![\"\"](\"https:\/\/scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net\/v\/t1.0-9\/13814060_1161091507265334_1020518159888138854_n.jpg?oh=7bae22535a0eeea6d9d576f29d251abd&oe=5856A023\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Meme features picture\u00a0of Simone Biles with this text:<\/em><\/p>\n
But how will homeschooled kids ever compete\u00a0in the real world?<\/em><\/p>\n
Pretty well, I guess.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Speaking as a homeschool alumna, this meme is disrespectful to homeschool alumni\u2014including Simone Biles\u2014for a multitude of reasons. And yet, it\u2019s being shared by homeschool parents across Facebook as a way to show how awesome<\/em> and amazing<\/em> homeschooling is. For years now, I and other alumni have been calling attention to problems in the homeschool world\u2014children left unprepared, young adults\u00a0struggling\u2014and for years we\u2019ve been poo-pooed and talked over by homeschool parents who would prefer to share self-righteous memes like the one above than to talk about the actual issues homeschool alumni face. You know what? I\u2019m not letting this one slide<\/em>.<\/p>\n
First of all, Simone Biles\u2014pictured in the above meme\u2014didn\u2019t want to be homeschooled. Not only that, when she actually was homeschooled\u2014a decision she cried over\u2014she hated<\/em> it. That\u2019s right, she hated being homeschooled.<\/p>\n
First, look at this excerpt from\u00a0an article<\/a>:<\/p>\n
To advance to the elite level and be on that cover, [Simone Biles would] have to be homeschooled, Nellie told her. There would be no prom, no after-school activities, no hanging with classmates. The decision was hers. After a weekend of crying, she told her parents she would do it. \u2018I was just so lonely all the time,\u2019 Simone says. \u2018I missed, like, all my friends at school and stuff. But I mean, in the end, it worked out.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Next, watch\u00a0this excerpt from an interview<\/a>:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/URbCILQ95Cw<\/a>\n
Can you see how holding Biles up as the poster-child of homeschool success might be a bad idea? Biles was homeschooled because she had to be to compete at an Olympic level in her sport, not because she wanted to be homeschooled and not because she liked being homeschooled. Indeed, Biles \u201chated\u201d being homeschooled and missed her active social life and the experiences her peers had in public high school. If she hadn\u2019t been an Olympic-quality athlete, she never would have been homeschooled.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s another issue, too. Biles isn\u2019t competing in \u201cthe real world\u201d mentioned in the meme. She\u2019s competing in the Olympics<\/em>. Only a very small fraction of athletes make it to the Olympics, and their shelf life tends to be short\u2014most gymnasts don\u2019t attend the Olympics more than twice, if that. I\u2019m as proud of Biles\u2019 success as everyone else! I\u2019ve watched her incredible floor routine with my jaw hanging open more than once this week. She\u2019s amazing<\/em>. But when people ask whether homeschool graduates will be able to compete in \u201cthe real world\u201d they\u2019re not talking about Olympics\u2014and when 99.99% of homeschool graduates enter \u201cthe real world\u201d they\u2019re entering a very very different world from that currently occupied\u00a0by Simone Biles.<\/p>\n
I was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school. I have many friends who were also\u00a0homeschooled. I know homeschool alumni who went to MIT, and homeschool alumni who have struggled with homelessness. I know homeschool alumni who are earning good, stable incomes, and homeschool alumni who are jumping from minimum wage job to minimum wage job trying to find something that works. I know homeschool alumni who have gone on to graduate school, and homeschool alumni who have struggled with applications to community college. I know homeschool alumni who hate academic learning, after years of filling out mindless worksheets at the kitchen table, and homeschool alumni who thrive on academic learning, having grown up with innovative, rich academic experiences.<\/p>\n
When it comes to homeschool alumni, there is no one result. Pointing to\u00a0specific homeschool success stories\u00a0while ignoring homeschool alumni who are in jail, struggling with addiction, or homeless is incredibly disrespectful to those alumni. It\u2019s also disrespectful to\u00a0homeschool alumni struggling to pay for\u00a0community college, desperately afraid they\u2019re going to\u00a0be fired from yet another minimum wage job, or\u00a0barely staving off eviction and fearful about what their future looks like without the most basic of educational qualifications, not to mention an extreme feeling of social otherness and, in too many cases, oft-lurking depression.<\/p>\n
Are there individuals who attended\u00a0public school who experience all of the above? Absolutely! But we acknowledge that. We admit that our public schools are failing some children, and that some schools are failing more children than others. We don\u2019t point to prominent successful individuals who graduated from public schools\u2014Hillary Clinton, or Steve Jobs\u2014and act like this proves something. Instead, we admit that experiences vary, and we put in hard work to improve the experiences of public school students who are being left behind.<\/p>\n
Can homeschooling work? Yes<\/em>. Can homeschooling fail? Yes!<\/em>\u00a0Does Simone Biles\u2019 Olympic success tell us anything about the \u201creal world\u201d success of homeschoolers as a group? Absolutely not<\/em>.\u00a0It has now been almost four\u00a0decades since the beginning of the modern homeschool movement in the late 1970s. What do actually we know about homeschooling? A lot, and almost nothing.<\/p>\n
We know that homeschooled children can succeed<\/a>, but we don\u2019t know how homeschooled students score academically on average, and there are to-date no studies<\/a> on homeschool outcomes that use random samples rather than recruiting volunteers. We know that homeschooled students score slightly better<\/a> than public school students on the SAT, particularly in reading, but we also know that a surprisingly small number of homeschooled students actually take the SAT\u2014less than 10%. Studies of homeschooled students\u2019 college performance are mixed<\/a>, some showing higher GPAs and some showing more ambiguity, but even studies with positive findings point to other concerning statistics<\/a>\u2014there are\u00a0fewer homeschool alumni in college than there ought to be, and they are less likely than other students to pursue STEM fields than other students. There\u2019s a math gap. There\u2019s also a gendered achievement gap. And there\u2019s a lot we still don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
But homeschooling parents don\u2019t want to talk about any of this. They\u2019d rather talk about Simone Biles. And on some level, who wouldn\u2019t? Celebrating a success story is far more pleasant than putting in the real work necessary to ensure that students don\u2019t fall under the radar and disappear, only to surface later with deficient\u00a0educations and a future full of dead ends. As for me, I\u2019m here for the students who have no one rooting\u00a0for them. I stand with my fellow<\/a>\u00a0homeschool alumni<\/a>, and I\u2019m not giving up.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For years now, I and other alumni have been calling attention to problems in the homeschool world—children left unprepared, young adults struggling—and for years we’ve been poo-pooed and talked over by homeschool parents who would prefer to share self-righteous memes like the one above than to talk about the actual issues homeschool alumni face. You know what? I’m not letting this one slide.<\/p>\n
Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":30005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homeschool"],"yoast_head":"\n
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