Homeschooling Helps Schools Financially?

For years, one of the favorite criticisms of homeschooling has been that it "drains resources from the public schools." After all, the reasoning goes, schools get paid per-pupil, so homeschooling, by removing students from the schools, reduces the amount of money the schools make. (Of course, this argument ignores the fact that the reason schools get paid per student is that each student also COSTS the school money, but why point out the obvious, right?) :)

But an article in yesterday's Washington Times online highlights a new study that finds that homeschooling actually benefits the schools' bottom line.

What Mr. Wenders and Miss Clements found, however, was that home-schoolers save the state of Nevada between $24 million and $34 million per year, decreasing schools' expenses far more than the decrease in revenues, thus creating a net gain for the school districts.

The article also shares findings from a similar study by the North Carolina Department of Non-Public Education, and points out that homeschoolers also save taxpayers money by not becoming prisoners (!). It's a good article, and not very long, so click over and read the whole thing. :)