Homeschooling, also known as home education, is the education of children at home or at a variety of places other than school. Home education is usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or an online teacher. Many families use less formal ways of educating. "Homeschooling" is the term commonly used in North America, whereas "home education" is commonly used in the United Kingdom, Europe, and in many Commonwealth countries.
"School choice" is a term for pre-college public education options, describing a wide array of programs offering students and their families voluntary alternatives to publicly provided schools, to which students are generally assigned by the location of their family residence. In the United States, the most common—both by number of programs and by number of participating students—school choice programs are scholarship tax credit programs, which allow individuals or corporations to receive tax credits toward their state taxes in exchange for donations made to non-profit organizations that grant private school scholarships. In other cases, a similar subsidy may be provided by the state through a school voucher program. Other school choice options include open enrollment laws, charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools, homeschooling, education savings accounts (ESAs), and individual tax credits or deductions for educational expenses. School choice is supported by international human rights law including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights art. 26, and the Convention Against Discrimination in Education.
Unschooling is an informal learning that advocates learner-chosen activities as a primary means for learning. Unschooling students learn through their natural life experiences including play, household responsibilities, personal interests and curiosity, internships and work experience, travel, books, elective classes, family, mentors, and social interaction. Unschooling encourages exploration of activities initiated by the children themselves, believing that the more personal learning is, the more meaningful, well-understood and therefore useful it is to the child. While courses may occasionally be taken, unschooling questions the usefulness of standard curricula, conventional grading methods, and other features of traditional schooling in the education of each unique child.
Truancy is any intentional, unjustified, unauthorized, or illegal absence from compulsory education. It is a deliberate absence by a student's own free will and usually does not refer to legitimate excused absences, such as ones related to medical conditions. Truancy is usually explicitly defined in the school's handbook of policies and procedures. Some children whose parents claim to homeschool have also been found truant in the United States. Other terms for truancy include playing hooky, skiving off, wagging and bunking. Attending school but not going to class is called skipping class, cutting class, flapping or, more formally, internal truancy. Recent estimates in the United States suggest that approximately 11% of adolescents have skipped school during the past month.
In the United States, dual enrollment (DE), also called concurrent enrollment, programs allow students to be enrolled in two separate, academically related institutions. Generally, it refers to high school students taking college or university courses. Less commonly, it may refer to any individual who is participating in two related programs.
The Washington Homeschool Organization (WHO) is a homeschool group located in the state of Washington, USA. WHO is a non-profit organization with a bimonthly newsletter detailing local homeschooling news. Its mission is to serve the diverse interests of home-based education in Washington State. WHO is nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and nondiscriminating in its views of homeschooling and participation in its activities. WHO hosts an annual homeschool convention at the Washington State Fairgrounds in Puyallup, Washington, featuring the largest curriculum exhibit in the Pacific Northwest. WHO also hosts an annual high school graduation ceremony for homeschoolers.
Homeschooling in the United States constitutes the education of about 3.4% of U.S. students. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that parents have a fundamental right to direct the education of their children. The right to homeschool is not frequently questioned in court, but the amount of state regulation and help that can or should be expected continues to be subject to legal debate.
Homer-Center School District is a public school district in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The district serves Homer City Borough and Center Township. The district campus is located just south of the Homer City/Center Township border along South Main Street and adjacent to U.S. Route 119. The campus is entirely located within Center Township, but shares a direct border with Homer City Borough.
Education in Missouri is provided by both public and private schools, colleges, and universities, and a variety of public library systems. All public education in the state is governed by the Missouri State Board of Education, which is made up of eight citizens appointed by the Governor of Missouri and confirmed by the Missouri Senate.
Bedford Senior High School is a small public high school located in Bedford, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Bedford Area School District.
Secular Homeschooling was an American magazine for people who homeschool for reasons other than religion. It began as a quarterly, but became a bimonthly in July 2009. The magazine is no longer published and the final issue was released in 2011.
North Star: Self Directed Learning for Teens is a self-directed learning center in Sunderland, Massachusetts, founded in 1996. North Star's mission is to help teenagers find ways to learn and excel outside of traditional middle school and high school. It offers a noncoercive learning environment without required classes, grades, or tests. Members range in age from 11 to 19 years old. Both previously-schooled teens and long-time homeschoolers attend the center. As of 2015, North Star has over 60 members and over 500 alumni from all over the Pioneer Valley and beyond.
The legality of homeschooling in India and a plethora of Alternative Education schools spread over different states has been debated by educators, lawmakers, and parents since the passing of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) which makes formal education a fundamental right of every child between the ages of 6 to 14 and specifies minimum norms for schools. While the legality of homeschooling still remains a grey area, there have been petitions by parents and alternate schools in the past for granting relief. As per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which India is a signatory, quote: "Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children."
Homeschooling is legal in many countries. Countries with the most prevalent home education movements include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some countries have highly regulated home education programs as an extension of the compulsory school system; few others, such as Germany, have outlawed it entirely. In some other countries, while not restricted by law, homeschooling is not socially acceptable, or considered undesirable and is virtually non-existent.
Women's education in Pakistan is a fundamental right of every female citizen, according to article thirty-seven of the Constitution of Pakistan, but gender discrepancies still exist in the educational sector. According to the 2011 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program, approximately twice as many males as females receive a secondary education in Pakistan, and public expenditures on education amount to only 2.7% of the GDP of the country.
Homeschooling is legal in New Zealand. The Ministry of Education reports annually on the population, age, ethnicity, and turnover of students being educated at home. The most recent statistics show:
"As at 1 July 2017, there were 6,008 home schooled students recorded in the Ministry of Education's Homeschooling database. These students belong to 3,022 families and represent 0.8% of total school enrolments as at 1 July 2017. Out of the 6,008 homeschoolers 67.3% were the aged 12 or under, 68.3% had been home-schooled for less than 5 years, and only 4.2% had been home-schooled for 10 years or more. European/Pākehā students are more likely to be homeschooled than any other ethnic group with 80.2% of all homeschoolers identifying as European/Pākehā compared to 50.1% of the total school population. Only 8.7% of homeschoolers identify as Māori compared to 24.0% of the total school population, 2.6% of homeschoolers identify as Pasifika compared to 9.8% of the total school population, and 2.2% of homeschoolers identify as Asian compared to 11.8% of the total school population. The ethnicity of 2.0% of homeschoolers is unknown."
Home schooling in South Africa had been illegal, until it was recognized in 1996 under the South African School Legislation, since then it has grown significantly.
The Albany Free School is the oldest independent, inner-city alternative school in the United States. Founded by Mary Leue in 1969 based on the English Summerhill School philosophy, the free school lets students learn at their own pace. It has no grades, tests, or firm schedule: students design their own daily plans for learning. The school is self-governed through a weekly, democratic all-school meeting run by students in Robert's Rules. Students and staff alike receive one equal vote apiece. Unlike Summerhill-style schools, the Albany Free School is a day school that serves predominantly working-class children. Nearly 80 percent of the school is eligible for reduced-price meals in the public schools. About 60 students between the ages of three and fourteen attend, and are staffed by six full-time teachers and a number of volunteers.
The University of Mississippi High School is an accredited, comprehensive, online high school operated by the Office of Pre-College Programs in the Division of Outreach and Continuing Education at the University of Mississippi. It offers online classes for students in grades 7 through 12, allowing students to earn high school Carnegie units, dual credit through the university, and a high school diploma from anywhere in the United States or the world.
