Not since the olden days of blatant segregation when Blacks were forced to learn among themselves in run-down schoolhouses has there been such an opportunity to educate ourselves of our own culture, values, and philosophies of life as there is now. With the new wave of home schooling going on and all the new technology, it has become much easier and socially acceptable to teach your own children in the privacy of your own home.

Instead of complaining about public school teachers and competing for government funding, parents and teachers of urban areas can devise a program that would provide Black parents with another alternative - home schooling.

Instead of allowing Euro-indoctrination of your children, you can teach Black history, exalt Black heroes and heroines, activist and their purposes, inventors, religious and political leaders of Black America and especially the world. This is an opportunity to re-educate your children and wipe from their minds fables, myths, and fairy tales of white ideology.

Just how prevalent is home education today? The data indicate there are approximately 1.23 million American children being taught at home. This finding (which has an estimated margin of error of ± 10%) exceeds the total public school enrollment for the state of New Jersey, which has the 10th largest student population in the nation.

Put another way, there are more home school students nationwide than there are public school students in Wyoming, Vermont, Delaware, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Montana, and Hawaii - combined. In fact, America's home schoolers, collectively outnumber the individual statewide public school enrollments in each of 41 states.

Why are so many parents choosing to home school? Because it works. This study shows that home-educated students excel on nationally-normed standardized achievement exams. On average, home schoolers out-perform their public school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects.

Does race make a difference in academic performance? Math and reading scores for minority home schoolers show no significant difference when compared to whites. In reading, both white and minority home schoolers score at the 87th percentile. Only five points separate them in math - the 82nd percentile versus the 77th.

Home schoolers have been able to substantially eliminate the disparity between white and minority scores even when the samples are adjusted to reflect the exact same proportion of American Indians, Asians, blacks, and Hispanics.

© 2004 by AfroStaff