ACT Inc., producer of the ACT college entrance exam, reports once again that homeschool students scored an average of 22.6 for 2003. This compares with 20.9 for public school students for the same period.

This is similar to past years. According to the 1998 ACT High School Profile Report, 2610 graduating homeschoolers took the ACT and scored an average of 22.8 out of a possible 36 points. . . . This was higher than the national average, which was 21.0 in both 1997 and 1998.

The 1996 ACT results showed that in English, homeschoolers scored 22.5 compared to the national average of 20.3. In math, homeschoolers scored 19.2 compared to the national average of 20.2. In reading, homeschoolers outshone their public school counterparts 24.1 to 21.3. In science, homeschoolers scored 21.9 compared to 21.1.

Over the years there has been concern that homeschool students would not be able to compete effectively for places in colleges. It was said that homeschool parents simply couldn't educate their children to the college level. This is false.

Even if an individual family is unable to provide every aspect of a high school education, the pooling of resources among homeschool families and the availability of classes from private resource centers have enabled families to continue homeschooling until high school graduation.

To which we at Homeschool World add:

Don't forget high-school courses on DVD, video, and computer software . . . and online distance learning courses as well! Check out the ads on our home page and in our Mall area for many good examples.

The only area in which "average" homeschoolers are slightly worse off than public schoolers is math. Which is really not that great, considering how poorly American students fare at math compared to the rest of the world. So we'll be addressing how to improve high-school math scores in upcoming issues of our magazine, Practical Homeschooling. We know how to help you with this, because two of our children (so far) are National Merit Finalists, with outstanding math scores. Bill Pride, who will be writing these articles, holds the B.S. in Math from M.I.T. and is currently enrolled in a Master's degree program in Applied Mathematics.