Hello, , from NHERI.

What about the amount of violence in public schools compared to in homeschools? To answer this, one must first define violence. On the one hand, a person might mean "exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse." :[i] If this is the definition, violence happens both at State schools and at homes where families practice home-based education or homeschooling. Yes, sometimes public school teachers injure or abuse their students, students harm their teachers, and students harm one another, and sometimes such harm is inflicted in homeschooling families.

Of course, the topic of school-related violence becomes high on the public conscience when very obvious and evil deeds are done such as those in an elementary school in Connecticut last week, and when news and people around the United States and other nations are so quickly connected by technology. Furthermore, people begin to wonder again and more about the "safety" of children in public schools compared to those who are home educated. (This author was interviewed by media on this topic, just a few hours ago.)

Yes, plenty of violence occurs in and related to State-run public schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the following:[ii]

  1.      17 homicides of school-age youth ages 5 to 18 years occurred at school during the 2009-2010 school year.

  2.      In 2010, there were about 828,000 nonfatal victimizations at school among students 12 to 18 years of age.

  3.      Approximately 7% of teachers report that they have been threatened with injury or physically attacked by a student from their school.

  4.      In 2009, about 20% of students ages 12-18 reported that gangs were present at their school during the school year.

A recent nationwide survey of youth in grades 9-12 found the following:[iii]

  1.      12% reported being in a physical fight on school property in the 12 months before the survey.

  2.      5.9% reported that they did not go to school on one or more days in the 30 days before the survey because they felt unsafe at school or on their way to or from school.

  3.      7.4% reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property one or more times in the 12 months before the survey.

  4.      20% reported being bullied on school property and 16% reported being bullied electronically during the 12 months before the survey.

To date, this author knows of scant research to suggest whether more violence, per student or school personnel, occurs in State (public) schools or in homeschools. A careful reading of anecdotes and news stories and plenty of experience, however, say the rate is higher in and related to State schools than in families' home-based educational environments.

Homeschooling parents have been telling researchers for decades - long before the school shootings in places such as Jonesboro, Ark., Springfield, Ore., Columbine, Colo., and Newtown, Conn. - that safety for their children is a key reason for home-based education. One nationwide study of homeschoolers found that 88% of the parents gave as a reason for homeschooling the following: A concern about the school environment, and this meant reasons of "safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure."[iv] Dr. Brian Ray and the National Home Education Research Institute have lumped parents' myriad reasons into seven categories for many years. One of the seven is to "provide a safer environment for children and youth, because of physical violence, drugs and alcohol, psychological abuse, and improper and unhealthy sexuality associated with institutional schools."[v]

And the last point brings this article to another definition of violence, as follows: "Outrage; unjust force; crimes of all kinds." [vi] This kind of violence is not new to mankind. It has been raging, calming, spreading, and receding at different times in different places in different ways for thousands of years. If you believe He is real, consider that God tells Homo sapiens that long ago, at the time of Noah, the following was the state of affairs: "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence."[vii] Various individuals and groups have wronged others, gone for unjust gain, damaged other persons and property, acted falsely, oppressed others, and lived unrighteous lives and governments have perpetrated injustice throughout history. Such behaviors were rampant at the time of Noah, and many see the same becoming, if not already, rampant today in various nations.

Shootings with firearms might capture the headlines, mesmerize the public for a few days - and the deaths and injuries from them are tragic, indeed - and motivate various individuals or groups to emotionally propose "new legislation" in an attempt to preclude people from doing bad things with certain kinds of tools. At the same time, however, it is important to keep perspective by noting that violence related to schools "... can include emotional and physical ridicule or bullying, assaults, threats, sexual offenses, as well as the less apparent but equally important components of graffiti and vandalism, trespassing and gangs"[viii] and pressure to engage in sex outside of marriage, abuse the use of drugs and alcohol, become estranged from parents and other significant adults in a child's life, or develop a peer-oriented way of life that becomes fixated on video games, various genres of un-edifying music, clothing, and other physical things, or, in the end, embrace a belief system that holds that self or the State is god. As one example of violence other than the kind that is only of physical force, a review of research revealed that about 10% of all school students nationwide are the victims of sexual misconduct (e.g., abuse, harassment) by school staff (e.g., teachers, administrators, custodians).[ix] That is to say, State-school personnel are regularly sexually mistreating students - at least one in ten of them.

All of these kinds of things are violence, "crimes of all kinds," that harm children and affect their minds and hearts. Parents who home educate their children simply want their children to be able to read books, take care of pets, do math games, draw pictures, and play with friends and siblings in a safe and enjoyable environment. They know, from research and experience, that schools are not as safe as many people want to believe.

Research shows that homeschooling parents do not think their children need to be bullied at age 7 to learn how to be "tough" and deal with the "real world" when they get to be 19. They do not think their 12-year-old needs to hear about or see oral sex between two peers in order to learn well his science lessons or be a "well-adjusted adult" some day. These parents do not think their daughter needs to go through a metal detector to get into school or hear the screams or profanity of fighting students in order to "get a good education." They figure that Mom and Dad, a couple of siblings, a learning co-operative, and a soccer team, 4H club, or church group might be plenty of fun and more than educational enough for a safe, enjoyable, and effective education. Research supports this notion, over and over and over. [x]

The author heard yesterday a well-known talk-radio host say on the air, while discussing the evil recently done in a public school in Newtown, Conn., "School is supposed to be the safest place on earth!"[xi] Many parents who choose home-based education, and many others, would remind the radio man that he slipped in his thinking and was forgetting about the home as an even safer place.

In some ways, institutional State schools and what occurs in them are simply a reflection of society at large. No one should really expect a collection of adults and the children and adolescents they teach in one place, called school, to behave significantly differently than the society-at-large that has control over and operates that place, called school. In many ways - perhaps most ways - the goings-on in school are simply a reflection of the general culture.

Every person's worldview drives how he or she sees the issue of violence and schooling. For example, how would a Christian approach the topic of violence in State schools versus in a home-based learning environment? God communicates the following to people: " And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell."[xii] The biblical good news of real and lasting peace and the lack of violence can be daily presented in homeschools but not in State schools. State schools are not now, and never were, designed to be sites of preaching the gospel and leading children and teenagers to a saving knowledge of Christ the Savior and King, the only one who can bring true peace - and the absence of violence - to a person's mind, body, and soul, and to entire communities.

--Brian D. Ray, Ph.D.
National Home Education Research Institute
http://nheri.org/
 
P.S. Please feel free to send us your questions about homeschooling and we will try to answer them in upcoming messages.

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Notes:

[i] Retrieved December 17, 2012 from http://www.merriam-webster.com.

[ii] Retrieved December 18, 2012 from http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/SchoolViolence_FactSheet-a.pdf.

[iii] Retrieved December 18, 2012 from http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/SchoolViolence_FactSheet-a.pdf.

[iv] Bielick, Stacey. (2008, December). 1.5 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2007. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education (National Center for Education Statistics). Retrieved December 23, 2008 from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009030 .

[v] Retrieved December 18, 2012 from http://www.nheri.org/research/research-facts-on-homeschooling.html.

[vi] Retrieved December 18, 2012 from http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=violence&use1913=on&use1828=on.

[vii] Genesis 6:11, ESV.

[viii] National Center for Children Exposed to Violence, retrieved December 18, 2012 from http://www.nccev.org/violence/school.html.

[ix] Shakeshaft, Charol. (2004). Educator sexual misconduct: A synthesis of existing literature. Washington, DC: United States Department of Education. Retrieved December 18, 2012 from http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf.

[x] See, e.g., Home education reason and research by Dr. Brian Ray.

[xi] This is at least a close paraphrase of what radio man Michael Savage said on the air. The author has not found a transcript of the radio show he heard on December 17, 2012 at about 7:05pm PST. 

[xii] Matthew 10:28, ESV.