2013年九年级英语下册 Module 2 Education Home schooling文章背景材料 外研版

Home schooling - a Superior Education for Your Child - ParentingHome-schooling provides children with a superior education. Parents can quickly teach most kids the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic using excellent, creative, learn-to-read, or learn-math books, programs, or computer learning software. Once children become proficient readers, they can then study subjects they love in greater depth. If a child needs help on a special subject, parents can occasionally call in a tutor.Many studies confirm that home-schooled kids learn more, learn better, and learn faster than public-school children. Christopher J. Klicka, author of The Right Choice: Homeschooling, cites a nationwide study of more than 2,163 home-schooling families conducted in 1990 by the National Home Education Research Institute:The study found the average scores of the home school students were at or above the 80th percentile in all categories. This means that the homeschoolers scored, on the average, higher than 80 percent of the students in the nation. The home schoolers national percentile mean was 84 for reading, 80 for language, 81 for math, 84 for science, and 83 for social studies.Several state departments of education also conducted their own surveys on the academic achievement of home-schooled students. In 1987, much to its embarrassment, the Tennessee Department of Education found that home-schooled children in second grade, on the average, scored in the 93rd percentile, while their public school counterparts, on the average, scored in the 52nd percentile on the Stanford Achievement Test (the SAT-9 is a well-respected battery of multiple-choice academic achievement tests for public-school students).These studies, and many others, confirm the fact that home-schooling parents can give their kids a superior education. This shouldnt surprise us. Home-schooling parents succeed where public schools fail because parents give loving, personalized attention to their children, use innovative free-market educational materials, and nourish a love of learning in their kids.Joel Turtles book, Public Schools, Public Menace gives parents a wealth of information about home schooling and the new low-cost, Internet private schools.Joel Turtle is an education policy analyst, and author of Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children.2