Why parents choose to home-school their children

Jet, Sept 1, 2003 by Marti Yarbrough

It's that time of year when children across the country sadly bring their summer vacations to an end to begin yet another year of school. Many of these students don't have to go far. In fact they don't even have to leave their" homes.

During the conventional 2002-03 school year, an estimated 1.7 million to 2.1 million K-12 level students were home-schooled, according to Dr. Brian Ray, president the National Home Education Research (NHERI). Of that population, only 5 percent of those students are Black.

Due to the return of more stay-at-home moms and dads, the number of Black children being home-schooled is likely to increase, says Joyce Burges, co-founder of the National Black Home Educators Resource Association (NBHERA). "Some Black parents just want to be a family uninterrupted by unnecessary and unwise influences," she states. Barges, who has home-schooled five of her own children, adds that many Black parents home-school their kids to protect them from violence and from falling through the cracks of overstuffed classrooms, particularly our young Black males.

Paula Penn-Nabrit, author of Morning By Morning: How We Home-School. ed Our African-American Sons To The Ivy League, defines home-schooling as, "a holistic option that shifts responsibility for the spiritual, intellectual and physical health and development of children from the institutions back to the parents."

She and her husband, Charles Madison Nabrit, began educating their elder fraternal-twin sons Damon and Charles at the age of 11 and Evan at age 9 after the boys were expelled from private school, ostensibly due to late tuition payments. "Due to our collectively disappointing experiences in public and private schools, home-schooling was the sole remaining option," says Penn-Nabrit, owner of Penn-Nabrit & Associates, an Ohio-based business management consultant firm.

"[My husband] and I taught the boys, but we also hired African-American graduate students (mostly males) as tutors to teach things like math and biology. We always knew that the measurement of our ultimate success would lie in the quality of their characters and their lives--so far, so good," the proud mother says.

In 2000 the couple finished home-schooling their sons. Charles and Damon, 23, went on to attend Princeton University in New Jersey, majoring in philosophy and religion, while the fine arts major, Evan, 21, attended Amherst College in Massachusetts.

Twelve years ago John and Latrenka Riley of Atlanta decided to home-school their daughters, Jessica, 18, and Jennifer, 14, because they felt that the girls' "needs were not being met in the private school sector."

"Initially we made the decision to home-school one year at a time," says John. "At the end of the year we'd do an evaluation, look at what we've accomplished and look at the goals for the upcoming year."

Latrenka did what she calls "intense schooling," which consisted of seven subjects, while her husband worked outside the home.

"I wanted them to have a real school experience. The only difference would be that they were at home," explains Latrenka. "We would go on a field trip and they would have to write reports about [the experience] when they came home. I was very demanding, and I still am even with their schoolwork."

The educational requirements for students who are home-schooled vary from state to state. Latrenka, who has no previous teaching experience, says that home-schooling both girls at different levels took a lot of planning and research, but she was up for the challenge.

"I'm qualified because I'm a caring parent. Who's better invested in their children than their parent?"

At the high school level the Rileys decided to end the home-schooling and sent their daughters to public school. The hard work that both parents have invested in their children has definitely paid off.

Jennifer, who says she appreciates the one-on-one attention she received from home-schooling, is now in 10th grade, and she consistently receives high marks. Her big sister Jessica, who was labeled the "smart kid" because she believed in "passing with excellence," graduated this year at the top of her class and earned a four-year scholarship to Spelman College.

"I never really saw public school as an option. I wanted something different for her," says Atlanta mom/marketing entrepreneur Karen Mason of her daughter Kenya James, 14, a former private school student who's been home-schooled for five years now.

"I didn't always know I was going to do home-schooling, but I knew I would have her in a small, private class environment where the curriculum was one that reflected who she was. From there we eventually evolved into home-schooling."

A common misconception about home-schooled students is that they lack the social skills needed to survive in the real world.

"Children who are home-schooled go to church, they're in organizations, and they do everything that everyone else would do. There is no problem in terms of socialization. It's a fallacy," asserts Mason.