers score higher than 86% of their public school peers, according to a new study called Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics.
This 86th percentile is a composite score in Reading, Language, Math, Social Studies and Science.
It is based on test results of 11,739 homeschooled students from all 50 states. Tests used included the 2007-8 California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford Achievement Test.
It has also been found that homeschoolers are successful in college.
This success is at all levels regardless of student gender, parents’ education level, and family income, according to the study. 
As word of this achievement has spread, homeschool numbers have doubled in a decade, There are currently 1.5 million homeschooled students, which is about 3% of the population.
100,000 students graduate from the homeschool movement each year.
“This is despite much resistance from outside the homeschool movement, whether from teachers, unions, politicians, school administrators, judges, social service workers, or even family members,” said Ian Slatter of the Home School Legal Defense Association.
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Comments
This is really interesting. One thing that I find ironic is that schools spend so much time teaching to standardized tests, but I think most students perform better on tests when they are simply taught the subject well.
Donna,
This is great information.
I think many of us are scared that we would somehow mess up if we homeschooled.
These statistics are encouraging.
I have much respect for families that homeschool.
This generation of homeschooled children will obviously be leading the country very soon. Then maybe some family friendly options will be offered to families in place of our overpriced and often ineffective public school system.
Thanks for sharing these results. It will encourage a lot of parents!
Homeskewlers rock!I wish I was one.
I'm not at all opposed to homeschooling, but it's clearly not a sound comparison to gauge homeschooled kids against public school kids as though it were an equal comparison.
I'm not at all saying homeschoolers are wealthy, but homeschooled kids are by definition the children of parents who care greatly about education (the primary issue) and who do have the resources to manage the logistics of homeschooling.
Public school kids include a tragically high number whose parents don't have to together to care at all about their kids' education -- plus kids with no parents, abusive parents -- you know the pathologies. In addition, the lowest-income working families couldn't possibly manage homeschooling. And all of those students are the ones who, overall on average, are statistically most likely to do poorly at school.
Also -- Joanna, I hate the idea of teaching to tests; I think it's deadly to true education. But educators see the results in higher numbers -- numbers that thoughtful educators believe to be artificial and not truly significant, but for which they are held "accountable" by non-educator politicians and the misinformed public (and press). To put it another way, concerned and thoughtful educators agree with you that "teaching to the test" is ineffective and is not truly educating students -- but the results show that teaching that way, loathesome though it may be, does bump up the test scores. And again, educators are held "accountable" for those test scores -- U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan's Race to the Top program even wants to pay teachers according to those scores (or not, more significantly).
Nice article, Donna. I just posted an article about the documentary, "Waiting for Superman" (Sept 2010) which exposes many of the problems in the public school system. Perhaps that and the testing stats that you cite will be impetus for more people to consider homeschooling.
Here is the article: www.examiner.com/x-22926-Phoenix-Homeschooling-Examiner~y2010m5d31-homeschool-Phoenix-AZ-Waiting-for-Superman-Davis-Guggenheim-documentary-failing-education-USA
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