Home schooling has long been a refuge for parents unhappy with public schools. Now, a growing number of athletes, musicians and actors are abandoning traditional classrooms so that they can focus on their talent.
For these students, home schooling provides the flexibility to weave academics around training, practices or Hollywood auditions (旁听). Students are free of the structure of traditional school and can do their schoolwork where and when they choose. And though rules vary greatly among home-schooling methods, students are under no requirement to log the same number of hours they would have spent in a classroom.
"You need to devote a lot of time if you’re going to shine in those creative fields," said Ian Slatter, spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association in Virginia. "It’s very difficult within the constraints of private or public school."
But some experts worry that a solid education can suffer if a student is too focused on honing (磨砺) an athletic or artistic gift.
Home schooling, once common, largely died with the rise of the public school system. In the 1960s, some parents who were against a perceived one-size-fits-all approach in public schools began home schooling their children. The following decade, many other parents wanting to inject religion into their children’s education began to do so at home.
By 1980, about 20000 families had pulled children from traditional schools, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association.
Since then, home schooling has seen exponential (急剧的) growth. Laws have eased, society more easily accepts home schooling, and an industry has emerged that offers online support and teaching materials to parents.
Experts agree that most families who home school do so for religious reasons or out of disdain (厌恶) for public schools, for reasons ranging from safety to poor academics. But county and state education officials, home-school advocates, entertainment industry regulators and sports coaches say they’re seeing a small but growing number of children who are home-schooled to allow them to focus on honing an athletic talent or artistic passion.
"It is becoming more and more common," said Barbara Colton, who works on home-schooling issues for the California Department of Education. "More and more parents are willing to support their kids in intensive preparation in arts or sports... so what they’re doing is trying to find an educational program that accommodates that.\
Since the 1980s, home schooling ______.