A Texas mother saw significant gains in her children’s reading levels after switching them to homeschooling instead of what she considered an awake curriculum being taught in public school.
“They’ve done very well,” Tara Carter, a mother of four, told Fox News. “The gains in reading have been astounding.”
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Average math scores experienced the largest declines across all states, falling five points for fourth-graders and eight points for eighth-graders from 2019 to 2022, according to the Nation’s Report Card. Reading scores fell to levels not seen since 1992, dropping three points for both grades in two years and revealing significant reversals in proficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Carter’s children, on the other hand, have shown improvement this school year.
The twins “are reading well above grade level,” she said after a few months of homeschooling. “Actually, they’re moving so fast that they’re going to complete it before the end of the school year and actually go to the next level.”
Carter pulled three of her children, a kindergartner and first-grader twins, from public school to home school this year, but allowed her ninth-grader daughter to attend high school with her friends. Her decision to switch to homeschooling stemmed from disagreements with the curriculum focused on topics like gender identity and sexual orientation instead of core subjects like math and language arts, Carter previously told Fox. News.
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Carter says her children are making big improvements in their reading levels through learning at home.
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Carter told Fox News that her ability to give her children individual instructions and move at her own pace helped their academic progress.
In public school classrooms, “there are so many kids who don’t really get a lot of individual praise,” Carter said. “I can give that because I focus on one child at a time.”
Texas students withdrawn from public schools for home schooling increased 40% in the spring of 2021 compared to the previous year, according to the Texas Education Agency. Many families have switched to homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Carter previously told Fox News that he believes some parents kept their children at home to avoid politicization and bias in the classroom.
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“I don’t miss the school environment at all,” Carter told Fox News. She said that learning at home helped her social well-being.
“I think it’s much better for the kids,” Carter continued. “I think schools can really affect the mental health of children, between being bullied and feeling like they’re being left behind.”
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Building on the success of her first semester, Carter said she would continue to homeschool her children and recommended that other parents consider the alternative.
“I loved it and the kids loved it,” Carter told Fox News. “You don’t have to be a genius or have a teaching degree to teach your kids.”
To hear more from Carter on the advantages of homeschooling, click here.
