Tantalizing Findings on Public School, Private School, and Homeschool Students

Published: Tue, 08/23/11

Hello, , from NHERI.

A new study offers intriguing findings about the beliefs and practices of graduates of various types of institutional schooling, but only limited tantalizing tidbits regarding the home educated. Ray Pennings and his colleagues recently released their report entitled, Cardus Education Survey: Do the Motivations for Private Religious, Catholic, and Protestant Schooling in North America Align with Graduate Outcomes? [note 1]

Their research analyzes various dependent variables (e.g., beliefs, religious service attendance, charitable giving) according to the independent variable of "type of school" - that is, public, Catholic, religious school (not Catholic), non-religious private, and homeschool - primarily attended by the respondent during high school. The purpose of their project is significant, valuable, and valid. And they offer a myriad of statistics, findings, and conclusions that will generate discussion for years to come amongst those interested in the objectives and effects of K-to-12 "Christian" schooling compared to public schooling and other "non-religious" schooling.

In the end, however, the findings presented reveal very little dependable information about the graduates of home-based education. The reasons for this deficiency are basically three-fold. First, the homeschool sample size was very small. Less than 90 of the roughly 2,000 respondents were homeschooled, and only a portion (that was not reported) of the 90 had been in religious homeschools (i.e., the "mother attended religious services regularly") [note 2], and religious instruction was a critical consideration in this study.

Second, homeschooled in this report is operationally defined as the respondent marking that he or she primarily attended homeschool during high school. The report does not reveal for how many of their K-12 years they were home educated.

Finally, the statistical tests were executed in such a way that it would be relatively likely to find significant differences between the various school types. With these notable limitations in mind, one might consider some of the findings of the study that relate to those who attended high school in religious homeschools.

Here are some examples of what the researchers found. "First, the data reveal that reverence for the church and its authority is much greater [i.e., statistically significant, with alpha set at 0.10] among Protestant Christian school graduates than among any other school sector. Protestant Christian school and [religious] homeschool graduates are attending church with greater regularity than their public, Catholic, and non-religious school peers ..." (p. 16), and the effect of Protestant Christian schools and homeschools is strong.

Second, "... Protestant Christian school and [religious] homeschool graduates hold more strongly to the belief that morality is unchanging and absolute ... ..... On other measures, such as belief that the Bible is infallible ..., Protestant Christian school and to a lesser degree [religious] homeschool graduates are once again distinct in their belief in the traditional teachings of the church ....." (p. 17).

Here is another relevant finding:

On every measure of traditional religious beliefs, Protestant Christian school graduates show significantly more adherence to the church teachings than their peers [including religious homeschool graduates], findings that hold up after rigorous controls, indicating the impact of the Protestant Christian school on the long-term religious beliefs of their graduates. (p. 17)

As a fourth example, the researchers reported the following:

Belief in moral absolutes translates into cultural issues as well, with Protestant Christian school and [religious] homeschool graduates reporting a countercultural belief that premarital sex, living together before marriage, and divorce are morally wrong ... (p. 17)

For many Christian advocates of homeschooling, the following finding might not be encouraging:

One of the most significant findings in this study is the long-term commitment of Protestant Christian school graduates to stay within the Protestant faith. ..... Other schooling types, including Catholic schools [and religious homeschools], have no impact on the religious affiliations their graduates choose as adults. (p. 19)

Again, however, the reader should note that the sample size for religious homeschool graduates was very small, the report does not reveal for how many years a graduate had been in religious homeschooling (or Protestant Christian school or Catholic school or public school), and the threshold for statistical significance was set relatively low.

The authors also offered some thoughtful ponderings about some of their findings. For example, consider the following:

While in one respect the unwavering and unquestioning belief in the Christian faith is admirable, we are also troubled by these findings. Our analysis leads us to question if an authoritarian culture at some Protestant Christians school is contributing to a faith that focuses on pietism rather than piety by way of a dictatorial approach to study of the Bible, which may result in a surface engagement and understanding of the whole of the Christian faith. We wonder if this compliance has an impact on the development of the intellect, as well as a desire to be engaged in culture, ... (p. 17) Are Protestant Christian schools focusing on pietistic behaviors rather than a systematic theology? Are they therefore unable to produce graduates who are truly engaged in culture? (p. 37)

The survey and findings presented in this report are wide-ranging and fascinating. The authors executed a good design that offers solid findings mainly about high school graduates who primarily attended public school, Catholic schools, religious schools (not Catholic), and non-religious private schools during their high school years.

Certain limitations, such as the extremely small sample size for graduates of religious homeschool high schools, do not allow much of substance to be said about those who were raised in "religious" homeschool families. Perhaps the authors of this research project will offer more in future reports about adults who were home educated.

 
Brian D. Ray, Ph.D.
National Home Education Research Institute


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Notes:

1. Pennings, Ray; Seel, John; Van Pelt, Deani A. Neven; Sikkink, David; & Wiens, Kathryn L. (2011). Cardus Education Survey: Do the motivations for private religious, Catholic, and Protestant schooling in North America align with graduate outcomes? Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: Cardus, www.cardus.ca.

2. Personal communication with one of the report's authors, August 19, 2011.