Academic Outcomes: An Interview with Dr. Brian Ray

What educational methodology produces students with higher social competencies, lower somatic complaints, a higher willingness to study, greater rates of volunteerism, lower depression, higher test scores, and greater levels of less-measured socio-emotional outcomes like forgiveness? A new peer-reviewed journal article tells the whole story. Learn more by joining Dr. Lisa Dunne for Part 1 of today's interview with legendary researcher Dr. Brian Ray. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi, I'm Dr. Lisa Dunn, and thanks for joining me here today on the Communication Architect. Each week we'll share content that will empower you to grow your personal leadership capacity through the development of communication competencies that build emotional health and relational resilience. We'll unpack some practical applications of intrapersonal, intrapersonal, family, and organizational communication. And we'll connect with stories of transformation that will inspire you to achieve personal and social change. Now, let's build the scaffolding you need to become a communication artist. Hello everyone and welcome to the show. I'm Dr. Lisa Dunn, a lifelong homeschooling parent, author, and president of Chula Vista Christian University, a Bible-based university model that centers on mentor-driven, debt-free higher education. Education is formation. Why would we send a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, into a pagan system of education? Parents, your kids don't have to go woke or broke to earn their college degree. Join us for transformative education that's not yoked to a woke government system. Visit us at cvcu.us to see how we are taking back education for the next generation. Pastors, we can help you arm your congregation against that state indoctrination. Just click the Start and Academy tab so we can help you launch a church-based homeschool outreach in your community. For preschool to eighth grade options, go to Academic Rescue Mission.com to find a support academy or start your own. If your eighth to twelfth grader is ready for more academic challenges, join us for our new dual enrollment college program. Your homeschool or high schoolers can take a college course once and count it twice, both for high school and for college. You'll get highly affordable classes in a safe, supportive in-person environment. You can join a campus at Veritascc.us or start one of your own. And of course, our flagship program, Chula Vista Christian University. Earn your degree and graduate debt-free in our in-person faith-based model. Go to cbcu.us to learn more. You can find all of our books, blogs, and resources online at cbcu.us. That's Chula Vista Christian University. I am so excited about today's guest. It's not his first time on the show, but today he's sharing some exciting new research with us. Dr. Brian Ray is a leading international expert in research on homeschooling. He's president of the National Home Education Research Institute. He's published numerous articles and books, been repeatedly interviewed by major media, served as an expert witness in court cases across the United States and Canada, and testified to legislatures regarding educational issues. He's a former university professor, public and private school classroom teacher, and elder in his local church. He holds a PhD in science education, a master's degree in zoology, and a bachelor's degree in biology. He and his wife Betsy have eight children, all of whom are homeschooled, and they have an ever-increasing number of grandchildren I can't keep up with, but I'm sure he will tell us on the show today. Dr. Ray, what a joy to have you back on the show. We honor you for the tremendous scholar that you are, for the work you've done across the globe and just for your kindness as a human being. You are so, you just so genuinely model the love of Jesus. Thanks for being on the show today.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Dr. Lisa Dunn, thank you. It's good to be back.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Well, today we want to talk about this exciting new peer-reviewed research article. All my students are so excited to hear the words peer-reviewed in a radio show. So fun. Uh, in the Peabody Journal of Education. Now, you and I, of course, know personally the powerful impact of homeschooling, and I'm so excited for our listeners to learn more about the article findings. Let's talk a little bit about you first. I love reading your background in your educational background. What got you started in the field of first science and zoology and then home education research? What was that flame?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

I think that's just how God wired me, Dr. Dunn. As a little boy, I just always loved animals, watching spiders, playing with insects, gathering up garter snakes, putting them in a box, playing with them. That's just how I'm wired. And my mom said, Brian, you were taking notes in kindergarten. So it's just how I am. I don't know what to say. You know, so I got into biology and then I moved on to uh teaching for a few years and a master's zoology, so you know, animals. And then I thought, you know, I don't want to just be in a lab all my life. So I thought I need another challenge. So I went and got a PhD. And and then while I was in that, Dr. Dunn, uh, I was always kind of interested in alternatives. My wife and I, we're we're sort of like conservative hippies, you know. We like, but we're interested in what works. Like, well, what works? What's the best way to do something? Whether it was all, you know, organic gardening or drip irrigation. And and I met some people in Corvallis, Oregon who were looking for somebody to help teach their children. They were basically, we didn't even know the word back then, they were basically hippie homeschoolers. And and then I thought, well, what are they doing? Like they're not putting their children in school. And then we started hearing about this, and our children were getting older, and we had no, we had no good reason to send them away to a place called school to be taught, trained, and indoctrinated by other people. Yeah, there was nothing in the Bible that said we should do that. So we didn't. And then I got interested academically and looked for research. It wasn't much. I started gathering the research together, start listen to this, the journal Homeschool Researcher. I started 40 years ago, Dr. I must be old. I must be old. But you know, it was just something I did. It wasn't like, oh, this is some amazing thing. It was just, hey, somebody needs to do this. So I did it. And it's still going today. Um, so that's what happened. And I published on homeschooling and NBC Today show called me up right when I finished my PhD, said, we want to fly you from Seattle to out to wherever, where is that? New York City. I don't know. They picked me up in a limousine and they had me on the NBC Today show with the so I'm just this little punk nobody, and I still am. And they had the president of the National Education Association, and we're supposed to have a little discussion. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's what happened.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

That's um now I have to look that up. That's amazing. When you when you think about being a researcher, what's the most rewarding part for you of what you do?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Oh boy, I think it's always kind of looking for something new, not new as in it's never been thought of in the world of humankind or under God's design. But I want some more new information that's honest and truthful. And I realize, Dr. Dunn, and everybody needs to know this, every single person, including every researcher, has a worldview and values that affect what they do. So we are looking to reveal in our studies uh truth under God's overview. And I don't go studying things that are gonna pervert how people see things. So I love doing that. It's great to get something published, but once it's published, it's kind of anticlimatic and you move on to the next project. But it is exciting to get something published.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

And you've done a lot of that. What are what are what are some of the voices that inspire your thinking, leaders, authors, what when you think about recommending books or people for parents to follow? What are some of the top names that come to mind for you?

SPEAKER_01 7:30

I wasn't ready for that, but I'll tell you one thing. Way, way, way long ago, when I was teaching the philosophy of education at a Christian college, uh, I picked as one of the books people would read The Christian Mind by Harry Blameyers. Now, this book is way back in 1963, and some people think, I don't want to read a book that old. Dr. Dunn, I just reread it in the last month, and it's inspiring and exciting. He doesn't tell you what to think about issues, but he says, this is how we have to go about this, whether we're teachers or plumbers or bakers, and and we we need to be very, very different from the world, and we need a different perspective. So I I like that book a lot. And then, of course, just reading the word of God every day. Um one book that really had an influence on me in education was The Messianic Character of American Education by Rusis Rushduni. That was pretty fascinating. Nowadays, I really like the work of Israel Wayne, young people, young, these are all young guys to me, and Alex Newman. Oh, those guys, those guys are great. I want people to read their online stuff, yeah. But I also want people to read these older, deeper books too. We really need to read these older, deeper, thoughtful books to get you thinking along the lines. And I think one thing that really is important to me, I want to say to you to who's listening today, we don't start with research, we don't start with experience, we start with the word of God. That's where we start. And so when we talk about education, it always has to be a beginning point there. And I say to people now who say, Well, I don't know if I'm convicted to homeschool. And I ask the question Did God convict you by his word to send your children away to be taught, trained, and indoctrinated at age five? What's that all about?

unknown 9:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

So I have a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

I love it. That reminds me of the Kevin Novak book, the abolition book that has such a lot of love that.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah. Excellent book, excellent book. Kevin Novak, excellent book.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Those the seminal works, that's a focus for us at CBCU, is just having students read those seminal works, those old dusty volumes. Just it's so, so much power and finding out, you know, where we came from. So incredible. Well, let's talk a little bit about the study, why the research matters. I we talked about maybe breaking it down to those four quadrants: academic achievement, socio-emotional development, adult outcomes, and then family or demographic factors. So let's start with uh obviously we've been talking about for many years the academic components, which we care deeply about, but I think it's important for parents um to remember. You know, I talk a lot to our community about um we're we're we're not striving to be like the world, we're not conforming to the patterns of the world. We want our children to be excellent at everything they do, but the the gold star of the world system is not our trophy. You know, we have an eternal trophy. So if we gain the world and lose our soul, we have not succeeded as parents. So we'll talk about the academic achievement. Obviously, you and I are scholars, we care about that deeply, but it doesn't it doesn't overarch our our desire for our children to have the character of Christ. So let's start with um, what are you seeing in the academic achievement? What did the study find?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

That's a perfect introduction, Dr. Dunn. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you, because I wanted to say that, but you said it. So yeah, using the world's measures, you know, like test scores and you know, all these formal kinds of things, uh, what we're seeing is that even though we don't have to aim for that, even though homeschoolers don't need to use the public school objectives or the test publisher, even though we don't have to do that, in 62% of the studies so far, peer-reviewed and representative studies. In 62% of the studies, the homeschooled have statistically significantly outperformed the non-homeschooled. And you get people think, well, was that a big deal? Well, it is kind of a big deal when you think you don't you don't have to meet their objectives, but you're actually exceeding their their norm in 62% of the studies. In the other studies, there's almost no difference. It's like, hey, there's there's not much difference here. And so I want people to just take that as okay, in the perspective that you gave, that is not our measure of success. But in the world's eyes, you know, test scores matter and these other things matter. But what we can look at here is that less than 10% of homeschool parents have ever been government certified teachers. Homeschool families don't have to use university trained teachers. Homeschoolers don't have to use government-approved curriculum. Homeschoolers don't get the national average of $18,000 per year of their neighbors' tax money. And yet, on average, all these studies across these last 35 years are saying, you know what? Descriptively, they're doing better. So that's that's a big, that's a pretty big deal.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

It's a seek first of the kingdom of God thing, you know, we're that's everything else is being added to us because we're putting the right first in the right place. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

I think so. I think so. And it, you know, another thing is it's not shocking. People say, Well, how is that possible? How can how can these untrained regular old moms and dads do that? And then you go through what most of us know without even looking at research. Well, when did children thrive better? When they're a group of 29 other kids their same age, or maybe a smaller group of two, three, four, seven. We all know. When do children like to learn more and learn more? When things are customized for their strengths and weaknesses and dreams, or when they're not. We know the answers to these things. So it's sort of not shocking that homeschool children do well.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, that's so powerful. Anything else on academic achievement?

SPEAKER_01 13:16

I I think one other thing there it actually applies to the academic achievement, the social development, and and the other one, but uh, I guess say it now before I forget. You know, these these studies are in many ways not measuring. Well, maybe we think we should think it's important, you know, like our uh maybe we should think knowing a little more of the Bible than Little House on the Prairie is more important, you know. Or maybe no offense to any homeschoolers, but maybe maybe we should think knowing a little bit more um your nation's founding documents might be more important than some of what's measured in these tests, you know. So there are a lot of things, there are a lot of things that researchers could study. Um one of the reasons they don't is in some ways the world doesn't care. You know, it's like the world doesn't care. Right. Um which is kind of sad. Uh in a study about 10 years ago that uh folks in Colorado and Generations and Kevin Swanson were very supportive of, we got to do some of that. And in fact, the home educated did do pretty well, you know. So I guess that's that's what you know. We don't we're not measuring kindness toward others. You know, to what extent do these studies measure how well children honor their parents?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah, the fruits of the spirit. Yeah, I I just was thinking we've been talking in our homeschool communities here about creating a measurement tool for some of the character components that we really want to see in our students. We do the reach at CVC, we do respectful, engaged, authentic, compassionate, humble. So they're final, they have to self-evaluate their you know their character growth in those arenas. But I think that that's a measurement tool that we need to be considering in our in our homeschool communities in our homes. Let's talk about socio-emotional development in California, where I live. Well, you're on the West Coast too, so you understand it all. It's it's a mess. So, what are we seeing? What are some of the markers we're seeing that are making? And obviously, going back to uh the academic component, we know that one-to-one, that personalized education, that children thrive in that arena. How are those same um kind of systems now supporting the socioemotional development of children as well?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Well, the big factoid, I'll give the factoid first, but it's you know, same thing. Not that these are all measuring what we think is important from a biblical perspective, but but 64% of the peer-reviewed and representative sample studies show that the homeschool are doing better than the others in terms of their social and emotional development, statistically significantly better. So, again, without the legal or philosophical need to follow the world system, using measures that generally seculars use, the homeschool children are doing better. I mean, it sounds like a broken record, right? The first one was 62% of the studies, and this one's 60, 64% of the studies. And people say, Well, what are you measuring here? And and then, you know, some people say, and this this is kind of fun in the world of academia and and people who promote homeschooling and not. I've I've been attacked a number of times, Dr. Dunn. You know that. They say, Well, Dr. Ray, he's blah, blah, blah. They use poisoning the well, they use they use ad hominem. They go, they say, well, he doesn't know, he doesn't know research methods. Well, I'm sorry, dear, but I I taught research methods at the graduate university level. I do know research methods, and they'll say, Well, it's just his research. Okay, people can go to this review online. I hope you point them there. Yes. And these are studies by, in fact, in the table on social and emotional development, out of I don't know how many studies, maybe a couple dozen. I'm only one of the authors. And so these researchers are people, some of them I don't even know who they are. But these are things like the homeschooled are lower in depression, lower in somatic complaints and problems with attention and willingness to study and depression. Uh in another one, uh no difference in uh abuse and neglect of homeschooled children. Uh, and then another one, higher social competencies for the homeschooled. And another one, uh homeschooled have lower marijuana use and lower mental health problems. And uh so it's kind of interesting. This is all kinds of studies. People people let's put it this way academics are fascinated by homeschoolers and they're studying all kinds of things. And the other, okay, here's another study. The homeschool did more volunteering, they were greater in forgiveness, they had more frequ more frequent religious service attendance, and less marijuana use than public school people. So these are just examples. And you know, listeners might be thinking, who in the world does these studies? Well, there are all kinds of people all over the country and different universities. So here's one from Israel. Uh it was this is from Israel. Lower depression for the homeschooled, less externalizing problems. Um anyway, all kinds of things. But anyway, there's the summary is you know, the factoid is 64% of the studies showed that the homeschooled are doing better social and emotional development. Of course, you know, and I know that flies in the face of the negative critics for the past 40 years of the modern homeschool movement.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

100%. And I think, you know, yes, we're using secular measures, but there's kind of a Venn diagram crossover because so many of those things are forgiveness, key element of our emotional success in the secular world. But we know as Christians, we are called, we are commanded to forgive. And so, you know, looking up, I love that. I love when they're, you know, they they can't deny the fingerprints of God in this. I just at the end of the day, they will they'll they have to admit this. But the socio-emotional component is so critical. And I loved that um the higher social competencies piece in our area. Well, everywhere I travel across the United States, I'm hearing the sixth grade girl, mean girl syndrome, and they're, you know, they have a group text and they um they text each other in school and they say, everybody hates you, you should kill yourself. It's all you should kill yourself, you're ugly, you should kill yourself. And so this socioemotional competency, this uh this compassion, this element of forgiveness, all these things that are going to function to make more well-rounded adults. We need this right now in this generation that is suffering, they're struggling. So, this is an answer, this is an antidote to some of the cultural poison that we're seeing coming out of our system right now. So I'll just applaud that. That's amazing. Anything else that kind of rose to the surface for you?

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah, what I'm what I'm thinking about here, and and this is for moms and dads listening and thinking about this. It it is a complete fallacious argument to say, but what about you know, the interaction with other kids? It's a fallacious argument to say that if you put your children with a bunch of peers and they get beat up and bullied and they see nasty things, that that's how you develop good character. That's it's a completely anti-biblical argument. And yet, down deep somehow inside, we implicitly fall for it. I want to tell parents, don't fall for that. The way that you develop strong children who have a hopefully a godly, a peripherally, a godly mind of their own, is to give them the foundation in a home-based, parent-directed environment. And as they get older, little by little by little, everybody knows this, and you go out more and more and more into the world. You don't just like plop them in there at age five and say, Hey, let it rip, and we'll see how you turn out at the end. That is not how you develop children in a godly manner. So please, parents, don't fall for that. I still run into parents all over the place, all over the country, all over the world, who are falling for that. Even Christians, and I'm really sad about it, Dr. Dunn. There's nothing biblical about that. You will not find out in the scripture. You will not find it. So, yes, we will always, even if we try to quote, protect our children and raise them in the quote greenhouse of homeschooling, they're always gonna, they have sin. They have sin. They know about sin, they're gonna run into sin. You don't need to expose them to more sin.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Friends, education is formation. Who is teaching the children and what are they being taught? One of the amazing offshoots we see in the Chula Vista Christian University model is not only academic support and structure, some of the things we talked about in today's interview, but also whole student development. It comes from having mentors, from having your voice matter in a smaller classroom environment. Our children need relational, emotional, and spiritual fortitude to thrive. For the continuance of the church and the faith, I'm calling on pastors and parents across the United States to be part of the solution to this education crisis. For preschool to eighth grade options, go to Academic Rescue Mission.com. If you have kids in the public school and you want to get them into Christian context, fill out the contact form at veritascc.us and join us for an upcoming parent meeting where you'll learn more about the work that we're doing to help public school students find affordable Christian education. And for our full university degree programs, you can go to cvcu.us. That's Chula Vista Christian University. If you're new to the show or you're homeschooling for the first time, you can catch all the episodes on the Communication Architect Podcast. Just scroll back for some more interviews and inspiration. Don't forget to check out my two latest books, The Mentor Method and Outsourced Why America's Kids Need an Education Revolution, available in print and on Kindle. You can find all of our books, blogs, and podcasts on the homepage at cvcu.us. That's Jula Vista Christian University. Again, I'm Dr. Lisa Dunn. Thanks for joining me on today's show. I'll be back next week with more tips and tools of the trade. We'll see you then. Thanks again for joining us here on the Communication Architect. If you have questions about today's episode or if there are topics you'd like to see us address, send your comments via Instagram to at Dr. Lisa Dunn or via email to contact at dreleasadnun.com. That's D M L I S D M.com. And remember, strategic communication will help you build greater emotional health and relational resilience. So don't miss the next episode. I'm Dr. Lisa Dunn, and I look forward to talking with you next time right here on the communication article.