Published: February 1, 2000
Last year, University of Maryland researcher Lawrence Rudner published an ambitious analysis of homeschooling. Because his findings were generally favorable, he expected that parents who taught their children at home would be pleased. He was surprised, then, when a group of homeschoolers opened fire. “Usually when I say nice things about people, they don’t say bad things back,” Rudner says.
As Rudner discovered, few areas of education are as tricky for researchers as homeschooling. By definition, homeschoolers are an independent lot. Many operate “underground,” but even some of those who openly teach their children at home resist taking part in studies. They are suspicious, if not outright disdainful, of researchers’ methods and motives, making it difficult to gather a reliable sampling of kids to study.
To make matters worse, homeschooling researchers have a hard time getting their studies funded and their findings published. Grantmakers and journal editors, they complain, yawn at research topics that stray too...
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