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No place like home
By MELANIE AVE, Times Staff Writer Julie Jaramillo did not turn to homeschooling to help her son find God. She just wants him to get the best education possible. Religion and prayer have no part in the daily lessons in her New Tampa home. "For us, it's just not a focus," said Jaramillo, who pulled 10-year-old Niko out of public school two years ago. "We homeschool for academic reasons."
For years, evangelical Christians have led the movement, using home education to impart religious values along with academics. But more and more, homeschooling has a secular slant. This new group of parents say they are fed up with public and private schools for reasons that have nothing to do with faith. Their frustrations? Crowded classrooms. Peer pressure. Conformist teaching. Safety concerns. Many homeschool support groups have sprung up proclaiming no religious affiliation. They forego the statement of faith required by some groups and make inclusiveness their selling point. Support groups are crucial to homeschoolers because they offer a network for the social, athletic and extracurricular involvement of children. "We basically don't care what someone believes in," said Deb Carter, a Largo parent with Homeschool Alternatives, a support group of about 90 families. "In our group, we have some who are very Christian, some who are atheists and everything in between." Carter began homeschooling her daughter Jasmine, now 12, when she was not allowed to progress at her own pace in first grade. In the years since, Carter has noticed a change in public perception. "People's mouths don't drop when you say you're homeschooling," she said. A parent's rightToday's homeschooling movement is a new take on an old tradition. Before public education began in the mid-19th century, most American children were educated at home. It was still a fringe idea in the 1960s, pushed by reformer John Holt. By the 1980s, however, conservative Christians took up the battle to make homeschooling legal, saying it was a parent's right to teach children at home. Florida legalized homeschooling in 1985. Before that, the state would go after families who pulled their kids out of school, said Brenda Dickinson, a home education lobbyist in Tallahassee whose deceased husband helped draft the bill that became law. "The state encouraged prosecution of those families," she said. Nationally, the number of homeschooling families is booming. Experts say 1 to 4 percent of all K-12 students in the U.S. are now taught at home. "In the 1980s it was one of those things with Earth mothers who wore Birkenstocks who did it," said Bill Lloyd, a researcher with the Oregon-based National Home Education Research Institute. "It was way out on the fringe. Now it's more open." In Florida, the number of families who homeschool has increased 41 percent in the last five years, going from 31,440 students in 1997 to 44,460 last year. There were 2,411 students registered as home educated in Hillsborough last year. In Pinellas, the number was 3,381. According to the 1999 National Center for Education Statistics, 49 percent of parents who homeschool said they do it because they think they can do a better job. Thirty-eight percent said they do it for religious reasons. "The reasons families first consider homeschooling and the reasons they continue to do it, are often very different," said Laura Derrick, president of the National Home Education Network. "Regardless of their initial reasons, they continue because homeschooling works for them as both a lifestyle and educational choice." Increased opportunitiesNeoka Apple of St. Petersburg could be considered a home education veteran. A homeschooling mother for 14 years and member of the Pinellas Parent Educators Association, she has seen a very homogeneous group become a very diverse one. She attributes the change to more opportunities. Children who are taught at home can dual enroll at local public schools and junior colleges. They can participate in classes organized and taught by homeschooling groups, churches and libraries. Universities that used to turn homeschoolers away now recruit them. Apple didn't begin homeschooling for religious reasons, but she said it is an important part of her children's education. "I don't see how you can teach history without seeing the hand of God in it," said Apple, whose eldest son graduated from homeschooling two years ago. She still homeschools a high school senior and a seventh grader. Apple's organization, the Pinellas Parent Educators Association, requires its board -- but not its members -- to sign a statement of faith. "We don't apologize if we feel like God has helped us," she said. "At the same time, hopefully, we have never spoken against those who don't care about that aspect." Jaramillo, the New Tampa mother, said she stumbled across the secular Learning is for Everyone organization after trying several religious homeschooling support groups. Describing herself as spiritual but not religious, she said she didn't fit in well. "It was really clear the reason for homeschooling for these families was they wanted to focus on religious practice," said Jaramillo. "That's just not the reason we chose to homeschool. There wasn't anything wrong with those groups. But it's a whole different realm of teaching." -- Melanie Ave can be reached at (813) 226-3400 or melanie@sptimes.com.
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The Jaramillos are one example of the growing diversity of homeschooling families.
