Home schooling has appeal for several reasons

Educational, personal, religious concerns drive a growing trend in Howard County


Frustrated with a school's approach to her son's learning disability, Whitney Turner wanted better. She withdrew her children from Howard County public schools and began teaching at home.


Home schooling, once considered by some to be a fringe practice, is a rapidly growing trend that attracts parents for a variety of educational, religious and personal reasons.

Across Maryland, home schooling grew exponentially in the 1990s, first among certain religious groups but later among a broader segment of the population, according to home-schooling advocates.

Growth has slowed somewhat but still remains high. The number of students in home instruction has more than doubled in Howard since 2000. Now, about 1,425 county students are being taught at home, or almost 3 percent of the school-age population, according to county statistics.

Although home schooling has become more common, many people harbor misconceptions, proponents say. "We're sort of portrayed as being in the fringe, as religious fanatics or odd," said Turner, a Columbia resident. "When people hear [that] you home-school, they put a wall down. They say, `I could never do that,' and that's the end of the conversation."

According to parents who home-school, it is a lot easier to do than people think. First, throw out the notion of large classrooms or of needing a degree to teach, they say. "You have to throw out the paradigm we have embraced for education, that it involves 25 children and a teacher at a chalkboard for six hours a day," Turner said.

Home-school programs are as different as the families that use them. Some say they teach from 45 minutes a day to six hours, depending on the age, child and curriculum. Some teach year-round with breaks as needed, while others follow a traditional school calendar. They may combine one-on-one instruction with independent work, using worksheets and computer programs.

Many companies manufacture curricula for home-schoolers that amount to "a school in a box," they say. Some parents opt for one company's curricula, but others mix and match curricula or assemble their own from books.

Home-schooling curricula make teaching easy. "It's not really rocket science," said Monica Dombrowski, an electrical engineer who home-schools two children in Columbia. "They tell you everything to say and do."

Turner uses a mix of teaching materials for her children. For her middle child, who has dyslexia, she began by focusing on handwriting. First, she had him copy words and sentences, then switched to using grade-level grammar workbooks. He flourished, she said. "The key was there was no one making fun of him," as had occurred in public school.

After 2 1/2 years of home schooling, she said, he has made great gains. "I would predict [that] when he goes to college, no one will even know he's dyslexic."

She gave her oldest son the choice of staying in public school or being home-schooled. He chose home schooling and plans to attend Howard Community College next fall. Her youngest, at 6, has never been to a public school.

Turner is not alone in choosing home schooling because a public or private school was not meeting a child's academic or social needs.

Manfred Smith, who founded the Maryland Home Education Association in 1980, said today's home-schoolers "are trying to meet the needs of their specific children."

They may have bright children who are not being challenged in school, or children with learning or social disabilities who are languishing, he said. "Some parents say, `My child is being ground up in school through violence or bullying.'"

Many families continue to home-school for religious reasons, but that stopped being the main reason about a decade ago, said Smith, of Columbia.

Statewide, the number of home-schooled students increased ninefold, from 2,296 in the 1990-1991 school year, to 20,676 in 2002-2003, said Bill Reinhard, a state Education Department spokesman.

"Home schooling is now for everyone," said Smith, a teacher whose wife home-schooled their three children, now adults.

Jim Chandler opted for home schooling after being dissatisfied with public and private schools. His older children, now adults, attended Prince George's County schools before switching to private school. "We spent a lot of money and weren't that happy with the results," he said of private education.

He decided to leave his information technology job to home-school his youngest children, 6-year-old twin boys. When the family moved to Highland last fall, the Chandlers visited the local Howard County public school but decided to continue home schooling. The school seemed "very rigid," he said. "We would like to have a little more control over the learning experience."

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