Summary of Major Findings from Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998

Demographics

• Home school parents have more formal education than parents in the general population: 88% continued their education beyond high school compared to 50% for the nation as a whole.
• The median income for home school families ($52,000) is significantly higher than that of all families with children ($36,000) in the United States.
• Almost all home school students (98%) are in married couple families. Most home school mothers (77%) do not participate in the labor force; almost all home school fathers (98%) do work.
• Home school students watch much less television than students nationwide: 65% of home school students watch one hour or less per day compared to 25% nationally.
• The median amount of money spent annually on educational materials is about $400 per home school student.
• The distribution of home school students by grade in grades 1-6 is consistent with that of all school children. There are proportionally fewer home school students at the high school level.

Achievement

• Almost 25% of home school students perform at one or more grades above their age-level peers in public and private schools.
• Home school student achievement test scores are exceptionally high. The median scores at every grade (typically in the 70th to 80th percentile) are well above those of public and Catholic/private school students.
• On average, home school students in grades 1-4 perform one grade level above their age-level public/private school peers on achievement tests.
• The achievement test score gap between home school students and public/private school students starts to widen in grade 5.
• Students who have been home schooled their entire academic lives have higher scholastic achievement test scores than students who have attended other educational programs.
• Home schooling engenders no meaningful differences in achievement by sex.
• There are significant achievement differences among home school students when classified by amount of money spent on education, family income, parent education, and television viewing.

Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998 can be accessed on the Internet at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n8/.

Contextualizing Homeschooling Data: A Response to Rudner can be accessed on the Internet at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n13.html.