The Texas Education Agency (TEA) reports that in 2008, more than 22,260 high school students were listed with them as withdrawing to homeschool which was a 24 percent increase from the year before. It is now investigating, because it appears that some public schools are masking their dropout rate.
Kate Orr, the president of Big Country Home Educators, stated "The TEA is wanting to confirm that those students did withdraw to home-school and aren't just dropouts." Orr also said, "I think it's a good thing."
A spokesperson for the TEA, DeEtta Culbertson said, (the agency) "looked at the numbers and data a little more closely and decided to go a little more in-depth."
In Abilene, Texas, it was reported that at Albany and Haskell, two schools with small enrollments, more than half of the students who did not graduate left for homeschooling.
Cooper High School had 493 students begin ninth grade in 2005 and 354 of those students graduated in 2009. Of the 139 students who did not graduate, reportedly, 28 left to be homeschooled.
Sweetwater Independent School District (ISD) had 31 students withdraw during that period. Of those, 15 were reported to begin homeschooling.
President of the Texas Home School Coalition, Tim Lambert, lauded the TEA for its efforts to look into possible false numbers from some of the school districts. He also said some homeschooling families are wary of government interference due to past actions by the government, not only in Texas but in other states as well.
It is estimated that there are now about 300,000 homeschooled children in Texas.
Share your thoughts on this:
If some of the ISDs in Texas reported false data, why would they do this? Does this situation adversely affect homeschoolers, or should homeschoolers be willing to answer the TEAs questions? Share your thoughts on this.
Read more about Texas homeschooling numbers:
TEA plans audit of home-school students
State looks at number of home-schoolers
High number of home-schooled students leads to state audit
More in Texas choose home schooling
A link to my local page, Chicago Homeschooling Examiner.
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Several years ago, TEA made it easy for students to become "homeschool drop-outs" when parents were no longer required to name a curriculum when withdrawing their student to be homeschooled. Many times, these "drop-outs" have attendance problems, and homeschooling is the easy way for parents to avoid truancy charges. TEA needs to investigate the parents who are homeschooling instead of pointing the finger at schools. My belief is that once a parent withdraws a student to be homeschooled, then they have severed the relationship with public schools and that child's education becomes the responsibility of the parent.
Once parents withdraw their child from public school, the child's education is indeed their responsibility. However, it is not the TEA that is responsible for making the homeschooling laws/rules; they are included in the Texas Constitution. There is, however, a need to find out if the schools are reporting their numbers accurately. The heads of two major homeschooling groups have asked homeschooling parents to participate in the investigations. It will be interesting to see the results.
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