While most families choose homeschooling for religious reasons, many other parents turn to homeschooling in frustration over what they perceive to be a collapsing public school education suffering from massive budget cuts, deteriorating infrastructure, and increasing violence among its students. In 2008, there were 7,023 registered homeschooled students in the State of Colorado. Taking into consideration the national growth rate of 15%, Colorado’s 2010 homeschooled could number as high 9,300 in 2010.
The State of Colorado Home Schooling law makes it relatively easy to home school. Parents need not be certified teachers nor do they need to have a college degree. The homeschooled instructors (parents or tutors) must administer the CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program) for their students in grades three, five, seven, and nine. Additionally, eleventh graders must take the Colorado ACT (American College Testing). Homeschooled parents are also required to maintain records of attendance, test results, and immunization. Other than that, they can mirror traditional or rely on unschooling’s philosophy of life experience learning.
Today almost all Colorado colleges, whether they are Colorado Community College or The University of Denver or The United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, regularly admit the Homeschooled. Studies show that Homeschooled students score higher on scholastic standardized tests and are better prepared academically as well as having more refined goals and the ability to adjust to college life on campus or in a virtual classroom environment.
While four year college admittance committees may look favorably on homeschooled applicants, their typical standards of achievement prevail. Entrance committees have to consider GPA, but they rely more on scholastic test scoring as a measure of a student’s knowledge and capability. In that case, traditional students may be trumped by the likely superior test scores from the homeschooled, but, in the past, recorded transparent progress in a specific subject was harder to produce for the homeschooled.
That was yesterday. Today, homeschooled students have unlimited opportunities to attend accredited online classrooms and organize social activities through online social networks and website bulletin boards. Online Learning reporting facilitates the relevant progress reports that play a significant part in leveling the competitive field between traditional and homeschooled college applicants. Now the Online homeschooled have the advantage.
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