Home schooling is now America's fastest growing form of education, but Washington Post reporter Peter Jamison tells Dave Davies, "It's remarkable how little oversight there is of home-schooled children." Also, we remember TV critic Tom Shales. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the TEd radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is.
The history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is fresh air.
I'm Dave Davies.
There are plenty of battles raging in public education today over textbooks, treatment of transgender students, equitable funding and more.
But theres another trend thats kind of gone under the radar, and thats a surge in parents opting for homeschooling rather than traditional school.
Our guest today is Washington Post reporter Peter Jameson, whos led a team of post reporters looking into the rise of homeschooling.
Their analysis found that homeschooling is now americas fastest growing form of education, expanding more rapidly than public or private schools.
While homeschooling was long dominated by christian conservatives, the post found homeschooling parents today are far more diverse and that homeschooling is surging in urban, rural and suburban areas among struggling schools and schools with high graduation rates and test scores.
Regulation of homeschooling is up to states, reporters found.
It varies widely and is often lax, leading to criticism from some advocates that homeschooled kids are being short changed academically and are more vulnerable to child abuse.
Peter Jameson is an enterprise reporter at the Post, where he was part of a team of journalists awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public service for coverage of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Before writing for the Post, Jamison worked at the Los Angeles Times and the Tampa Bay Times.
Peter Jamison, welcome to FReSh Air.
Thanks for having me.
You know, at least I think of homeschooling as kind of rooted mostly among christian conservatives.
Is it true that american homeschooling really began in the seventies and kind of grew out of the counterculture left?