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Sharon and David Williams once viewed their children as Christian missionaries to their public-school system.

Yet in 1982, Sharon, herself a former public-school teacher, re-evaluated that stance in light of her children's three hours daily on a school bus, inadequate instruction, harmful peer influences, and, in one case, a sexually explicit film in French class.

After considering a private Christian school, the Williamses deemed the $500 per month for four children as unaffordable. Sharon Williams, looking at the alternatives, eventually determined to educate her children herself. Today, 13 years later, those children have completed high school and are in college, trade school, or the work force. Another seven Williams children are learning in their Lombard, Illinois, home.

Initially, David Williams says he struggled with whether his wife could handle teaching and whether the children would still adapt to society. "It's an incredible stress on the mother," he says. "But we wanted to move in the direction of our convictions."

MOVEMENT GOES MAINSTREAM: While an estimated 80 percent of the one million home-educated students in the United States are Christian, reasons for opting out of public education now extend beyond religion.

As doubts about the effectiveness of public education have grown, home schoolers have, by default, found themselves at the forefront of educational innovation. They have been busy in the home classroom experimenting with fresh teaching methods, integrating computer technology, partnering with colleges, and, in some cases, imparting religious instruction.

Home schooling has become a far more manageable exercise with new curriculums on the market, greater access to public-school programs, and a boom in affordable home-computer technology.

A decade ago, home schoolers engaged in brutal fights with local school districts and state lawmakers for the right to exist (CT, Sept. 2, 1983, p. 18). Now home education is legal in every state.

Some 30 states have standardized testing requirements for home-educated children, and only ten states require parents to have a high-school diploma to teach their own children at home. About three-dozen states require home schoolers to register with the local public school, while five states require formal "approval" from local school boards or superintendents.

Patricia Lines, policy analyst with the U.S. Department of Education, says few public-school officials see home schooling as a threat, because the movement involves less than 2 percent of the nation's 50 million school-age children. Home schooling does not influence real estate taxes, a principal source of income for public education. Also, many states now count home-schooled children in public-educational, per-student funding formulas.

"For a determined [home-schooling] family, there's really nothing they can't accomplish," Lines says. "We certify [public-school] teachers to learn how to establish discipline and how to teach to a group. I've seen no evidence that a teaching certificate would enhance a one-on-one situation."

August Steinhilber, general counsel for the 16,000-member National School Boards Association in Alexandria, Virginia, also sounds a conciliatory note. "Most parents are qualified because they know what's best for their children," Steinhilber says. "The only drawback is when the parent doesn't take the responsibility seriously."

Academically, home-schooled students are frequently top achievers, scoring higher than the national average on standardized achievement tests. Researcher Brian D. Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute in Salem, Oregon, found in an analysis last year that 16,000 home schoolers ranked in the seventy-seventh percentile of Iowa Tests of Basic Skills basic battery scores.

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July 17 1995, Vol. 39, No. 8