NHERI Conducting Study on Academic Achievement of African American Students and Educational Choices of Their Parents
NHERI would like your help in any or all of three areas:
- If you are an African American single parent or couple with an African American child between the ages of 9–14 who has been homeschooled all or most of his or her school years, please email NHERI at study@nheri.org to participate in the study.
- If you know of an African American family who has a child either homeschooled or in public school who may want to participate, please ask them to contact NHERI at study@nheri.org.
- Please consider making a donation to support NHERI’s research on this unique, landmark study. Any amount—$10, $25, $100—will help. Thank you!
Dr. Brian Ray and the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) are currently conducting a groundbreaking study of African American students, examining parents’ educational choices and the academic achievement of black students in homeschools and conventional (public) schools.
No research like this has ever been done before, but is much needed. One professor, writing of African Americans homeschooling their children asserted, “Individualized atomistic decisions to school one’s child at home—while thoroughly understandable—cannot build momentum for the large scale transformations that are necessary.” (note 1)
Dr. Ray and NHERI wonder: “Is this true? Does not doing well for one’s children of color do well for all of society?”
This study will help answer this question with sound research evidence.
Another academic and advocate of state regulation of homeschooling wrote, “But neither do we have any evidence that it [homeschooling] succeeds,” and “ … an absence of evidence about the academic outcomes of homeschooling lead[s] to an argument in favor of regulating home schools …” (note 2)
NHERI’s current research on black children will likely be one of the most methodologically sound studies ever done to provide findings regarding the state-regulation issue. This study is considered solid in design, important, and groundbreaking by organizations and individuals such as National Black Home Educators (NBHE), Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), and state- and private-university professors.
Notes
1. Apple, Michael W. (2006, December 21). The complexities of black home schooling. From www.TCRecord.org. Retrieved June 22, 2007 from http://cockingasnook.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/michael-apple-expert-on-black-homeschooling-now/.
2. Reich, Rob. (2005). Why home schooling should be regulated. In Bruce S. Cooper (Ed.), (2005), Homeschooling in full view: A reader. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, pp. 115 & 117.