Homeschool vs.Public school statistics?

Question:
I'm looking for some credible numbers on students' performance in public K-12 school compared to performance in home schools. Data linked specifically to race and socio-economic state would be extra useful. Is there anywhere I should look?

Answer:
- Unfortunately, there is no data on this. It would be nice if there was, but since homeschooling varies in each state and since many homeschoolers never take the same kinds of assessments that kids in school do, a comparison is difficult. You won't find performance assessments that are valid between public schools, private schools and homeschools for this reason. There are some statistics about *who* homeschools here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/HomeSchool/chara.asp

- Exactly!

- Yes, but you will not find any valid comparisons between public and private schools either, nor will you find many valid assessments of public school children's performance wrt academics since the high stakes tests are mostly not geared to the curriculum and are a waste of time, imho.

- There have been several studies done of some homeschool populations: http://www.wisconsinchea.com/News/STATISTICS_ON_HOMESCHOOLING/statist... "In 1997, a study of 5,402 homeschool students from 1,657 families was released. It was entitled, "Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America." The study demonstrated that homeschoolers, on the average, out-performed their counterparts in the public schools by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects. " "This was confirmed in another study by Dr. Lawrence Rudner of 20,760 homeschooled students which found the homeschoolers who have homeschooled all their school aged years had the highest academic achievement. This was especially apparent in the higher grades. ii This is a good encouragement to families catch the long-range vision and homeschool through high school." "In a study released by the National Center for Home Education on November 10, 1994. According to these standardized test results provided by the Riverside Publishing Company of 16,311 homeschoolers from all 50 states K-12, the nationwide average for homeschool students is at the 77th percentile of the basic battery of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. In reading, the homeschoolers' nationwide grand mean is the 79th percentile. This means, of course, that the homeschool students perform better in reading than 79 percent of the same population on whom the test is normed. In the area of language arts and math, the typical homeschooler scored in the 73rd percentile. " "These 16,311 homeschool students' scores were not self-selected by parents or anyone else. They represent all the homeschoolers whose tests were scored through the Riverside Publishing Company. It is important to note that this summary of homeschool achievement test scores demonstrates that 54.7% of the students in grades K-12 are achieving individual scores in the top quarter of the population of students in the United States. This figure is more than double the number of conventional school students who score in the top quarter. It would seem to me that while such a comparison couldn't be done nationwide, those states that require registration and testing of homeschoolers could yield useful data for comparison for those who are interested.