How can parents teach their own children? Is teacher certification necessary or required? Studies show that teacher certification for homeschooling parents has little effect on the child's learning. 

How much education does a parent need to successfully homeschool?

Studies show that public-schooled children's parents' educational level and the students' are directly related. The higher a parent's education, the better the public student's achievements. For homeschoolers, however, studies show that the student's achievements (which are significantly better than public-schooled children) are not related to the parent's education level.

A degree doesn't make someone caring, considerate, knowledgeable, and understanding of children. It doesn't make them love someone else's children, and often doesn't even mean a vested interest in a child's development. The larger issue is this: Who is responsible enough to influence the mind and thoughts of a developing human being? The most important focus should be, but isn't always, a child's needs. The situation that serves the best interests and growth of a child is to be able to learn in a secure and responsive home environment in which caring, respectful parents are the teachers.

Homeschoolers outperform their public school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across the subjects on standardized achievement exams. Someone is doing something right!

The best teacher for any child is someone who loves and cares about him and his particular way of learning—someone who has the time and the patience to provide one-on-one instruction. Parents do what teachers wish they could do in the classroom but cannot, for lack of time and help and an excess of students. There is a ton of data to support the idea that children learn how to be sensitive, caring, empathetic human beings at home with their family, as compared to being in an institution, like public school. In general, not even the BEST schools, whether public or private, can compare to a good homeschool.

Noted author, former education columnist and father, Andrew Nikiforuk, in his 1994 book If Learning Is So Natural, Why Am I Going To School?, cites a recent U.S. study of 4600 children. The study found that students learning at home regularly outperformed 80% of all other students on Standardized Achievement Tests. Nikiforuk goes on to say that big-name universities like Harvard and Yale are very receptive to recruiting home-educated students. Apparently, their study habits are widely admired.

Great men and women have been homeschooled and were tremendously gifted and some, like George Washington, Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, etc., have led our country through perilous times. Surely, if their parents could homeschool them with very little education, we have the right and the ability to do an excellent job of schooling our children.

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