By Selwyn Duke

“Work expands to fit the allotted time,” the saying goes. And that education is no exception holds a lesson: Some will say when pondering homeschooling, “I’m not qualified to teach my kids.” But, informs homeschooling advocate Brett Pike, it’s not just that you can teach your kids — and splendidly.

It’s that you can do it in a fraction of the time schools do.

In a Friday X video post, Pike relates the story of parents Aaron and Kaleena Amuchastegui. The Amuchasteguis were typical Americans who believed in the “system.” You send your kids to school, they ascend through the grades, go to college, and then start a career. But as luck would have it, they at some point found themselves needing to teach their elementary-school daughter at home for a couple of weeks.

Well, it was the parents who learned the biggest lesson.

That is, they found they could teach their girl all the prescribed material in just one hour a day.

This revelation completely changed their lives. It inspired them to write a book, too: The 5-Hour School Week: An Inspirational Guide to Leaving the Classroom to Embrace Learning in a Way You Never Imagined.

Time for What Matters

It wasn’t just that the Amuchasteguis saved time, either. Pike, who hosts the YouTube channel Classical Learner, reports that the Amuchasteguis’ daughter actually improved educationally. (For example, after just the two weeks of homeschooling, she was finally able to spell and pronounce her last name.)

(Fake news alert: That was a joke.)

The girl did improve, though, and, what’s more, the time saved could be used for ancillary activities. The Amuchasteguis could, consequently, more effectively cultivate their daughter’s interests. She became a successful entrepreneur while just a teenager, states Pike. “All of a sudden,” he relates, “cooking and gardening and field trips became amazing opportunities for learning. And that’s what homeschool families understand.”

“You don’t need that much time for formal education,” he continues. This “leaves so much more time for less formal things that your children love, they look forward to.”

Apropos here, the inefficiency matter takes me back to a conversation I had decades ago. My best friend and I both attended the Bronx High School of Science in New York City. “Bx Sci,” as it’s known, is a somewhat famous “elite” institution known for academic rigor. (Students must pass an entrance exam to attend.) The intellectual level — i.e., average IQ — of the students certainly was impressive, too. To this day, my fellow classmates are still the most intelligent large group of people among whom I’ve ever circulated. Despite this, around our high-school days’ conclusion, my buddy and I both had the same realization.

We agreed that we could have easily absorbed the entire four-years’ academic load in six months.

We were correct, too.

Now, in fairness, though, a critic may point out that the above is anecdotal. So what do the data show?

It’s No Contest

Whatfinger news answers this question. Along with posting Pike’s video, the site presents an article that contrasts homeschooling with government schooling. To summarize, according to Whatfinger:

• Public schools’ inefficiency is explained by bureaucracy, the need for “crowd control,” and emphasis on ideological issues. Actual learning time is limited.
• Homeschooling is a commonsense-oriented solution to government education’s declining standards, woke indoctrination, and union agendas. It stresses academic rigor, a better sense of virtue, and liberty.
• Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) data demonstrate that homeschoolers score 15 to 30 percentile points higher than government-school students on standardized exams, regardless of income or parental education.
• The tailored, efficient homeschooling model surpasses government schools’ one-size-fits-all mandates.
• The Heritage Foundation (2008) reports that homeschoolers’ median test scores are in the 70th to 80th percentile; government-school students languish in the 50th. Moreover, the gains for black homeschoolers are especially robust.
• National Review attributes the 15- to 30-percentile point advantage to avoiding government schools’ “social-welfare” distractions, such as “gender” ideology lessons.
• The Federalist cites homeschoolers scoring 31 to 37 percentile points above government-school kids, countering “lazy parent” criticisms.
• Daily Wire states that homeschoolers excel on difficult tests owing to one-on-one instruction free from “leftist curricula.”
• Homeschoolers average 22.8 on the ACT (vs. 21 for government-schoolers), reached the 77th percentile on the Iowa Test, and surpass SAT averages, according to Heritage.
• National Review points to homeschool graduates’ superior college readiness and graduation rates.
• Critics’ claims of lacking socialization or rigor are debunked by evidence. Homeschoolers do not live in bubbles. They have co-ops, church programs, play dates, siblings, organized sports, and other extracurricular activities.

There’s Still More

That’s not all, either. As Whatfinger also relates (a summary again):

• HSLDA correctly predicted that homeschoolers would outperform government-schoolers during the Covid shutdowns.
• Heritage links choice-based education, including homeschooling, to improved rural National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores without harming government systems.
• Daily Wire informs that more than 78 percent of studies evidence homeschoolers’ statistical superiority. This leads to higher college attendance, too.
• In Alaska, authentic homeschoolers outperform hybrid models, per HSLDA; this illustrates genuine home education’s value.
• Heritage’s 2025 report notes worsening NAEP outcomes in government schools; this further brings homeschooling’s success into focus.
• Homeschooling counters “cultural Marxism,” emphasizing real skills over destructive, radical agendas.

The last point cannot be overemphasized. Schools today — government ones in particular — have become toxic. When you homeschool, you can be sure your child won’t be taught he can switch sexes at will. He won’t be instructed on how to put a prophylactic on a banana. He won’t be inundated with anti-white propaganda. If he’s black, he won’t be told, in essence, that virtue is a Caucasian domain. (E.g., punctuality is a “white norm.”) And he won’t be instilled with nihilism and the doom-and-gloom message that a naturally occurring gas is destroying the world. (For more, read my 2018 essay “Craziness in Kids’ Classes.”)

Of course, there are disadvantages to homeschooling, too. If enough people do it, tattoo artists, body-piercing parlors, drug dealers, and abortionists may go out of business.

Note: Brett Pike’s short video is below.

New homeschool parents are shocked when they discover how little time it takes to get through what public schools consider to be eight hours of work. pic.twitter.com/KR2hxUK5wy

— Brett Pike (@ClassicLearner) August 2, 2025

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                     This article was originally published at The New American.