Public Schools

Word Count: 1360

When Americans' think of education, they almost automatically think of
public education. Through the years the idea home schooling is slowly
changing. Many parents today are deciding to home school their children.
Although most people think that a public education is better, most
statistics and facts tend to show that home schooling is beneficial in more
ways. It is estimated that parents are now teaching over two million
children at home, rather than in public or even private schools. The idea of
public education has been debated for years. Students are being faced with
so much violence and crime in today's public school systems, that parents
are forced to find a suitable alternative. In the past few years, home
schooling has had a tremendous rise and has proved to be very successful in
providing effective education. In the following paper, I intend to argue
that home schooling is a successful educational reform when the child and
parent work together to achieve academic excellence.
Education in public schools has been on the criticized for many years.
Parents now feel that their kids are in danger because of the crime, peer
pressure, and violence at school. Teen pregnancies, teen sexual diseases,
teen suicides, teen alcohol, drug abuse, pornography, and illiteracy rates
abruptly increased 200 to 300 percent (Klicka 48). Violence is one of the
main factors effecting are schools today. Rape is a growing problem among
juveniles. A juvenile commits one out of every five rapes that occur in the
United States. There is also a higher use of drugs and alcohol among kids
in public schools. Over 80 percent of public high school students drink
alcohol and 45.7 percent have used marijuana. Drugs and alcohol make most
people extremely violent. That is also why our violence and crime rates are
so high.
Over hundreds of millions of dollars are spend on the security of our
nation's public schools. In The Right Choice Home Schooling, Christopher
Klicka says, "In Washington, D.C., drugs and violence were such a problem in
one Elementary school, that the principal banned regular recess, and the
children are only allowed to play outside in a pit enclosed by eight-foot
concrete walls, or on a small section of playground monitored by the police
(Klicka 51)." The disciplinary problems of children usually start even
before they reach public school. In the last ten years, research shows that
infants raised in daycare "are more prone to behavioral problems as young
children than their home-reared cousins (Klicka 124)." If you keep your
child at home from the start, you will be able to discipline and raise your
children with the right morals. Because so much time is spend trying to
clean up and keep our schools safe, we are more or less falling behind in
our education. American's are farther behind in educational status than
countries such as Japan, Taiwan, and China. The teachers spend too much time
on the little things and forget the real reason why the children are there.
Not only that, but the textbooks hold inaccurate information and do not
contain the whole story. Some textbooks stated that the atomic bomb ended
the Korean War (instead of World War II) and that only 53,000, rather than
126,000 Americans, were killed in World War I (Klicka 24 25). One book
summarizes Abraham Lincoln's and George Washington's life in approximately
six lines each. Not only are the wrong things written in the textbooks,
they teach the children wrong values.
On the other hand, when adults think about educating their children, they
often forget the option of home school. The idea of home schooling started
many years ago, but it really began to flourish in the 1970's. For many
people this was the only option, because either public schools lacked or the
schools were too far away for them to attend. In the present day, there are
over two million children being home schooled by t

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