Homeschool to Harvard-A Success Story

By Wayne Allyn Root

Saturday, 1st May, 2010

This is a phenomenal success story of a student homeschooled her entire life, whose first steps in a classroom away from home were in the hallowed halls of Harvard!

This is the story that the teachers unions wish had never happened. This is the story that proves all their hysterical demands for unjustified job security through “permanent status” and more money are nothing but a sham. This is the story that makes the unions and education bureaucrats sick to their stomachs. This is the personal story of my daughter Dakota Root.

In each of the books I’ve written, I’ve taken great care to acknowledge my beautiful and brilliant little girl, Dakota. I often noted that Dakota and her parents were aiming for her acceptance at either Harvard or Stanford and would accept nothing less. The easy part is aiming for gold. The hard part is achieving it. “Home school to Harvard” is a story about turning dreams into reality.

Dakota has been home-schooled since birth. While other kids spent their school days being indoctrinated to believe competition and winning are unimportant, and that others are to blame for their shortcomings and failures, Dakota was learning the value of work ethic, discipline, sacrifice and personal responsibility. While other kids were becoming experts at partying, Dakota and her dad debated current events at the dinner table. While other kids shopped and gossiped, Dakota was devouring books on science, math, history, literature, politics and business. I often traveled to business events and political speeches with my home-schooled daughter in tow. While other kids came home to empty homes, Dakota’s mom, dad, or both were there every day to share meals and a bedtime kiss and prayer. Despite a crazy schedule of business and politics, I’m proud to report that I’ve missed very few bedtime kisses with my four home-schooled kids.

While others were out learning to drive so they could attend more parties, or experimenting with alcohol and drugs, Dakota was practicing the sport she loves with dedication, intensity and passion- fencing. The result? She became one of the elite junior fencers in America- winning the Pacific Coast Championship and representing the United States at World Cup events in Germany and Austria.

Was all the discipline and sacrifice worth it? A few days ago, Dakota Root achieved her lifelong dream. She was accepted at both Harvard and Stanford. She was also accepted at Columbia, Penn, Brown, Duke, Chicago, Cal-Berkeley, USC and several more of the elite schools in America, an unheard of record for a home-school kid. She actually had the confidence to turn down an offer from the Yale fencing coach before she had gotten her other acceptances. The kid turned down Yale!

Here is the most amazing part of the story: The first classroom of Dakota’s life will be inside the hallowed halls of Harvard. This fall she will fence for the Harvard team- one of America’s best. Only an elite 1% (30,000) of the best of the best high school seniors dared apply to Harvard. Virtually every one was #1 in their class, or a world-class scholar/athlete, or had perfect S.A.T. scores. Out of 3 million high school seniors headed to college, and those 30,000 applicants, only 1500 or so will attend Harvard. That is the lowest acceptance rate in college history. To be accepted at one or two Ivy League colleges is rare- to all, an almost impossible feat!

At a time of educational free-fall, it is a remarkable story. With America’s public school system ranked at or near the bottom of the industrialized world, with record dropout rates, grade inflation, violence, gangs, drugs, teen pregnancies, and the scandal of graduating high school seniors requiring remedial math and reading before starting at college, Dakota’s story offers hope. Dakota proves the American Dream is alive, if only we’d stop depending on government to save us.

There is no one answer for education- our choice of homeschooling melded parental education with tutoring by hand-picked retired teachers and college professors, combined with a personally-chosen curriculum. It’s called parental freedom. The power to decide how to best educate children belongs with the parents, not teachers unions. School choice, encouraging competition for our failing public school system, and offering vouchers on the state level to give parents the power to choose among charter schools, private schools, or home-schooling is the way to force public schools to improve. Competition works. If it’s good enough for Coke and Pepsi then why not public schools?

The sad reality is that teachers unions and government aren’t the solution – they are the problem. Our public schools get worse every year, yet teachers unions demand more and more money. They get their money, it gets worse yet, and they demand even MORE. Also, the continued practice of tenor (permanent status) where job performance is NOT  related to continued employment is crazy. That is the definition of insanity. This is “Groundhog Day.” It isn’t working- and hasn’t since the day that the government took over education in this country.

Dakota Root proves it doesn’t take a state certified teacher, or a teachers union, or a village to raise a child- it only takes two loving parents who give a damn. One home-schooled girl has driven a stake through the heart of the public school education sham. “Home school to Harvard” is a powerful story that illustrates an educational option every parent should be allowed to offer their children.

By Michael Ramos

The logical answer would be some form of “School at home”. Home + school does seem to equal school at home.

Only two things are wrong with this definition:

*Homeschooling isn’t “school” in the traditional sense. It’s an entirely different approach to education, and
*Homeschooling does not have to take place in the home.

Homeschooling, more accurately, is education designed and supervised by parents. This automatically makes for an entirely different approach to learning from “public classroom” education, which is education designed by government officials to accommodate large groups of students in one setting. It also differs sharply from “private” schooling. Regardless of their invitation for parental input, in practice, private schools reserve curriculum design and teaching strategies for teachers, administrators, and textbook engineers.

Even Unschoolers who believe the child should direct their own education must acknowledge that this type of instructional strategy is only possible if the parent has the authority to let the child choose their own educational pursuits and projects. Additionally, the child will not receive balanced instruction unless the parent has the training and ability to create or purchase appropriate and challenging curriculum that is aligned with the child’s interests. So, homeschool is not “school” if it is defined by who is in charge of curriculum design. Having parents choose and/or design the curriculum is radically different from what happens in a classroom setting.

A number of research studies have shown that parent-designed and parent-chosen curriculum will produce better results than school designed and/or state adopted curriculum. Again, curriculum that is chosen by the one person who knows the child better than anyone, and selected from the many options currently available should and always does result in more relevant learning taking place, especially when the parents are actively socializing with other homeschooling parents and compare/contrast teaching experiences.

Homeschool also is not “school” when it comes to learning environment, scheduling and priorities. There are no announcements from the office, ringing bells to mark the end of a class period, lock-step instruction, or disruptions from inappropriate behavior or burned-out teachers. I have observed homeschooled students make over one and a half years of academic progress compared to their classroom peers simply do to the fact that they can stay focused and on-task for longer uninterrupted periods of time. The end result is that homeschooled children can have a much greater attention span and ability to “focus” than their classroom peers.

Many of the uninformed ask the old question, “What about socialization?” What they really mean is, “Can your child grow into a strong adult if they only sit around the house doing lessons and projects?” This is a common mistake, many confuse homeschooling for traditional schooling that happens at home when it’s really learning under the supervision of the parent and will look very different than the traditional classroom.

An interesting parallel is that many parents who oppose homeschooling pay for art, music, and dance lessons, and drive their kids to soccer, little league and karate classes. They are providing enriched learning and socialization opportunities just like effective homeschooling parents. The only difference is that homeschooled students get to take advantage of a more flexible daily routine which provides access to more varied learning and socialization opportunities. I believe that all parents want what is best for their children. The only difference between parents who send their children to a traditional classroom and homeschooling parents is that homeschoolers incorporate academic lessons at home and in the community through any number of delivery systems including on-line instruction, school district or county office of Education sponsored programs, private school or religious based curriculum, community college distance learning and campus based instruction and community sponsored enrichment classes.  The most notable distinction is that Homeschoolers  receive the most important instructional component called “choice”.