A request for a discussion of the scientific evidence for the benefits of home-schooling.

I'm doing some research on claims made by a home-school advocate on another social media platform, and I'd thought I'd ask a question here.

I know of several studies by various home-school advocacy organizations (The National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), Verywell Family, Christian Home Educators of Colorado (CHEC) ..., etc) that show benefits from home-schooling. But these studies have been criticized for...

1. Funding biases
2. Not controlling for possible confounding variables such as the socioeconomic and/or education status of the parents, issues with self-reporting, data gaps, diversity in home-schooling practices
3. The 2022 NHERI study uses a test called the 'Classic Learning Test' (CLT). This test emphasizes texts in the Western canon, and so has some cultural bias baked in. It is also identified with alignment with a traditional education model, which may align with the goals of the parents home-schooling their children. Thus using it as a measure may be something of an 'apples and oranges' comparison.
4. Having a network of organizations with similar ideological makeup creating self-supporting, self-amplifying narrative (i.e. citing one another)
5. Not submitting their work for peer review.

So, my questions are...

1. Is there any **peer-reviewed** studies that pass methodological muster which unequivocally suppor the claims of these organizations, or is the issue much murkier once we move away from their ideological framework
2. Does someone know of a specific scientific paper discussing the methodology and results of the publication of the NHERI 2022 study titled Quantitative Insights into the Academic Outcomes of Homeschools from the Classic Learning Test
3. Is there somewhere else in the reddit-sphere, or elsewhere where I might discuss these questions?

Submitted April 29, 2025 at 12:06PM by whdaffer https://ift.tt/jc8Aygd