When most people think of home schooling, they are usually not thinking of online classes. However, home schooling can take a variety of shapes, including online learning, depending upon the needs of the parents and students. Everyone knows that the quality of education from one district to another can vary wildly. Some public school systems are noted for the quality of their education, while others lag sorely behind. Even within school districts, one school might be award winning while another is not. One teacher may be the best thing that happened to his students while another teacher is not competent to be teaching. Schools, both public and private, are uneven at best. Some provide children with a quality education while others, perhaps children who live just a few miles away, get ignored. Home schooling may be a good solution to this problem for many concerned parents. Online home schooling can help you overcome this problem for your children while you get the benefits of directly overseeing your child's education.
Online home schooling provides the same quality curriculum no matter where it is being delivered in the country. A child living in the projects in Chicago and another child living in an Alaskan farm four hours from nowhere can get access to the same quality curriculum as a child living in a rich suburb. For years people have been decrying inequality in U.S. public schools. Home schooling your child utilizing online education could be the perfect antidote to the problem of educational inequality and academic discrepancy among schools and school districts. This lack of equality is not just a problem for kids who want to go to college; a quality high school education is vital for economic and personal success outside of academia as well. Online home schooling doesn't just help prepare your child for college; it can help prepare him for the real world after he graduates. Kids who graduate from quality high schools get better, higher-paying jobs and go to better colleges than kids from lesser districts. With online home school classes, you can give your child the advantages that other children have from better school districts.
Access to online classes also ensures that your child gets the best instruction in subjects that you, as the parent-teacher of a home schooled child, may not be competent to teach yourself. For example, you may want to home school your child, but he is ready for a subject that you cannot effectively teach, like foreign language, chemistry, or calculus. An online home school class will give your child access to these higher-level classes even if they are not offered by your local school district. In this way, online home schooling can help your child compete in college admissions as well as in a career after the formal education is over- whether that is after high school or college graduation.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, author, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of almost 3 decades reside with their 8 children in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. because "our current system of education has broken its promise..." Learning By Grace, Inc. delivers Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children in the United States and throughout the world.
Rothschild has authored a number of books about education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Daily Education News Blog contains feature stories on alternatives in education.