Academic Statistics on Homeschooling

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Here is the question: do you feel confident that you can teach your child all the subjects all the way to learning calculus, western world history, all the pertinent works of English literature and the world of biology and chemistry? Secondly, do you feel confident you can teach handwriting, physical dexterity and all the elementary skills? If so, then all the power to you. However, if you don't feel all so confident in any of these fields, then you are less likely to be inclined to homeschool the kids. Often times, the ones who are not inclined to teach their kids are throwing their children to the public school system and having their kids flunk it all. So what you have is confident parents teaching their own children and the children performing well. Then you have the non-confident parents not teaching their children and the children doing poorly.

If the teachers being specialists had anything to do with education, would confidence levels matter?

I would be confident with teaching everything except calculus.

Math: arithmetic, algebra 1 & 2, Euclidean and some analytic geometry, some statistics.
English: read 12th, write 9th, speak post graduate
Science: 2 years chemistry, 2 years physics.
History: Ancient, medieval, renaissance/reformation, some modern (modern bores me.)
Trivium: 1 quarter Latin, intro logic, intro rhetoric.
Bible: NIV, Systematic Theology, Apologetics, intro Biblical Hebrew, Hermeneutics.
Languages: 1.5 years of Spanish, 0.25 Latin, 0.25 Hebrew, 0.15 German, some Russian.
Art: drawing, read sheet music (slowly), play a couple songs on the piano, music and art appreciation.
Extras: 0.5 year Linguistics, 1 year macro-economics, some gardening, hobby ornithology.
Sports: rifle target practice, swimming, softball, dodge ball, carpet ball, bowling.
Exercise: hiking, swimming.
Games: chess, stratego, computer.

A child whose parents have no confidence in education will not fair well as they learn to not have confidence in education. It's not a matter of how many courses you have taken and passed, it's about how muchyou have absorbed and understood enough to teach someone that material.

Apparently the level of education of homeschooling parents makes no difference at all to the academic achievement of the homeschooled child, but I do see your point about confidence.

It does take a certain amount of confidence, or even faith, to choose freely to do it. The faith in children's capacity to learn actively/autonomously, to not need spoon-feeding with information. For most children the best education is leaving them to it, to find out for themselves, to look and learn about what interests them.

Trying to teach them things is generally time lost. The more time they have to follow their interests etc, the more they will learn.

The most important confidence for successful homeschooling is confidence in your child.

Also need to remember that although many homeschoolers chose to do it, on the other hand many were virtually forced into it/backed into it, by the awful time their child was having in school. They noticed/heard/saw their child's trouble, and began to lose faith in teachers and school. Got angry.

Many of the homeschoolers in the stats were/are not confident in their ability to provide an education. The success of their child, and I think most of the others, might have more to do with having parents who hear/see/notice their children, and have confidence in them, trust them.

And thus is the crux of the issue for the faculties of education and boards of education to mull over