To Homeschool, or Not to Homeschool

Every year I feel more and more fed up with the public school system.  This year I have one child excelling and being held back, and another one struggling with no one willing to help us get her on the right track.  And, being a pretty broke individual, there are no private school options available to me.  I know, I know, some places offer full ride scholarships, but those places are few and far inbetween.  Being that we’re not in the Christian spectrum of religion, there aren’t any non-religious private school available to us within a 60 mile radius anyways.

But, even though I am very unhappy with many aspects of the public school system, I still struggle with the idea of homeschooling.  Not because I think I couldn’t handle it, but because I still think there are things that happen in a school setting that your children can’t experience elsewhere.

Without getting any farther, let me clarify:  I believe that “homeschool” means that your child gets educated outside of a brick-and-mortar setting.  Whether you enroll in an online school, or a parent creates their child’s curriculum, it is schooling happening in the home.  I’m not here to argue or justify that point, if you feel “homeschool” means something more precise, that is your right to use that definition, but it is not how I am using the word here.

So, here are my pros and cons of homeschooling:

PROS

• I have never met a kid who says they hate being homeschooled – to the contrary, every kid I’ve met while in a leadership position (scouts, Pokemon, art class, etc) tell me that it’s the greatest.  Now, I have no idea what kind of quality their experience is on an academic level, and I’m sure there are some parents who do “homeschool” by sitting around watching tv and not educating their kids at all, but the kids do really seem to love it.
• Flexible schedule – you don’t have to be up at 6am to catch the bus and you can do other activities when it’s not so crowded (many places offer things like “homeschool gymnastics” during the day).
• Flexible learning – if your child wants to learn Chinese, you can fire up Rosetta Stone and let him work on it!  Yes, you could do this while attending normal schools too, but there’s not enough hours in the day after to keep up with it consistently.
• Bully-free environment – I also don’t have to worry about guns and knives coming to school, which is constantly on the news for happening at our local schools.
• No-hassle acceleration – I don’t need to fight with the principal or district if I think my child needs a better academic challenge, or that the state curriculum is below his current level.
• No-hassle de-acceleration – If my kid doesn’t understand, I can come halt the learning process until we master the topic instead of moving forward and leaving him behind.
• School is roughly a four hour day instead of seven – I know that doesn’t count lunch and recess and gym class and all the little bits that add minutes to the seven hour school day, but that extra three hours could be used in a variety of beneficial ways.
• No fundraisers, PTAs, or other parent drama – I get it, the gym needs new balls and the cracked windows need replaced and the jungle gym is a tetanus trap, but it is September and our school has already given us five fundraisers!
• No worries on bad teachers – out of my son’s five years in elementary school, he has had two really lousy teachers who were constantly absent, didn’t take interest in their students, and seemed to show up just to collect a paycheck every year.  I love the idea of unions, but they are allowing bad teachers to ruin the education of the students, and that needs to end!

CONS

• Social adjustment – yes, I can do lots of things to socialize my kids, and I’ve argued that point many times when trying to make the homeschooling decision, but, honestly, if I see a kid being a jerk or a bully, I will find seek out a different activity and remove them from that situation.  At school, you have to learn to deal with bad people, and you might even have to work with them on projects.  Just like adult life!
• Cheap extracurriculars/experiences – I can have my kids join a soccer team and pay heavily for it, or they can play for their school at a fraction of the cost.  There are also clubs like Quiz Bowl and Yearbook, and events like Prom that are really big deals, and I hate to cut those kinds of experiences out of my kids’ life for them.
• Mom-cuses – where you fudge information or help you kid pass an online test because you know they COULD do it, but… insert whatever excuse justifies you doing the work for them or giving them a pass.  It happens, moms have special glasses where they see everything their child does as awesome, and, even when it’s not, we can make up an excuse to cover for it.
• Scholarships – it’s very rare that a homeschool child receives an academic scholarship.  I’m sure they happen, but they are very hard to come across.
• No options for struggling students – my daughter is seeing some struggles this year, and, if they become bad enough the school will provide her with a free tutor.  So far I’m getting the run around on the subject, but, apparently, it’s an option that I wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.
• Mom can’t work – I work freelance right now, so I can set my schedule pretty easily, but my husband cannot, and we are by no means well off.  If we are in the middle class, it’s just by the skin of our teeth.  So, if a glorious job offer finally came along for me, I would be in an impossible position trying to be a homeschooling mother.
• Constant Queries – I know from other homeschooling parents that they have to constantly answer to people who demand to know why their children aren’t in school.
• Unsure of how your child stands academically – I’ve heard of cases where a kid gets evaluated and finds out that they are at a 2nd grade level in the 5th grade, and cases where they are at a college level in the 5th grade.  Truth be told, I really like report cards and graphs and the other academic markers that are provided in a traditional school setting.
• Stress-overload – one of the biggest reasons that I send my kids to public school every year is because I get talked out of homeschool by my mother, who tells me, as she so often does about everything, that I would be bad at it.  Even if it was with an online school, like k12.com, I would somehow mess it up and ruin their lives in her mind.  My kids do fight each other a lot, constantly bickering and arguing about the most unimportant things, and if they were around 24/7 I’m not sure how high my stress levels would go, or if I would find the time to do all the errands and chores that I deal with in a day.  My husband is also against homeschool, so with a lack of general support, it does hinder my confidence to effectively teach my children.

Ultimately, my pros and cons end up being pretty equal, with my confidence in the matter probably being the last grain of rice that tilts the scale in the school’s favor.  One of the things I know for certain is that, if I fail at homeschooling, I would have to re-enter the board’s lottery drawing to get my children back into their current school, and, irritants aside, my son has attended five different schools, one each year since Kindergarten (partially due to the military), and where they are today is by far the best one we’ve found.  Maybe it is a situation of being the best of the worse, but the idea of losing their spots and having to go to our zoned school, which is a flat out failure factory, is horrific.  So, perhaps by middle school I’ll be brave enough to take the plunge of homeschooling (since we have no out-of-district transfer options for 6th-8th), but until then I’ll probably teeter back and forth on what is right for my kids.