Homeschool and Taxes

            The National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) estimates the number of homeschooled children in the United States is over 2 million school-age children, and it is rapidly growing (NHERI, 2015).  The reasons for this are many and varied, but the prevailing reasons seem to be religious convictions and dissatisfaction with the public school systems in our communities (Martin-Chang, Gould, & Meuse, 2011).  Within the homeschooled community, there appears to be two distinct subgroups: the structured homeschooler and the unstructured homeschooler.  The structured homeschooled child involves having a parent using defined curricula and filling the role of the teacher.  They set clear goals for their child’s education and either purchased curriculum or used lesson plans that they designed.  This group of parents view themselves as very important to their child’s education and they filled the role a traditional teacher would normally fill (Martin-Chang, et al., 2011). 

The unstructured homeschooled child involved parents who rarely or never used purchased curriculum or pre-made lesson plans.  These parents often referred to themselves as “un-schoolers” and they believe in the idea that learning should be self-directed by the child and free from teachers, formal assessment, and school books.  Not surprisingly, in the study conducted by Martin-Chang, Gould, and Meuse (2011), this group scored much lower on learning than those who were homeschooled in the structured environment and those children who attended a traditional school.  Other reasons cited for homeschooling in the study involve fear of violence in the schools, fear of bullying, to have more quality family time, to give children with special needs more attention, and to provide stability amidst frequent moves (such as military families) (Martin-Chang, et al., 2011).  I personally believe these are all valid reasons, but I side with the study and agree that religious freedom and dissatisfaction with the local school system would be my greatest reason to homeschool my children.

City, county, state, and federal governments are supported by revenue from taxes paid by its citizens.  It is an accepted fact that if you live in the United States, you will pay taxes.  One of the services provided by governments is of course, the school system.  But why should parents who homeschool their child, send their child to private school, or even those parents who have no children have to pay taxes to support the public school system?  Perhaps the main reason would be that if these categories of parents did not pay school taxes, our schools would be in worse shape than they already are.  Since the primary source of funding for schools is from the tax base, schools are limited in the services they can provide by the revenue they receive.  Many schools in my area receive donations from private citizens and community groups, however these contributions alone would fall far below the amount needed to support the school without these tax dollars.  I also believe, however, that offering tax credits to parents who send their child to private school or homeschool their child would encourage them to do so.  If they are homeschooled in a structured environment or private school they would receive a better education than most public school systems can offer and parents would have more control over the education they receive.

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References

Martin-Chang, S., Gould, O. N., & Meuse, R. E. (2011). The impact of schooling on Academic Achievement: Evidence from homeschooled and traditionally schooled students. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 43(3), 195-202.

NHERI. (2015). Retrieved from National Home Education Research Institute: http://nheri.org