Learning at home

Learning at home
More families in Southern Oregon and around the U.S. are turning to homeschooling

By PARIS ACHEN
Mail Tribune

Instead of waiting on a bus and going to school, fifth-grader Lily Taft heads to her desk in her family’s living room.

She picks up a seventh-grade math book, reads a lesson and without any instructions from an adult, begins calculating math problems.

"I usually start at 9:30 a.m.," Lily said. "I do schoolwork in no particular order."

Her parents, Will Taft and Barbera Herzog-Taft of Medford, said they chose to homeschool Lily out of a desire to give her a better education than what they thought a public school could offer.

"The reason we homeschool is simply that in public schools, the kids are not taught to their capabilities," Will Taft said. "In a class of 25 to 35, there are students at the fifth-grade level and students capable of learning high school geometry. Teachers just cannot manage (classes of that size) and do justice to all of the students. In my opinion, the kids who suffer the most are the overachievers."

The Tafts are among a growing band of parents who have opted to homeschool their children.

Nationwide, the percentage of homeschooled students rose from 1.7 percent in 1999 to 2.2 percent in 2003, according to a new report by the National Center for Education Statistics.

During the same period, the number of homeschooled children in the Southern Oregon Education Service District — which encompasses Jackson, Josephine and Klamath counties — climbed from 1,852 to 2,303, a 24 percent increase.

Meanwhile, overall enrollment in public schools in Southern Oregon declined by half a percent, from 51,778 to 51,539, between 1999 and 2003.

The trend has continued this school year with 2,322 children registered as homeschooled and 51,198 enrolled in public schools in Southern Oregon.

Beverly Orndorff, executive assistant at the Southern Oregon ESD, said the count of homeschooled pupils in the state could be inflated.

In 1999, state law changed from requiring parents to register their homeschooled children annually at the ESD to requiring registration just one time during their entire education.

"We have no way of knowing how many students stop homeschooling because the law does not include requiring parents to let us know when they are no longer homeschooling," Orndorff said.

Parents are not obligated to register children under the age of 7.

While the ESD count may be inaccurate, the number of homeschooled pupils is increasing, said Phil Long, superintendent of the Medford School District.

Like most districts in Southern Oregon, Medford has experienced falling enrollment every year since 2002.

Part of the decline results from parents withdrawing their children for homeschooling, though the primary reason likely is exorbitant housing prices, Long said.

"With the disinvestment in education at the state level, we have larger classes and have cut down on programs," Long said. "That raises concerns in families who want to make sure their children are well attended to. We are doing our best with what we have."

Reasons for homeschooling range from a desire for religious instruction to dissatisfaction with public- school academics. Long has said he and his wife, Lori, homeschooled their two children because they wanted a more challenging academic environment for them.

Based on a survey of parents of nearly 12,000 students ages 5 through 17, the NCES report indicates nearly 1.2 million children were homeschooled in spring 2003.

About 31 percent of parents cited concerns about school environments, such as safety, drugs or negative peer pressure, as reasons for homeschooling.

Thirty percent of parents decided to homeschool their children to provide them with moral or religious instruction.

Another 16 percent of parents said they forsook public schools out of dissatisfaction with the academic instruction.

"There is not one breed of homeschooler," said Talent resident Audrey Flint, who homeschools her eighth-grade son.

Flint wanted to give her son an education rich in the arts.

"There is not enough funding in public schools for an arts emphasis," Flint said. "I know the teachers would love to have them.

"Also, I think the idea of being in school from the early morning all day didn’t work for my son’s personality."