Not long ago I heard an interesting statement from an appreciated person about schooling. He said that the "one-size-fits-all" or "factory" model of schools was an inefficient use of the children's time. According to his opinion, homeschooling could be more effective and yield better outcomes than standard mass education.
There is no doubt that the school system children are exposed to have an impact on their developments, starting at a relatively early age. So the topic is important for every country, but in particular for a country like Georgia whose economic fortune crucially depends on the skills and qualifications of its population (in economics, we like to call this the "human capital"). Therefore I found it worthwhile to investigate the pros and cons of homeschooling from an economic perspective.
What is homeschooling?
Homeschooling - also called home based learning - is the education of children at home, typically by parents or by tutors, instead of classes in public or private schools.
In the developed world, homeschooling is becoming more and more popular. There are numerous reasons why parents choose to homeschool their children, but the most common is dissatisfaction with the way children are taught at public and private schools. Homeschoolers use a wide variety of methods and materials. There are different educational approaches, such as unit studies, unschooling, natural learning, and many others.
What does research say about homeschooling?
A study conducted in the US by Dr. Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute, surveyed 11,739 homeschooled students for the 2007-08 academic school year. The results showed that homeschoolers, on average, scored 37 percentile points above public school students on standardized achievement tests. This result is consistent with the Rudner study (1999). However, Rudner conjectured that these same students in public school might have scored just as well because of the dedicated parents they had.
How good are public schools in Georgia?
Generally, a big issue in economics is the tradeoff between efficiency and equity. Regarding the educational system, it looks as if the Georgian government emphasizes equity. Georgian law guarantees that everybody has equal access to general education system, fully financed through public sources. But is general education efficient for every child?
In economics, it is a standard assumption that self-interested agents make decisions which maximize their personal outcomes. At least when the decision maker has to bear the consequences of a mistake, this assumption arguably makes some sense. But who are those who have to bear the consequences of the schooling decision? Well, of course the children, but they may not be sufficiently informed to evaluate their education, and of course they lack legal entitlement to enroll to schools. Instead, one could look at the parents’ decisions, assuming that parents have an interest that their children receive the best available school education.
If one follows this argument, then the increasing number of private schools may indicates that parents do not hold the public school system in high esteem. According to official data of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, the number of pupils in public schools more than doubled in the last several years, while at the same time the number of pupils enrolled at public schools shows a constantly declining trend (see chart).
Could homeschooling be an alternative to expensive private schools?
Homeschooling is a legal option for parents in many countries, allowing them to provide their children with a learning environment outside of public or private schools. Legally this is an alternative in Georgia as well, yet we do not know how often this option is chosen.
For example, if a pupil gets homeschooled for the first six grades and then wants to enter a public or private school at the 7th grade without attending the first six grades again, this is possible. The pupil has to pass additional exams, so called “external exams”, in order to be accepted. However, this seems to be a very rare case in Georgia, as it took me quite a while to get a confirmation of this arrangement from the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia.
How expensive is homeschooling?
When making the decision whether to homeschool or not, one should also take into account the costs of homeschooling. As mentioned before, a key concept in educational economics is the notion of human capital. Education – investment in human capital - incurs costs, which are pretty high in case of homeschooling. While more educated parents are better suited to teach their children, their time is priced higher on the labor market, and hence the opportunity costs of conducting private classes at home are also higher. On the other hand, the studies mentioned above suggest that homeschooling may be an excellent investment in the future of a child, yielding high returns later on.
Homeschooling as a supplement
Clearly, the Georgian educational system has severe shortcomings. Among others, these are revealed through the fact that most of the pupils have private teachers outside school, in particular when they prepare for university admission. Shortly before they leave school, the pupils are forced to attend public classrooms while in fact they are studying elsewhere the material which is necessary to pass the university entrance exams. Obviously, public schools are not capable to effectively prepare the pupils for university.
In this situation, homeschooling could be a supplement to the Georgian educational system. Many children that currently attend public schools could arguably greatly benefit from the teaching methods developed in homeschooling. It might be a good idea to encourage parents to homeschool their children and, if this is done in an orderly and qualified way, remove the burden to attend public schools from these children.
Comments
Lasha thanks for the nice post. Like the idea of home schooling and changing education paradigms. I agree on general formal schooling suppresses creativity, curiosity and at the end we get educated good workers, rather than creative thinkers. BUT there is one important aspect also in formal schooling – social environment. Children interact with their peers at schools and get prepared to future real life. Do you think that home schooling process can provide a good substitute for that?
Lasha, thanks for an interesting post.
I would still go for schooling rather than for homeschooling. First of all, it is really difficult to find parents who are so universal that can teach everything taught at schools better than at schools. Second, even if tutors are involved to solve this "universality" problem, the gains from socialization largely affecting non-cognitive skills and psychology of children, are most probably lost in this case. In the end, public schools are not that bad in Georgia and their role in social mobility also need to be considered.
Thank you Maka and Nino, I will try to answer both of your comments, while they have one common aspect about the social environment. I also thought about it and read some articles, but didn't expand my blog in that direction because it is bit far from economics.
You might think that because children homeschool, they will not have any friends. This is simply not true. Friends can be made from neighborhood, at the park, at the museum, etc. A public school is not the only place one can acquire a friend and positive social interaction.
Homeschooling families should also take an extra steps to make sure that socialization is included, which means they should carefully think about teaching methods and maybe sometimes extra classes that will provide this.
One interesting study about this issue states that: “it is sometimes assumed that since the children are with other children all day, they are socializing well. However, this assumption shouldn't always be made. All socialization isn't positive. It can be negative as well. This is a fact looked over by many”
So, I think homeschooling is a better, while watching over smaller number of children, it is much easier to turn the negative into positive.
Nino, I would rather put it in a different way: public schools are not that good not to think about homeschooling as a supplement. I totally agree that it is difficult to find that educated parent which can fully teach school material, but I think homeschooling is a good alternative of schooling for the first few grades, thus almost everybody can handle it properly, it is just matter of willing.
here is the one homeschool lesson about the money history, I'm sure you will enjoy it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr2IN-AtrWE
P.S.
Am glad the issue is discussed! Alternative models of education deserve careful consideration. Homeshooling (and certainly its more radical "unschooling" variety) are not the perfect fit for all kids and families. Many families (maybe the majority of families) are better off delegating education to schools. But the conventional schooling model also does not work for all. I have a small bunch of friends in Israel who could not cope with a conventional school environment back in 1970s and 1980s and flanked out. They were smart, intelligent kids and eventually found themselves in an experimental "open" school that provided an environment for people to learn what they wanted, when they wanted and at the pace they wanted.
In any case, for the talented, motivated and hardworking kids, the conventional school is a huge waste of time. I don't know whether anyone has ever tried to measure this in an experimental fashion, but from personal experience I would say we are talking about something like 10:1 learning efficiency ratio (what takes 10 hours in a class of 30 students, takes 1 hour with a tutor).
Another major consideration is the quality of teachers in today's schools. Until WWII, "school teacher" used to be a prestigious (male) profession, but it isn't anymore. The result is obvious. It is no longer about a lack of efficiency. Bad school teachers can actually do a lot of damage. They can make students hate subjects (happened to me with chemistry). Literature classes taught by "illiterate" teachers can make you hate reading (!). History classes taught by idiots can make you think that history is about memorizing dates and events (or names of kings/US presidents).
Schools were invented not too long ago (about 150 years?) to deal with the problem of illiteracy. With that problem largely resolved in the western hemisphere, many families are not happy with what the schools are able to provide. Additionally, well-educated parents in an increasingly affluent society are also able to devote more time to meaningful interaction with their children. Many have flexible work hours and/or are able to afford an early retirement. The internet is providing amazing array and quality of material to follow, such as https://www.khanacademy.org/. Hence, the rise in homeshooling among the educated elite is both desirable and unavoidable.
While the homeshooling revolution is already at our doorstep, another revolution may be looming ahead, that of the university education system. First, ask yourself how prestigious is the university profession today compared to half a century ago. You can figure out the rest...
I don't think that homeschooling will be affordable option for many... In my opinion what will and what should happen is the revolutionary reforms of the public schools, with old subjects taught in different way and adding new ones.
For example I always thought that history should be taught in a "history as experience" mode (with accompanying analysis) rather than the "history as storytelling"...
Learning something by heart is not practiced any more as I know but it was always a subject for great dispute between me and my teachers (I actually ended up hating poetry)...
what about the new subjects, the basics of economics and law should be seriously taught at schools TO EVERYONE, an not only to those who choose this professions... the world in our time is widely ruled by the juridical and economic rules and going out without knowing at least basic stuff from these subjects is like playing a game without knowing its rules
Thank you for the interesting post. in the US, in most cases, homeschooling is provided by private tutors/teacher vs. parents themselves. So then, the questions is who can afford this? Obviously affluent families, and thus the poor is left out. Another questions is whether the state can provide (fund) homeschooling? yes, but extremely expensive option.
Homeschooling as a supplement to mainstream education is often defined as private tutoring, and this option is rather extensively exercised in Georgia.
Another interesting option, that probably will prevail soon, is online education/schooling...