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Why Black Children Benefit From Home Schooling

© Jennifer James

With the educational landscape becoming more diverse in America, black parents are looking for better ways in which to teach their children. Although black children have statistically lagged far behind their peers of other races in various school settings; be it public, private, or charter schools, statistics show that they fare on par with their white counterparts when home schooled.

One of the new educational alternatives and the only one thus far exhibiting parity between the races is home schooling. For most blacks, home schooling is a new hope for their children. When parents take on the sacrifices to educate their children at home the results show that minority children read on par with their white counterparts. In fact, white and minority homeschoolers scored at the 87% percentile in reading and minorities trailed whites in math by a mere 5 points. These figures were concluded by a longitudinal study conducted by Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute in 1997. 63% of the minorities in this study were black and Hispanic.

With numbers well above 100,000 in America, black home schooled children are, according to these statistics, leading other black children as a whole educationally. This is the net, direct result of a variety of factors that are inherent within the home schooling alternative. These reasons, many have proved, are conducive to the successful education of black children.

One of the reasons why black home schooled children are excelling is because home schooling offers them the opportunity for one-on-one instruction. This individualized education allows parents to hone in on their child's interests and strengths as well as recognize their weaknesses and limitations. For example, if a three-year-old is learning the alphabet and she does much better learning her letters while shopping in the grocery store with mom, then that is easily recognizable and adapted to. Her mother can make it a special occasion when going to the grocery store, emphasizing letters on the boxes of food and challenging her daughter to say the letters she knows, attempt those that she may have a bit of difficulty with and learn new ones. Just by riding in the shopping cart, she can learn to easily recognize the alphabet in an everyday situation. Her daughter thereby gains the confidence she needs to be a successful learner through the use of out-of-the-box learning. Home schooling allows for many uses of non-conventional educational methods and models such as this.

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