With the educational landscape becoming more diverse in America, black parents are looking for better ways in which to teach their children. Although black children have statistically lagged far behind their peers of other races in various school settings; be it public, private, or charter schools, statistics show that they fare on par with their white counterparts when home schooled.

One of the new educational alternatives and the only one thus far exhibiting parity between the races is home schooling. For most blacks, home schooling is a new hope for their children. When parents take on the sacrifices to educate their children at home the results show that minority children read on par with their white counterparts.

In fact, white and minority homeschoolers scored at the 87% percentile in reading and minorities trailed whites in math by a mere 5 points. These figures were concluded by a longitudinal study conducted by Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute in 1997. 63% of the minorities in this study were black and Hispanic.

With numbers well above 100,000 in America, black home schooled children are, according to these statistics, leading other black children as a whole educationally. This is the net, direct result of a variety of factors that are inherent within the home schooling alternative. These reasons, many have proved, are conducive to the successful education of black children.

One of the reasons why black home schooled children are excelling is because home schooling offers them the opportunity for one-on-one instruction. This individualized education allows parents to hone in on their child's interests and strengths as well as recognize their weaknesses and limitations.

For example, if a three-year-old is learning the alphabet and she does much better learning her letters while shopping in the grocery store with mom, then that is easily recognizable and adapted to. Her mother can make it a special occasion when going to the grocery store, emphasizing letters on the boxes of food and challenging her daughter to say the letters she knows, attempt those that she may have a bit of difficulty with and learn new ones.

Just by riding in the shopping cart, she can learn to easily recognize the alphabet in an everyday situation. Her daughter thereby gains the confidence she needs to be a successful learner through the use of out-of-the-box learning. Home schooling allows for many uses of non-conventional educational methods and models such as this.

Black children are also learning well at home because their parents are instilling hard work and discipline early on instead of relying on public schools to attempt to do so. Black parents are mostly determined to set forth a movement where their children are not associated with or brought down by the stigma of academic underachievement and educational apathy.

Parents are using the opportunities afforded by home schooling to be active participants in their children's education. Experts all agree that in order for children to be well-educated and bright learners parents must be an active part in their learning.

In effect, as more black parents home school, they are becoming their children's primary source of education and by default active parts in their everyday rearing and learning. This is, as a result, creating black children who are excelling educationally and at levels that public schools cannot replicate.

Statistics have concluded that homeschoolers, regardless of race, are outpacing their public school counterparts. It is comforting to know that black home schooled children are following this trend as well. It goes without saying -- more conclusive studies need to be done with a larger sampling of minority home schooled children to determine definitively if black children are indeed performing as well as originally reported. However, in this early stage of black homeschooling, it appears that black students are faring well above average when educated at home.

Source from: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/african_american_homeschooling/111986/2

© Sep. 2007 by AfroStaff