Home Schooling In Demand: Why Is It Better At Home

Urban homeschoolers frequently cite the homogenization of public education as the reason they chose to take over their kids' schooling. With the federal and state education policy placing ever-greater emphasis on core standards and standardized tests, many parents want to give their kids something more creative, flexible, and engaging than a school day they see as factory-made, according to about education.

The one-size-fits-all model is especially unappealing to parents of children who are "special" in some way. Unevenly intelligent, intensely shy, immature, or in need of a flexible schedule to accommodate their professional acting or dancing or musical careers.

In New York, even parents in the best districts complain about overcrowding schools and about teachers, who, however motivated and skilled, have their hands full managing the unruly few who can reign in some classrooms. Then there are the problems that come out with all traditional schools.

The bullying, the playground politics, and the escalating gadget and fashion arms races. According to the DOE, nearly 88 percent of U.S. home-school parents express their concerns about the school environment, citing drugs, negative peer pressure, and general safety.

Kristin Sposito was one of the moms at the Monday-afternoon gymnastics class. She and her husband, Brett, decided to home-school when their daughter, Maya, was 5. The Spositos, who lived in Portland, Oregon, at the time, looked around at their friends' children who were going off to school.

The school day seemed very long for children so young, Kristin thought. And the kids who did go to school came home "with bad attitudes right off the bat," she says. The children were mouthy.

Family relationships grew strained; the joy of family life was somehow lost; and the children were none the better for it. It's not like they were away all day and then came.