<p>Denise Armstrong decided to home school her two sons and daughter because she thought she could do a better job of instilling her values in her children than a public school could.</p><p>Years ago, she found herself the lone black parent at home-education gatherings, usually dominated by white Christian evangelicals. Gradually, she's noticed more African-Americans joining the ranks.</p><p>"I've been delighted to be running into people in the African-American home-schooling community," Armstrong said. "I noticed, looking around the home-schooling convention at that vast sea of people and seeing more people of color."</p><p>An apparent increase in black families opting to educate their children at home, home-schooling advocates say, reflects a wider desire among families of all races to guide their children's moral upbringing, but also reflects growing concerns about issues such as subpar school conditions and preserving cultural heritage.</p><p>"About 10 years ago, we started seeing more and more black families showing up at conferences and it's been steadily increasing since then," said Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, a national advocacy group.</p><p>Nationwide, about 1.1 million children were home schooled in 2003, or 2.2 percent of the school-age population. That was up from about 850,000, or 1.7 percent, in 1999, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. A racial breakdown of home-schooled students isn't yet available, the center said.</p><p>In Virginia, 17,448 students were home schooled last year, down from 18,102 the previous year, according to the state Department of Education. However, the Home School Legal Defense Association says the percentage of black home-schooling families has increased, though hard numbers weren't available.</p><p>The numbers are still very low because most black families lack the time or economic ability to home school, said Michael Apple, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin who tracks home schooling. He said much of the increase is seen in cities with a history of racial tensions, and where black people feel alienated and marginalized.</p><p>Some families decide to do it because public schools don't all adequately teach African-American history and culture, some want to protect their children from school violence, "and for some, it's all of this and religion," Apple said.</p><p>Armstrong said she wants her 12-, 10- and 7-year-old children to have a "moral Judeo-Christian foundation" that public schools can't provide.</p><p>"I felt that my husband and I would be able to give more of a tutorial, individual learning situation than a teacher trying to address 40 kids at one time," said Armstrong, who lives in Chesterfield County.</p><p>She also said she was concerned that schools wrongly label some black boys as learning-disabled, and their educational needs are treated correspondingly, while similarly behaving white children are not.</p><p>Antoinette Williamson, a mother of four in Clarke County, says she has a lot in common with white home-schooling parents, including many being born-again Christians, but there's still a need to associate with other black families.</p><p>"The image they see so much of the time is not a positive image of black Americans, and being a minority in a minority where they do not see many people who look like them _ there's just a need to connect," Williamson said.</p><p>To help guide black home-schooling families, Joyce Burges and her husband, Eric, started the National Black Home Educators Resource Association in 2000. She said many families were dissatisfied with their public schools, but were unaware that home schooling was legal.</p><p>The Baton Rouge, La.-area resident says she and other black home schoolers have been likened to Revolutionary traitor Benedict Arnold by people who think they've turned their backs on the long struggle to gain equal access to public education. But, she said, when schools aren't teaching children to read, or are failing to provide a safe place to learn, children should come first.</p><p>"You do what you have to do that your children get an excellent education," she said. "Don't leave it up to the system."</p><p>Apple, the Wisconsin professor, acknowledged that home schooling benefits a limited number of black children, but said that improving public education for the greatest number of students depends on mass mobilization by concerned parents.</p><p>"They're trying as hard as they possibly can to protect their children, and for that they must be applauded," Apple said. "But in the long run, protecting their own children may even lead to worse conditions for the vast majority of students who stay in public schools, and that's a horrible dilemma."</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1d02e5c)</p>
