Tennessee Education Board Fails Research Test
By Blue Collar Muse Posted in State Politics — Comments (27) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Recently, the Tennessee State Board of Education ruled diplomas issued to home-schooled students from religious based schools were invalid as proof of the successful completion of High School should it be presented for employment purposes for a job for which state law requires a diploma. You read that right. According to the State Board of Education, all diplomas are equal but some diplomas are more equal than others.
Read on . . .
According to Tennessee ConserVOLiance blogger Red Hat Rob,
... anyone from a public school (or a private accredited school) who presents a diploma in order to be hired as a daycare worker, police officer, fireman (or any other position which state law requires a high school diploma for) will be automatically accepted. Anyone who presents a homeschool diploma will be automatically rejected.
The Board of Education's rationale is since they had no input over the curricula which resulted in the diploma, they won't recognize the diploma since they don't know what it represents. For instance, the diploma could mean only that the student had 12 years of school yet cannot read well enough to complete an employment application and will need remedial classes for his first year of college.
But there's a problem. It's nicely pointed out by Red Hat Rob.
I have some news for the Department of Education officials. When a public school graduate presents a diploma, no one has any way to tell what it represents either. Did the ertswhile young graduate have an A average or a D- average? There is no minimum GPA requirement for graduation from a public high school in Tennessee.
Education has always been a prime subject for measurement. I'm not particularly opposed to that since I'm a big believer in rewarding individual effort if it's successful and working to improve performance if it isn't. To do that it is vital we know how well a particular person is doing in the skill we're measuring. The Tennessee Board of Education and Red Hat Rob are both right on one thing. The presentation of a diploma is no measure of a student's learning or ability. It only means the student has completed 12 grades. For that reason, Big Education has always touted certain metrics as being indicative of the success or failure of educators in providing a quality education. High on the list of metrics is ACT scores. They are useful for group comparisons as opposed to individual successes or failures.
Red Hat Rob refers us to the ACT itself, which reports in ACT News, that in 2007, the national average score on the ACT was 21.2. The average score for High Scool grads in Tennessee was 20.7. That makes Tennessee students just a little less than average as a group. While that figure is a composite of home educated, privately educated and governmentally educated students who took the test, it generally may be taken to mean that Tennessee's Board of Education is willing to accept as satisfactory a diploma that represents a slightly less than average education.
What would be really interesting is examining data that broke down the different groups based on performance. How do government schools compare to home schools, for example? Fortunately we have just such a comparison available. Red Hat Rob refers us to a report from the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), an official site of the United States Department of Education, which has such numbers from 1998.
An ERIC digest titled 'The Scholastic Achievement of Home Schooled Students' from September of 1999 found the following:
Almost 25% of home school students were enrolled one or more grades above their age-level peers in public and private schools.
Home school student achievement test scores were exceptionally high. The median scores for every subtest at every grade (typically in the 70th to 80th percentile) were well above those of public and Catholic/Private school students.
On average, home school students in grades 1 to 4 performed one grade level above their age-level public/private school peers on achievement tests.
Students who had been home schooled their entire academic life had higher scholastic achievement test scores than students who had also attended other educational programs.
It further found,
Even with a conservative analysis of the data, the achievement levels of the home school students in the study were exceptional. Within each grade level and each skill area, the median scores for home school students fell between the 70th and 80th percentile of students nationwide and between the 60th and 70th percentile of Catholic/Private school students. For younger students, this is a one year lead. By the time home school students are in 8th grade, they are four years ahead of their public/private school counterparts.
The results are consistent with previous studies of the achievement of home school students.
Addressing our question of ACT scores, a long standing metric for determining academic success, the digest reports,
Home school students did quite well in 1998 on the ACT college entrance examination. They had an average ACT composite score of 22.8 which is .38 standard deviations above the national ACT average of 21.0 (ACT,1998).This places the average home school student in the 65th percentile of all ACT test takers.
What was the ACT composite score for Tennessee students for 1998? In the year homeschoolers averaged 22.8 and the national average was 21.0, Tennessee's students scored just 19.8, a full 3 points below home schoolers. This put Tennessee ahead of only North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Washington DC. The composite home school score places them FIRST among the 51 jurisdictions represented in the study.
Unfortunately, the digest attempts to downplay the astounding statistics noting,
The superior performance of home school students on achievement tests can easily be misinterpreted. This study does not demonstrate that home schooling is superior to public or private schools. It should not be cited as evidence that our public schools are failing. It does not indicate that children will perform better academically if they are home schooled. The design of this study and the data do not warrant such claims. All the comparisons of home school students with the general population and with the private school population in this report fail to consider a myriad of differences between home school and public school students. We have no information as to what the achievement levels of home school students would be had they been enrolled in public or private schools. This study only shows that a large group of parents choosing to make a commitment to home schooling were able to provide a very successful academic environment.
In essence, it says the digest reports home school students outperform government school students by significant margins. They do so throughout their academic careers. They do so measured any way you choose, including standardized tests. They do so consistently as reported in studies covering a variety of samples, locations and times. But ERIC concludes home schools are not superior to government schools. It only demonstrates " ... home schooling [provides] a very successful academic environment." I only attended government schools but even I can read between those lines and discern the truth.
Tennessee's Board of Education is going with the government line "Home schooling must be automatically rejected since we don't know what they've learned" and "Government schools must be accepted since we know what they've learned." Unfortunately, State educators missed the widely available and easily located studies and reports that prove them wrong. They didn't do their homework. Or perhaps they missed the lesson on how to do a research paper. We shouldn't hold it against them, though. They probably went to government schools, too.
You missed the primary content of the blog, which is that whatever data is available, it invariably shows that home-schoolers do better than the general public school population, yet the Tennessee State BOE has decided to discriminate against home-schoolers.
It seems to be a case of NEA pressure, and I don't even have to look it up.
If you want a reason for the superior performance, my guess is that it's due to the presence of a dedicated teacher (the parent) and small class size. And it may also be that parents smart enough to be that dedicated may also pass along some "smart" genes.
Arizona has a requirement to pass a standardized test in order to receive a high school diploma. That is too hard, so the state will now award "scholastic points" based on grades to students that need them to get their diploma. Of course, inflated grading was the reason given to require the test in the first place. So much for a meritocracy in Arizona schools.
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
No, I did not miss the assertion that available data shows home-schoolers do better than the public/private school students. Unfortunately, while some studies show that some home-school students do better than the average public/private school students (which includes special ed students, ESL students, and the students who make smiley faces on the Scantrons), I have yet to see a study that purports to show that, controlling for relevant demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, home-schooled students perform better than public/private school students. The OP quotes the government report that explain why it cannot make this case pretty clearly. If you know of such a study, I would be very interested in reading it.
Now, on whether home-schoolers should be allowed to be firemen or police, I have no strong feeling either way. In any case, I'll leave it up to the voters of Tennessee to decide.
The study you want is right before your eyes. The ACT scores were for all graduating students who took the test. That's ESL students, Special Ed students and so on. If they took the test, their numbers were counted.
Home schooled students performed well enough that if they were their own state, they'd have finished first. That's all home schooled students lumped together. The good, the bad and the ugly. While I can sympathize that the numbers for the government schools are poor, they still reflect only those students taking the ACT. It seems entirely likely to me that most of the Special Education students did not take the ACT. I'm willing to be shown data that would correct me but it seems likely. That would mean the government school numbers and the home school numbers are valid comparisons.
As to your point that the voters of Tennessee should decide and you'll live with that decision. We here in Tennessee wish that it were so. Perhaps you'd like to run for office in Tennessee as a Democrat with your enlightened permission for the people to decide.
Unfortunately for those of us living in the real world, while there was an immediate bill introduced in the House for Tennessee to recognize Category IV diplomas as valid, and while that bill barely made it out of subcommittee, it died in committee until 2009. The fact that there are 21 Democrats on a committee with only 25 members didn't have anything to do with that we're all sure. Just like the SJR 127 the Democrats locked up in committee and which I posted on here at Redstate. And just like the Democrats obey the Tennessee state constitution which says our Supreme Court judges should be elected directly by the people but which, in reality, are appointed by committee and then put on the ballot. We're having to sue in Federal Court just to get the Democrats to obey our constitution.
Given that our elected officials are so bad, there's no difficulty in explaining why the state's Board of Education is both arrogant and ignorant by turns.
You can object all you like. But in the cesspool that is the Tennessee Democratic Party, this sort of thing is daily fare.
Never fear, however, election by election, we're getting rid of these folks. We started with Sasser and then Gore and now we're cleaning up the state. It can't happen soon enough.
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I'm sorry you don't like the results of your representative government, although I think about 99.99% of Americans are in the same boat to some degree. You state the fool-proof method to remedy this, and I wish you good luck in this effort.
That said, you are claiming that a sample need not be representative in order to make reasonable statistical claims. This undeniably and unequivocally false. Any statistics textbook will explain this in great detail.
Finally, my comment on Special Ed and ESL students was directed toward acheivement tests like the ITBS, which was referenced in the government report. Regardless, you still need to know whether the group of home-schooled students is representative of the group of all home-schooled students to make meaningful claims about ACT results. Even then, you would need to control for relavant characteristics to make claims about whether any difference in ACT score is related to the method of schooling.
"I have yet to see a study that purports to show that, controlling for relevant demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, home-schooled students perform better than public/private school students."
I suppose you would contend that the comparison of results of students taking the ACT from the two groups was "uncontrolled" by your definition. I would agree to that extent. But that's irrelevant to the contention of the OP, which was that there's no reason to believe that home-schooled Tennessee students are inferior academically to the others. And the ACT results suggest, but don't prove, that the contention is correct.
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
You have hopelessly jumbled your figures.
First, the 1.1 million students you reference from Wikipedia is close enough that I'll accept it. But those are government school enrollment figures.
The 1998 study did, indeed, sample a shade over 20,000 home school students and that number is, indeed, 2% or so of the 1 million government school student figure.
However, it is not, as you suggest, "this particular 2% of home-schooled students". I've been looking and cannot find a figure for the total number of students home schooled in Tennessee. One thing is certain, it is nowhere near a million.
Second, my point was that the value of a diploma issued to a home schooled graduate could be measured by an independent metric - ACT scores. That remains true regardless of how many home schoolers there are as compared to government schooled students. Because the sample for that statistic is ALL of the people who actually took the ACT, not self reporting home schoolers.
Per the study, the 77% of graduating students taking the ACT in 1998, covered all types of schooling environments - home, private and government. The composite score was 19.8. When Home schoolers as a group were split out, they did significantly better. That's not arguable.
It can be argued legitimately that a figure north of 65% of graduating homeschoolers were included in that 77% of all graduating students who took it. That makes the 3 point difference in actual performance quite trustworthy and legitimate. It also demonstrates that the Tennessee Board of Education is all wet in refusing to accept a diploma issued by a church sponsored home school group.
All the obfuscation concerning how many of which group of students and so on participated in the opt in study is irrelevant when comparing the ACT scores. There, the numbers are crystal clear and an apples to apples comparison.
It is, thus, up to the government schools and their apologists to prove that the rest of homeschoolers don't perform at the same high level as those we have data for and not the other way around. Dismissing home schoolers because you don't control their curricula when they beat the snot out of you on standardized tests makes educators look like the ones who should have their credentials revoked.
Blue
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In regards to your first point, the 1.1 million figure is indeed the estimated number of home-schooled students in America and not the number of students in public schools. Per Wikipedia, there are about 50 million students in public and private schools, a pretty reasonable figure in a population of 300 million. Whether or not the students live in Tennessee has nothing to do with the claim that home-schoolers have higher acheivement.
Your second point is a restatement of the claim that was specifically addressed in my previous post. Yes, those particular students did better than average on the ACT. However, this in absolutely no way implies home-schoolers in general do better than public/private school students. This is because you have no idea what the composition of the group who took the ACT is relative to all home-schoolers (ie representative in the statistical sense)
Here's a more concrete example. In typical, non-verifiable internet fashion, let me boast that my SAT score was in the 99th percentile. I achieved this by sleeping at least half the day in high school. Would you claim that my sleeping method is superior to the average students method of paying attention in class? Surely not, even though it is undeniably true that my SAT score was above average. Now, if a representative sample of students used my sleeping method and had higher than average SAT score, you could reasonably make this claim (though I sincerely doubt it would occur). Whether the group of home-schooled students who took the ACT is representative of the whole group of home-schooled students is absolutely relevant to making a claim about the entire population versus only particular members.
To your third point, it's mostly home-schoolers who make assertions about the efficacy of home-schooling relative to public/private schools. In the absence of any evidence that either is better in general than the other, it is up to the person making the claim to provide evidence for this claim. Indeed, this wouldn't be too hard to actually do. The government report referenced in the OP spells out pretty clearly what such a study would entail.
Finally, the issue of whether home-schooled students should be allowed to become firemen in Tennessee is ultimately a political one, and thus easy enough to change. For example, iirc, the military used to not value a home-school diploma the same as a traditional diploma for recruitment purposes, enlistment bonuses, etc. Enough people complained loud enough, and the policy was changed. Problem solved.
And for the life of me I can't figure out if you scored that high why you can't see that the original post was specific to Tennessee.
Unless the sample of home-schooled students is representative, it is also an anecdotal example. I understand quite well that the political problem is specific to Tennessee (not accepting home-school diplomas). However, the claim that home-schooled students do better in general than public/private school students is more general in nature. Furthermore, the general question is much more interesting to me than the political issue, which has a pretty simple solution (elect more people who agree with you).
Why stop in the U.S.? Isn't your sample also not representative enough because it doesn't include the entire world? Education varies from state to state (public, private, and home) as it does from nation to nation.
I see no reason why a statistical sample in Tennessee is not represenatative of the issue. I see no reason why it couldn't be reduced to a single school district, so long as someone doesn't try to apply statistics there beyond that specific group.
So what evidence do you have that the sample is representative of all home-schooled students in Tennessee? Where are the controlled studies that compare the population of home-schooled students in Tennessee with the population of public school students in Tennessee? I have yet to see it in any of the references in the OP, or in posts since. Per a previous post, if you know of such, I would love to read them.
You know the one, "There's lies, there's damn lies and then there's statistics."
You combine and compare three totally different controls and then opine and expect me to accept your conclusions? The number of home schooled students nationwide may be 1.1 million. So what? We're talking about home schoolers in Tennessee. If you are going to denigrate the sample, at least stick to the numbers being used.
You downplay the 20,000 figure as being only those who chose to opt in when it suits you to use the figure appropriately. But when other opt in group numbers (those opting to take the ACT)are properly used, you toss in numbers that you cannot even state with certainty made up the groups.
Your point is that you don't believe home schooling is a better form of education. Fine. It's your thinking you're contaminating with bad numbers.
You offer your sleeping analogy. It's not a bad one. The only thing lacking is, as you say, trying that course with a large number of people and seeing the results. That is precisely what is being done with home schooling. And when you get results you don't like, you obfuscate.
The truth of the matter is, like private school education before it, home schooling - as a group method - is superior to both private schooling and government schooling. If for no other reason than the ones the government schools are always touting - student/teacher ratios and the like.
Why fight that we are doing a better job? Why not embrace the practice? Or at least commission the very studies you say you want. My family is ready and willing to put our kids in the pool if you are. Might it be that it's easier for the NEA and professional educators to sling mud without proof than it is to actually SEE who is right? They are the ones with the most to lose. If home schoolers - poor ignorant stay at home moms who want the best for their kids and sacrifice greatly to provide it - if they outperform the BAs, the Masters and the PhD educators, what does that say about government education.
The study you want, to confirm what people without an axe to grind and with children to protect (parents) already know - that home schooling is the superior option - will never be done. Home schoolers don't have the need or the funds. But all we want is to be left alone to pursue excellence. The people with the most at stake here, and the ones who claim to be in it for the children, won't commission the study despite having the time and the money. They aren't stupid, just possessed of power. And they aren't about to kill the goose that lays golden eggs for them year in and year out.
One statistic should tell you all you need to know about home schooling. Run down which parental occupation had the highest percentage of their kids in private schools when that option became readily available. Run down the same question as it pertains to home schoolers. The teachers know, the educators know and we both know, too. Time to cowboy up and take the medicine. If you swallow real fast and grab some water afterward, the taste doesn't even linger very long.
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My point is specifically not that traditional schooling is better than home-schooling. I have no dog in that fight. Indeed, my children will all attend public school regardless. However, if home-schooling is indeed better in general than traditional schooling, that would be just fine with me. You are claiming, though, to have evidence (in the statistical sense) that you simply do not have. Why aren't good studies being done by like-minded folks with a little bit of scratch? Such a study would be a stake through the heart to any objections that reasonable people might have to home-schooling.
This is a beauty.
"Your second point is a restatement of the claim that was specifically addressed in my previous post. Yes, those particular students did better than average on the ACT. However, this in absolutely no way implies home-schoolers in general do better than public/private school students. This is because you have no idea what the composition of the group who took the ACT is relative to all home-schoolers (ie representative in the statistical sense)"
Well, a valid conclusion to draw from this data is certainly that of the two groups being compared, the home-schoolers did better. Since the people in both groups who took the ACT were college-bound students, one can say that "college-bound home-schoolers did better than college-bound non-home-schoolers."
Are we expected to believe that the non-college-bound home-schoolers were not also superior to their counterparts? There may be no evidence either way, but when given such a large group for comparison (all the ACT test-takers), there is no reason to believe that those who didn't participate wouldn't have the same results. And if you consider what reasons there may be for the initial test results under comparison, you might draw the conclusion that home schooling would be even more beneficial (in the sense of producing better results) for the non-college-bound students.
Or, you could simply draw the conclusion that no evidence of that particular group means you don't even want to speculate either way.
BTW, your sleeping example is silly of course, but if you had a sample population of over 20,000 students who used your method, and they did 1.5 SD better than the rest of the population taking the test, one would be hard-pressed to deny that there was a strong possibility of a causal relationship. The difference between your example and real life is that the real-life case presents some non-silly reasoning behind its results, including smaller class size and (reasonably likely) more dedicated teachers.
"Whether the group of home-schooled students who took the ACT is representative of the whole group of home-schooled students is absolutely relevant to making a claim about the entire population versus only particular members."
That would be true, yet impossible. Students who take the ACT are by definition not representative of all students. But a claim wasn't made about the scores of the students, other than to illustrate that the opinion expressed in policy by the TN SBOE was unsupported by evidence.
Given the context of the OP (that the Tennessee SBOE was discriminating unfairly against home-schoolers), the evidence that is presented above is certainly adequate to demonstrate that the discrimination is arbitrary and capricious.
Do you have a dog in the fight?
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
None is so blind as he who will not see.
Willful blindness makes me a little suspicious.
Democrats: Abandoning Allies, One Country at a Time.
I gots a niece that was home schooled and her has her little lawyer doctorate at the tender age of 23.
Not bad, even for a Texan.
I, o'coarse, went to pulik sckewl.
"Government of the people, by the people, for the people."
A. Lincoln
I would never choose home schooling for my own children, but from a policy perspective I can't understand the resistance to this option given the cronic overcrowding of our schools.
If a qualified parent wants to alleviate the state's burden to educate their children allow them to do so.
There are failed cases in both areas of schooling. Although, when my children take something called Standford Achievement Tests, they average much higher compared to public schools than private. They have those scores side by side.
Because of prejudices out there against Homeschoolers, when my oldest child is ready to graduate, I plan on getting a little piece of paper that is entitled GED.
I'm not sure where people's prejudices come from but I think I have a GREAT guess. It seems that the prejudices come from the same place that we took out kids out of. You know the system. The one that never seems to ever have enough of your tax dollars to pay their teacher's retirement funds. The ones that fear a wave that is increasing every year and taking away tax dollars away from their salaries. Even though we don't use the system, they manage to charge the taxpayers $2,000 dollars per year/per child. They don't even know that we exist! You know the system that teaches everyone the same, and hardly any individuality. The system that wants your challenged learning kids because they get more money for them and an extra aid in the classroom to help control behaviors that prevent your kid from learning. You know, the system that allows the religion of Darwinism but doesn't allow "other" reasons for man's existence. The system that believes the first Amendment says there shall be a separation from church and state and freedom from religion. You know, the one who says that Johnny can't draw a picture of a gun and he gets expelled for doing that. It's that system that says that you have nothing to teach your child and WE can raise your kids better than you can. We are the experts!!! The ones that question, "how in the world you are going to socialize your children?" while little Johnny has learned about sex, drugs, smoking, cursing, has been belittled, questioned about his sexual orientation, and says that he doesn't have any friends.
Yep... I'd say that was a pretty good guess. The system has something to fear, otherwise, why would they care?
Interesting points. Your post got me thinking.
The public school system is often credited with being an acculturating force in our national identity, in many ways facilitating the assimilation of second generation immigrant communities.
I don't really have a point here other than to wonder aloud if home schooling would be regarded so benevolently by this right of center audience if 1st generation immigrant parents living in ethnic enclaves and gateway cities chose to homeschool their second generation children.
Thoughts?
Are likely also a reason that the upcoming Baby-Cons (college conservatives), while Constitutionally conservative are Socially Liberal. They have been "assimilated"---
.
"who needs Christian vales anyway, sure they worked for 2000 years but we're a MODERN country", seems to be the message taught in all public schools. "hide you BC and condoms from Mom and Dad and if you get pregnant just abort and don't tell them-after all you have confidentiality with your Doctor, school Nurse and Councellor--soon probably your teacher too!! Eventually we'll just take Mom Dad and their soooo yesterday values out of the picture entirely and just get you a card to their account and an appartment of your own, after all you're 13, 16, 18, 21, 25 and know soooo much better than those old Bible Bangers"
But I guess you're right, in the case of immagrants learning English assimilation occasionally works in our favor.
As for the rest "socilization" is brainwashing our kids and ensuring the Dems will have plenty of party members in the future. Also ensuring that our country goes down the moral, and financial toilet.
ancestors and their relatives were turned away from the public schools they turned to their church (Roman Catholic) to establish schools for them (They were too busy working 12 hr days in the mills). At that time the schools were entirely supported by the parish.
They also realized at the outset that success depended on knowing how to speak English and made that part of the curriculum. They didn't shield the children from the 'Anglo' world but made knowing their own values and culture important.
The schools had to meet all the state's academic requirements and their diplomas held equal weight. I'm sure that other immigrant groups had the same problem and probably dealt with it one way or another.
Eventually the anti-French-Canadian mind set went away which hastened the demise of the Catholic Schools. A few still remain but are threatened by rising costs. Most are now tuition based schools.
In the end...we assimilated!!!
I'd recommend it, if it were that type of post. The shaft they're trying to give homeschool students in TN is stunning in its coarseness.
1) Does the State of Tennessee permit parents to home-school their children in lieu of public or accredited private schools? Do they allow home schooling through high school?
2) Is there any requirement for oversight by local, county, or state education boards? If not, how does the state ensure that its education laws are being followed. For instance, how do parent verify that they are not violating truancy laws. How do they demonstrate that there actually is schooling occurring and that the children are not working 15 hours a day doing piece work, for instance?
3) The issuing authority for high school diplomas is usual specified by state statute. How is it that the issuing authority is not under the authority of the TN BOE? And if not, who issues diplomas in TN, and if this is a different agency, why is the recognition of diplomas administratively separate from the issuance of diplomas?
4) Conversely, assuming that the homeschooling is legal in TN and that homeschools can legally issue diplomas to their students, how then can the TN BOE deny validation without offering an alternative route to a high school equivalency degree? Are you saying that these homeschool graduates can apply to colleges on the basis of these diplomas but the TN BOE can bar these graduates from using these diplomas for employment purposes without providing an equivalency alternative?
2) Is there any requirement for oversight by local, county, or state education boards? If not, how does the state ensure that its education laws are being followed. For instance, how do parent verify that they are not violating truancy laws. How do they demonstrate that there actually is schooling occurring and that the children are not working 15 hours a day doing piece work, for instance?
Parents should not have to "demonstrate" any such thing.
If somebody wants to charge parents with violating laws, then they should have to file an appropriate charge against the parents and prove it in a court. The burden of proof should be upon the accuser.
And this is essentially the situation in some homeschooling-friendly states - Michigan, for example. School boards in MI sometimes try to bamboozle parents and assert authority, but they have none. The burden is upon the state to prove that education is not taking place.
There are three options. I'm getting this information per the HSLDA.com. (That's Home School Legal Defense which I highly recommend any homeschooler to join) Two of the options involve an "umbrella" of a private/religious school. The one option is that parents have a diploma or GED K thru 8. A BA for 9-12. All but one REQUIRE you to take standardized tests not to mention reporting under the watchful eye of the superintendent every year. The other one that doesn't require standardized tests is an school that does their own testing. They all have to attend 180 days a year.
Listen to this: "For grades 9-12: Either college preparatory courses---those required for admission to state-operated four-year colleges, OR general studies courses---those required by the state board of education for high school graduation."
This is just one of the many restrictions that apply in that state to make sure those darn home school parents don't screw up their own kids!!!
My point, with all of these regulations that the state mandates for homeschoolers, how could they now say that a diploma is not good in this state? The parents have already jumped through these hoops and have been tested via the state regulations. Maybe what they are really saying here is that their tests are bad?!
Stupid, just stupid. Then people question why you would want less government.
I'm very glad that 20k self-selected home-schooled students, out of approximately 1.1 million (from Wikipedia), are doing well. However, which 2% chose to respond? Did that group have relatively more or fewer dumb kids than the group of all home-schoolers? If I had to guess, I'm willing to bet that it is the latter, since, in my experience, the parents of smart kids like to boast about their kid's brains a little more than the parents of dumb kids. How well would a comparable sample of public-school students do? How well would a self-selected sample of public-school students do? The ERIC digest gives no indication, and neither does the OP.
Once again, I think the results of the survey are great. However, the fact that this particular 2% of home-schooled students are doing well is neither an indictment of public shcooling nor some sort of affirmation of home-schooling (from the statistical perspective, at least).