# homeschooling, a local family...



## beenaround (Mar 2, 2015)

If you're wonder why? Homeschooling is design for the child's development, specifically teaching the child how to learn and a love of it.

Said before, once they are on to it, try and keep up. This is the second kid in our local group that's aced the ACT and this one also aced the SAT.

The high school this kid attended is a very good school.

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/hig...29302955197.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma

When it comes to getting into a great college, Connor Long has a ton of strengths in his corner: heâs in the top 10 percent of his high school class, is a semifinalist for a National Merit Scholarship, and he has a standout rep as an actor and musician in his schoolâs musical theater department.


Oh, and thereâs one other thing: this high school senior from Bowling Green, Ohio, racked up perfect scores on his college boards. The 2400 he earned on the SAT and the 36 he got on his ACT puts him in an elite group of young scholars who ace not just one but both tests. 

Long, 18, plays down his own role in getting such good scores. âI just did a ton of practice tests and read test-prep books, and I learned the formula for the tests so I knew what to expect,â Long tells Yahoo Parenting.

But he freely credits others for his academic and testing success, first his high school, St. Johnâs Jesuit High School and Academy in Toledo, Ohio, as well as his first and best teacher: his mom.

Home-schooled by his mother (along with a younger brother and sister) until he entered 7th grade at St. Johnâs, he says that the experience helped foster his love of reading and excitement about learning.

Home schooling also gave his mom a chance to understand his learning style. âMy mom would prepare lessons and use a curriculum that worked for me, because she was tuned into how I learned,â says Connor. âShe was really committed to us learning, it was more than a full-time job for her.â

Home-schooling tends to be seen as something with a religious or political bent, or itâs viewed as less rigorous than regular school. But Connor says the curriculum his mom came up with wasnât political or religious, and it afforded him plenty of opportunity to interact with other kids.

âWe had school 4 to 5 days a week, depending on whether we went on field trips with other home-schooled families,â he recalls. âWe also had the chance to be as social as other kids; there were sports teams to join and ways to pursue other interests.â

About 2.2. million kids are home-schooled in the United States, according to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), and Connor is hardly the only home-educated student who has done so well academically. 

Children who learn at home typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above traditionally-schooled kids on standardized tests, reports NHERI. And they go on to succeed at the same or better rates as other students in college.

Michael Donnelly, staff attorney at the Home School Legal Defense Organization, tells Yahoo Parenting that he isnât surprised Long did so well on his college boards. âTwo factors that have been shown to lead to academic success are parents who are involved in their childrenâs education, and kids who are engaged in learning,â says Donnelly.

âHome schooling allows for both of these: parents have to be committed to take on the responsibilities of educating their kids, and they tend to foster an environment where the child is inspired to really learn, not respond to what a teacher wants,â he says.

While Long has several months to decide what colleges to apply to, heâs leaning toward the University of Michigan and Ithaca College in New York. Though heâs clearly an academic star, music is his focus. He says, âWriting, dancing, singing, acting â I canât imagine having a career that doesnât focus on music in some way.â


----------



## Laura Zone 5 (Jan 13, 2010)

This is an amazing success story!!

I am 100% in support of home education, but understand this; it's not a 'magic wand' to wonderful well behaved children, and great test scores gets you into any school you want'.

3 years ago, my son was not admitted to a school on the east coast because they would not accept his home school diploma (and they had his very impressive SAT ACT scores) and demanded he take the GED and wait to see if their 'board' approved.
They coach that recruited him was furious.
When he said he would NOT take a GED, they sent an official letter 'accepting our decision not to apply at their school" nonsense.

Yes, after paying Home School Legal Defense for TEN YEARS I called them, I wrote them, I sent them documentation, I gave them all the names, and numbers of the people at the school.......
They wrote the school a letter. That was it.
It took WEEKS to get them to send the letter.........then WEEKS to get them to follow up. 
A HUGE waste of my money, paying the dues every year to HSLD.

Sometimes home educated kids just go off the rails, make horrifying decisions, and are lost. 
This is not a refection of home education; it is a reflection of themselves and their choices.

There are a zillion reasons to home educate, and they are good.
Just don't think that everything will be sunshine and roses all the time, just because you home educated.


----------



## beenaround (Mar 2, 2015)

true enough, thank you for the heads up (HSLD). There are many who use their positions of power corruptly, IMO they are the ones missing out. Like I said, try and keep up and that goes for that school, the kids will win out in the end, it's what they do. Mine don't do it for any other reason than they enjoy the journey and love having anyone join them, but they are going even if alone. They have a way of attracting people though. 

Wife and I talked about why kids do much better homeschooled and why the problem children remain in government schools. The reason is simple, their parents don't want them home and would revolt if the option was removed. They also would not accept having to pay for government schools and not use them not to mention having to pay for both. We have done this for our entire lives here in our county and haven't benefited from the cost, roughly $34,000+++ for government education we haven't used.

Middle daughter is love by a family she babysits for, parents are government teachers. The oldest boy, around 9 had to write a paper for his class on education and listed all the reasons why homescooling was detrimental to government education, a 9 year old. Daughter found out about it from the boy who told her about it like he had just hurt her deeply and was sorry. She is their favorite and currently working on becoming an RN.


----------

