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Home Schooling is a Growing Trend
Aired August 20, 2001 - 08:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Kids across the country are going back to school now, but some youngsters don't even have to leave the house to get to their home room. That's because they're home-schooled. The growing trend is the cover story in "Time" magazine this week, and it is the focus of our "Just In Time" segment.
And to talk about it, Jodie Morse, she covers education for "Time" magazine, and Barbet McLain and her daughter Mattison. Barbet has home-schooled Mattison for two years. Good morning, everybody.
BARBET MCLAIN, HOME EDUCATOR Good morning.
MATTISON MCLAIN, DAUGHTER: Good morning.
LIN: Jodie, let me begin with you. Some 850,000 students, by formal estimates, are home-schooled. Some experts think that number is really only half of what's really out there.
Are there any surprise in who these parents are, who these families are?
JODIE MORSE, TIME MAGAZINE: Yes, we found it quite surprising. Perhaps a decade to two decades ago, it was mostly folks on the fringe, the religious right, people on the left. Today, more and more it is families who are home-schooling simply because they believe they can get their kids a better education, because they are dissatisfied with their local public schools.
LIN: Well, Barbet McLain, what are your reasons for home- schooling Mattison?
MCLAIN: Well our reasons are not for religious purposes, nor are they a knee-jerk reaction from the public school system. Just like purchasing a car, we went out and did our research. We got the "Consumer Report," we weighed the pros and cons, and we made an educated decision about what the best way was to educate our children, and we kept arriving at the same decision that family home education was the way to go.
LIN: And you are actually using a public school curriculum?
MCLAIN: We use Calvert School, which is a private school in Baltimore, and they use that curriculum in their school and they sell it for family home education as well. LIN: So, Mattison, what's it like having your mom as a teacher?
M. MCLAIN: It's good.
LIN: Is there anything that you are curious about in terms of what public school would be like? What it would be like to be in a classroom with 20 other kids?
M. MCLAIN: I don't know.
LIN: What's your favorite subject?
MCLAIN: Do you like math or reading?
M. MCLAIN: Reading.
LIN: How about broadcast journalism?
(LAUGHTER)
LIN: That's a challenge, in and of itself. Barbet, I'm just wondering, you know people -- teachers go to school, they get degrees, they get advanced degrees, they go to the classroom, they get that experience under their belt.
What makes you feel qualified to teach Mattison, to bring her up in the world and send her off to college?
MCLAIN: Who better than a loving parent to be able to provide education for their child? And the beauty of home-schooling is that you can contour, and customize, and individualize your lesson plan to your child's learning style.
For instance, Mattison is a visual learner first, and then a kinesthetic learner. So we can read about photosynthesis in the science book, and then we can follow through with a hands-on activity like planting Lima beans to reinforce the concept.
LIN: And are you the one who grades her?
MCLAIN: No. We participate -- we have an adviser that we send material our material into Calvert School, and they correct her work and comment on it and send it back.
LIN: Jodie, I'm just wondering -- Maricopa County, Arizona, you report less than two percent of the kids there are home schooled, but that means a loss of $35 million in federal funds, because those funds are based on attendance.
Is this the death of public schools? I mean, this is going to have a pretty big impact.
MORSE: Well, I wouldn't quite say it could be the death of public schools, but it's definitely having an impact, and it's having an impact much more than reforms that we spend a lot more time talking about, like charter schools and vouchers. And home-schooling, in a lot of instances, is showing very good results. The kids are getting into very good colleges. And perhaps it may end up lighting a fire under the public schools, or at least get them thinking about what they may be able to do better.
LIN: A sense of competition. But, did you find over the long- term that home school kids become greater achievers? Did they get into better colleges, did they end up in higher-paying professions?
MORSE: Well, I think -- the movement is still relatively new in terms of having that kind of data. In many instance, home-schoolers are really beating out the competition. At schools like M.I.T. their acceptance rate is double for the general population. Their SAT score is on average 80 percent higher,
Now, of course there are as many different outcomes as there are different kinds of parents doing it. But parents who really have their stuff together are doing a very good job.
LIN: Mattison, I'm just wondering, is there anything that you are curious about, about the other kids who go to public school? Do you wonder what the experience might be like? Would you want to go to public school one day?
M. MCLAIN: Maybe.
LIN: Well put, certainly fair. Thank you very much, Barbet McLain, Mattison McLain.
MCLAIN: Thank you.
LIN: Jodie Mores, we are looking forward to reading more in your cover story on this week's "Time" magazine.
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