Should parents have a degree to homeschool?

The following is an article I wrote at Helium last July in response to a debate on whether homeschooling parents should posses a degree in order to educate their children. I felt it would be helpful to others on this platform as well:

Should parents have a degree to home school their children? They didn't require one prior to the early 1900s even in public schools. Ironically, statistics show that children were better educated prior to legislation requiring credentials. Not only were children more literate and intelligent, they were also better behaved. All this guidance came from parents who often had no formal education of their own.

Current surveys of home schooled students tested using the same standardized formats administered to publicly educated students project results that can't be denied. Home school students outscore public schooled students by 30 to 37 points in EVERY subject area! (HSLDA).

Furthermore, test scores for states where there are governmental regulations on home school requirements versus states where there are little to no regulations showed no differences. According to the HSLDA's website, all home schooled students, regardless of regulations (such as requiring parents to have a degree) obtained average scores in the 86th percentile considerably above national standards for publicly educated students.

The Future of Freedom Foundation's website states the following: "Even the Secretary of Education has admitted in the frankest terms that the government education system is failing the American people so miserably that it threatens our very future as a nation."

With that said, how can anyone confidently claim that to have a college degree from a university influenced by these government regulations makes a parent a better educator? The Future of Freedom Foundation further addresses the issues by saying: "Technology has now made compulsory attendance obsolete. One can now learn much more at home than in any public classroom at less cost to everyone. Education has become a racket, not a profession. The organized educators now have the political clout in Washington and the state capitals to get virtually anything they want from a bewildered public which have been told over and over again that the cause of educational failure is not bad teaching and a flawed educational philosophy but lack of financial support. And so, those who are truly interested in education have the double task of exposing the education racket for what it is, and informing the public and their fearless elected representatives of what is actually going on in public education."

And just what is going on in public education and the idea that all parents who home school should have those credentials? Systematic repression of free ideas, immoral education, and a philosophy that fits every human being to a single mold which is threatening our freedoms as a nation.

A degree is not required to be a good home schooling parent. Only a desire to learn with your children and ability to research and retain information about anything you don't understand. The thirst for knowledge combined with the endless resources available in modern society, especially the Internet, makes degrees a non-issue. Loving parents nurturing their children and providing accountable, upstanding, better mannered citizens to our society is irrefutable!