Economics of Homeschooling

Introduction

Homeschooling, which was once a distinct educational option, is now widely accepted. Statistical and demographic information about homeschooling is not widely available worldwide due to a variety of factors. Globally, there are differences in the legality of homeschooling. Homeschooling is permitted in several countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Mexico, South Africa, the US, and others; however, each nation has its own laws and regulations. But countries like Germany, Sweden, Turkey, and others have strong laws against homeschooling. Homeschooling is becoming more prevalent in the US, where between 2 and 4 million pupils are receiving their education at home (Kunzman R., Gaither M., and Shepherd G.). Homeschooling is becoming popular in India also, according to education experts, especially in cities like Bengaluru and Pune, where the population is said to be financially stable, artistic, and cosmopolitan. In India, the majority of homeschooling communities are concentrated in the cities of Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. 

image: creative commons 

Homeschooling is not a brand-new concept; it was already practised before the law requiring compulsory education. Homeschooling is a form of education where the learning environment is the home. Either parent taught their children at home, or those parents paid tutors or educators for that purpose. Unschooling and homeschooling are frequently used interchangeably. According to unschooling parents, who do not set up a curriculum for their kids, they are not homeschoolers because they give their kids the freedom to pursue their own interests and learn how they want to, but homeschooling parents do adhere to a curriculum for their kids, according to the blog "Freedom to Learn" by Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College. Unschooling is viewed as a form of homeschooling in official statistics, which do not differentiate between the two. In India, a parent's educational background, financial independence, and availability of time are crucial factors in determining how well a child does in homeschooling. According to the National Household Education Poll (NHES) 2007, a survey based on random sampling, the majority of homeschoolers in the US live in two-parent households (89%), and slightly more than half (54%) of those households have just one working parent. Half of homeschooling parents report having at least a bachelor's degree, indicating a considerably higher level of education. The main reasons behind homeschooling are concern about the school environment, the desire to impart moral and religious training, dissatisfaction with academic instruction, and the child's physical and mental health concerns.

Because of the government's position on homeschooling and because of high internet speeds and affordable data packages, homeschooling has become a more viable alternative for Indian parents. According to HSLDA, between 500 and 1000 children are homeschooled in India, where homeschooling is legal. Homeschoolers in India can enrol for the NIOS to take the grade 10 and grade 12 exams, or they can take tests from renowned boards of education as "Private Candidates Registered with A School" or, in a few states/metros/cities, through "The British Council." The National Institute of Open Schooling, the International General Certificate of Secondary Education, and the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) all offer curricula for parents who desire to certify their children.

Estimates of Homeschool Students

                       

New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are the countries where Homeschooling is most common for children and teenagers. This is a rough estimate meant to give a general overview of Homeschool students around the world. In the US, where between 2 and 4 million students receive their education at home, Homeschooling is on the rise (Kunzman R., Gaither M., Homeschooling, and Shepherd G.).According to ADCS (Association of Child Services Directors) estimates, there are 81,200 registered homeschooled children in England as of October 2021. According to HSLDA and SBS News report 21,437 kids in Australia were registered for home schooling in 2019.   According to Homeschooling | Education Counts , there were 7,749 pupils being homeschooled in New Zealand as of July 1, 2021. According to the HSLDA, 500-1000 children are homeschooled in India; however, no government organisations regulate homeschooling. 

Key Words 

Homeschooling, Public Goods, Private Goods, Economic Efficiency, Opportunity Cost.

Main Findings

When physical and mental health concerns are excluded, then homeschooling becomes a private education and a private good. Private goods are those that are exclusive and competitive by nature. As a result, their availability will be reduced for those who cannot purchase them. As was previously stated, homeschooling requires financial stability, the luxury of time, and educated parents. The standard of education that children receive from homeschooling depends on resources, knowledge, and parental motivation. According to research, taxpayers don't pay anything for the vast majority of homeschoolers, and families who choose this method of instruction don't rely on publicly financed educational resources. Homeschooling fosters prejudice in the educational field. When there is a significant income gap, the state cannot completely rely on homeschooling. Homeschooling as a popular alternative may lead to educational inequity, with the poor children whose parents did not have privilege ultimately suffering as a result of that discrepancy. One more disadvantage of homeschooling is that parents can use it as a pretext to send their kids to unregistered institutions that have fervently religious curricula. In one study (Knox et al., 2014), medical experts collected instances of serious child abuse that had been reported to their various medical institutions in Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin, Utah, and Washington State. They discovered that 47% of the school-age children had been expelled under the pretext of "homeschooling," and 29% of them had not been permitted to attend school. Some studies show that homeschoolers perform well in reading and writing but not in arithmetic. UNESCO recognises education as a public good. Public education is a public good. In economics, public goods are considered to be collective consumption goods, and they are distinguished by their non-rivalry and non-excludability characteristics. Because social benefits outweigh private benefits and costs, public resources cannot be distributed effectively under a market-based system. To avoid the issue of free riders, tax revenue from the government is frequently used to fund public goods. Being a public good, public education has a positive externality.Well-educated parents are advantageous to all students. These parents have time and money to invest in enhancing the institution of learning. They can attend PTA events and interact with other parents who are not as well-off in terms of finances and education as they are which will enable the school to operate more effectively. Homeschooling parents can make financial contributions and form a strong group to expose ineffective educators. When parents decide to homeschool their children rather than pull them out of public schools, these are the benefits that will follow. When middle-class families abandon public schools in the US, public schools suffer, as they leave public education and stop supporting the institution by participating in political oversight (George Shepherd, 2015).

In economics, efficiency refers to the ability to achieve a goal with little or no waste of resources; however, because education is a special good, we can judge homeschooling efficiency by including opportunity cost, which is how many underprivileged children are not receiving good quality education as a result of homeschooling. Due to the lack of scientific research on the efficiency of homeschooling at the macro level, it is not appropriate to state strongly that there is a trade-off between efficiency and equity in this scenario because, by judging the success of some homeschoolers, we cannot make them representative of the entire homeschooling community.

In comparison to public schools, homeschoolers recognise that there is a higher likelihood of social isolation when a child is homeschooled because formal education offers more opportunities for social engagement. Because of this, homeschoolers participate in a variety of official and unofficial groups. They meet in person and share information in formal timetable groups. Meeting places for informal sports teams include houses and playgrounds. Homeschooling mothers collaborate and share knowledge while also renting out classrooms for different homeschooled children. They routinely use libraries and the internet for information, occasionally hiring higher-level tutors and specialists. According to Chatham-Carpenter (1994), Ensign (1997), and Ray (2009a), homeschooling is likely to change the student's social circle and promote more interactions between different age groups than it does with same-age ones. There is a substantial correlation between the mother's educational level and the child's achievement score among the 36 homeschoolers in Medlin's (1994) study. Mothers are reported to be mostly in charge of home education across all demographics. Mothers typically shoulder the majority of the workload associated with homeschooling, both within individual families and within the larger homeschooling support system, according to Stevens (2001). According to Lois's (2006, 2009, 2010) ethnographies of homeschooling reasons and practices, homeschool moms face significant role pressure, which can lead to emotional burnout. 

When parents choose to teach their children at home, it takes a significant amount of effort and commitment on their part. Those with resources can benefit from homeschooling. Since most students are no longer exclusively dependent on their teachers for learning, the Internet and EdTech companies have significantly changed the educational landscape. Nevertheless, some kids still lack the tools necessary to study well at home. Because she was unable to attend online classes due to financial constraints, a 15-year-old girl in Kerala took her own life. She was a bright student but did not have a smartphone, and as a result, due to fear and depression, she took her life. There are numerous homeschooling success stories, and if you look closely at their backgrounds, you'll see that most of them come from quite wealthy background and have access to plenty of resources. Finding a solution to the issue of delivering high-quality education will benefit the most disadvantaged children and will also inspire homeschoolers. Otherwise, homeschooling will widen the gap between rich and poor pupils and be harmful to society as a whole. Making education more exclusive may benefit some kids, but it would surely harm others. Apple (2000a), Lubienski (2000).

The Way Forward

I discovered while conducting my research that a number of publications emphasised the demand for a more rigorous examination of the recent discoveries. After a more thorough investigation of the economic implications of homeschooling, it will become clear whether or not it is advantageous from a macroeconomic point of view. Our knowledge about homeschooling is mostly based on anecdotal information (Houston, 1999). Everyone appears to agree that the homeschooling movement is likely to have a significant impact beyond what happens in certain households and with particular children (Apple, 2000a; Bates, 1991; Riegel, 2001).