Schuyler Smith, a 13-year-old scored a perfect in the American Mathematics Competition’s AMC-8 test. He also scored perfectly in the math portion of the SAT in 7th grade.
Schuyler also was a member of the winning home-school team that swept the 2006 Mathcounts regional competition, and he placed sixth of nearly 1,200 competitors in the state.
Homeschoolers usually dominate these sorts of competitions, especially spelling bees. Many people are introduced to the concept of home education by watching TV specials about homeschoolers. Homeschooling is conducive for a study of mathematics that allows the student to go beyond what the rest of the class is capable of.
The numbers that last week’s Daily Athenaeum boasts are encouraging.
According to the National Home Education Research Institute’s Web site, approximately between 1.9 and 2.4 million children were educated at home in the United States during 2005 and 2006.
We’re not sure why there’s such a wide gap. A half million students is quite a range. Homeschoolers are notorious for documenting everything, it makes one wonder where they are getting the numbers. Whatever the case, it’s good to know that so many families have embraced home education.
The story continues with the typical information about how each state has different laws and how one can begin homeschooling. They profile a WVU student who graduated from a homeschool program as well.
A Tennessee superintendent has misinterpreted a homeschooling law and thus sparked the ire of the Home School Legal Defense Association, an advocate group dedicated to ensuring the legality of homeschooling nationwide. Inviting families to contact them for assistance, the HSLDA once again takes an active role in the welfare of homeschoolers.
Read more at HSLDA.
Charlotte Hsu chronicles the struggles of homeschoolers to gain mainstream recognition from colleges and public school districts.
“We saw this unique opportunity to get some really good students at UCR, being one of the first major public universities to create a published homeschool admissions policy,” added Vahid, who homeschools his three children. “We thought it would give us an edge over other UCs as well as other public schools.”
Interestingly, Hsu cites a study that credits humanist John Holt with helping to birth homeschooling. This reinforces the idea that not all homeschoolers have chosen to home educate due to their religious convictions. The family study that Hsu examines, although religious, homeschools in order to get away from drug use, peer pressures, and the potential for school violence.
Joseph Farah’s recent installment of “Reading Between the Lines” sheds light on this year’s National Christian Forensics & Communications Associationcompetition held at Point Loma Nazarene University. Throughout the competition, Christian homeschool teenagers debate about current issues, arguing different sides of an argument, always from a Christian perspective.
In public schools across America – and even in many private schools, I fear – teachers and administrators and “experts” have decided that today’s youth simply are incapable of greatness, simply incapable of living up to real challenges, simply incapable of living moral lives, simply incapable of intellectual heights reached by other generations.But millions of homeschooling parents are simply ignoring all that negativity and educating their children the best they know how.
Farah goes on to claim that these students are our future, and the future looks bright. We can only hope and pray that these few outspoken voices will be heard over the vast majority of today’s teenagers.
Another homeschooler has made the news this week. Jason Meade, a former homeshchooler, made “Who’s Who of American Universities and Colleges.”
The local resident’s road to college, however, was not a traditional one. Instead of attending public schools, Meade was home schooled by his mother, Lisa. Discussing his unusual high school years, Meade said it made him the person, and the student, that he is today.
“It definitely prepared me for college - without a doubt,” he said.
Jason’s mother says that by opening up learning to allow Jason to pursue the subjects for which he had an intrinsic passion, she enabled him to learn beyond her wildest dreams.
Socialization was never a problem. Jason assimilated easily into college, becoming president of his school’s biology and chemistry clubs, an editor for the school newspaper, all while remaining an active member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
He is now planning to study medicine on the graduate level.
