Some families are willing to sacrifice a lot to homeschool their children simply because they feel that their children need more than the public educational system is offering. In particular, parents want their children to experience more than just a harried existence of rushing to everywhere and getting the minimum out of life. Three particular areas have many parents quitting jobs or changing job schedules to be able to educate their children themselves so that they can provide religious instruction, more advanced training than they can get in public school and finally that family bonding that is slipping away from the traditional family.

Religious Instruction; Public education is required to teach a non-religious curriculum because of the vast differences in the backgrounds of students and teachers. Parents who wish to sidestep the influences of the public education system can find help in homeschooling. It is easy to find a home school curriculum that will promote whatever religious beliefs the parent wants to teach their child. Many Christian based curriculum choices are available that provide the vast resources that children need while reinforcing the Christian values and teaching of the Bible.

As more and more families are choosing to homeschool, Jewish and Muslim (and even more than can be mentioned in this article) curricula are being developed by families and made available for sale once they have been tested. Different religious groups can also develop their own curriculum based on one of currently available, but tailored to their specific belief structure. The basic structure is similar in all of the religious curricula, but the tenets of the particular faith is interwoven into the reading, writing and history.

Advanced Training; The measure of a homeschool curriculum is whether it satisfies the criteria of the government agencies that are responsible for education. Seeing as how the majority of public schools are churning out children who are passably able to read and can barely spell, it is possible to beat the public school system by just spending more time with children, reading with them and going over their homework with them. The operative words are “with them” because quality time with children means more interaction and places more importance on doing a good job with schoolwork.

For parents who want their children to be college ready, a more advanced curriculum is required. Luckily, many advanced programs are available for home school families. Since parents who decide to homeschool come from varied backgrounds, many homeschooling materials are created by these parents to satisfy a need that was lacking in the homeschool community. As more families homeschool their children, more advanced curricula are becoming available for college prep.

Engineers, lawyers, doctors, chemists and CEOs have all contributed to the vast array of home educator materials available for parents to use for their children. These people make it possible for a child to choose whatever career path they can envision without having to attend public school. The only limitation is how much a parent can afford to invest in their own child’s education.

Family Bonding; Because of the closeness of parents with their children in a homeschool environment, a special bond occurs with kids and parents that makes the experience even more beneficial. Instead of having a complete stranger instilling their (who knows what kind) values on children, parents can form a stronger relationship and develop a more eager desire to learn in their children simply by continuing to encourage them.

Closeness with children is something that the family unit lacks, and simply showing an interest in a child’s education is more important than the actual training materials on their own, since children respond to parental involvement very positively by wanting to excel. Obviously, stress and mental problems can get in the way of a positive learning environment, so before embarking on a homeschool curriculum, it is vital for parents to understand how much time they must devote to their children’s education and whether they are mentally able to undertake such a task.

Some methods of homeschooling have a more “hands off” approach to teaching, by basically giving children a list of books to read and workbooks to use, but no real structure or interaction. This style is typically better for parents who are not able to deal with a structured schooling environment. Parental involvement is still crucial, but only in the encouragement of the child to continue reading and working at their own pace.

When you look at academic achievements only, homeschooled children seem to advance quicker than their counterparts in public schools. A report published by the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) shows that homeschool test scores were exceptionally high and well above that of public and private schools. They found that homeschool students in the 8th grade are four years ahead of their peers in public or private schools.

In a study conducted by Dr. Lawrence Rudner, he discovered that learners who were being homeschooled their entire school career, achieved the highest out of all the children.

Interesting information that came from this research was the difference that homeschooling made to the achievements of different race groups. There was very little difference found between the scores of white, black and Hispanic children in homeschooling. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between the achievements of different race groups attending public schools. Eight grade public school learners scored on average at the 58th percentile in math, where black children scored at the 24th percentile. White students scored at the 57th percentile in reading and Hispanic students at only the 28th percentile.

Dr. Ray, in his book, Strengths of Their Own, came to another interesting conclusion. The amount of money spend on tuition had no effect on the achievement of the child. In fact, the cheaper homeschooling option had better results than the far more expensive public schooling. In his research, based on statistics from 1998, he found that a homeschooled child cost parents on average $546 compared to the $5 325 for a public school learner. The average score for the homeschooled child was at the 85th percentile, where the score for the public school learner was averaged at the 50th percentile.

These research studies were done in a number of the states and in all the results the findings were the same. The homeschooled child scored on average 20-25 percentile points higher than their counterparts in public schools.