Editorial

Catholic schooling

The first thing to realize about home schooling is that there are many different reasons why Catholic families choose to home school. For some it may simply be the fact that there are no Catholic schools nearby, such as in many regions in the south. For others, it may be a strong sense that they are being called to be their children's educators, or a passionate desire to hand on their faith to their children as completely as possible. For others still, it may be that their children have special needs or conditions that demand a more attentive, flexible environment. And for some, it may reveal a distrust of local schooling options.

Home schooling went from oddity to fad to an accepted and acceptable educational alternative in about a generation.

Critics of home schooling raise questions about how well children are being taught, and how well they are socializing with other children and other families. Its defenders point to the sometimes exceptional performance of home schooled children on national tests and college entrance exams, and they point to the stagnant test scores of public school children and the costly tuition of many Catholic schools.

While these arguments still get bandied about in blogs and letters to the editor, the truth is that home-schoolers, traditional educators and parish staff have been making strides in recent years to get beyond the stereotypes and learn to collaborate and cooperate together. This does not mean that all parishes accept home-schoolers, or that all home-schoolers work hard to collaborate with their local parishes, but Our Sunday Visitor reports this week (see In Focus, pages 11-14), that the relationship between parish and home school families is improving.

It helps when home school parents recognize that their parishes and dioceses have some very real concerns, and a serious canonical responsibility, to make sure that Catholic children are being well-educated in the faith. This is particularly true when it comes to sacramental preparation.

Parishes - especially those with Catholic schools - also value community, and they often worry that home school families remove some of the most committed families from the school community.

On the other hand, it also helps when parishes and schools recognize that home school parents are genuinely seeking to make the best choices possible for their children in terms of both their education and their faith. Increasingly, home school parents make a real effort to stay engaged with the parish -- in daily Mass, in CYO and other extracurricular activities, even by volunteering to teach and work in after-school religious education programs.

Perhaps the greatest source of tension comes when home-schoolers are perceived as passing judgment on parish education efforts. Likewise, parishes can stereotype unfairly home-schoolers as ignoring contemporary catechesis in favor of older texts and methods of instruction.

Despite all the pitfalls, we are pleased to see the efforts of certain dioceses and certain home school families and national organizations to collaborate with, each other. The Diocese of Pittsburgh under the leadership of then-Bishop Donald Wuerl blazed a trail in this area, bringing home-schoolers and educators together in dialogue, and ultimately crafting guidelines that have become a model for other Catholic communities.