It's becoming more and more obvious, as research on the success of home schooling is making clear, that home schooling is outperforming the US public school system in the quality of the education, self-esteem, and social awareness it instills in its students. And there are large numbers of public school authorities who are not happy with that realization.

The Tyranny Of Tenure The public school system, to be fair, is saddled with regulations which make necessary change almost impossible. The tenure policy in most public school districts, for instance, prevents the firing of tenured teachers and school officials, and allows incompetent or unmotivated teachers who have hung on long enough to achieve tenure the security of lifetime employment. They are free to under educate our children whose parents cannot afford to put their children in private schools.

If tenured public school teachers were held to the same standards as private school teachers who are up for job reviews on a regular basis, they might take a different attitude toward fighting to maintain their tenured status. And home schooling might not have become the education method of choice for millions of American families.

It is nothing less than a catastrophic embarrassment for thousands of public school districts that parents with not formal training in education are outdistancing their teaching staffs in the quality of the education which they are giving their children.

Public school authorities would much prefer that the parents in their school districts operate under the belief that teaching should be reserved for degreed and state-certified teachers. But the statistics indicate that parents who home school who have never been within a mile of a teachers' college or had a single college-level course in education are proving better teachers than those on the public school faculties.

The Eroding Tax Support Another reason public school officials are livid about the number of parents choosing to home school is that the public school system loses, on the average, $7500 in government funding for each child removed from it. The public school system in the US is funded by tax revenues and each school district gets money according to the number of students enrolled. Form that money it pays for its teaching staff, and as the number of students drops, the number of faculty must be cut as well. Bye-bye gravy train.

Until the 1980s, in fact, home schooling parents win most states faces truancy and neglect charges for choosing to keep their children out of the public school system. But over the last twenty-five years, parents outraged about the deteriorating public school systems have pressured the state courts to recognize their right to home school, and they now can in all fifty states. The legal home schooling requirements, however, still vary from state to state.

If the public school officials in your school district are harassing your over your decision to home school, consider joining the joining the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). They will provide you with legal representation should you require it in order to continue home schooling your children. Their website is at www.hsdls.org.

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