Especially for Students with Learning Challenges – from ADHD to Autism
www.beaconcollege.edu
105 East Main Street
Leesburg, Florida 34748
Office of Admissions
Phone Toll-Free: 855-220-5376
[email protected]
If education were a NASDAQ stock, CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer would trumpet the bull market on homeschooling. The numbers — from the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2012 — don’t lie. In 1999, some 850,000 students, or 1.7 percent of the school-age U.S. population were homeschooled. By 2012, that share rose to 3.4 percent of school-age children, or 1.8 million American students. Their ranks only will likely continue to grow given Education Secretary Betsy DeVos backs home schooling. As she told Philanthropy magazine in 2013, “To the extent that home schooling puts parents back in charge of their kids’ education, more power to them.” For many homeschooling families, the power of their choice, according to the NHES results, rests in the freedom to instruct their kids using nontraditional approaches (44 percent). Others relish the ability better to cater to a child with special needs (16 percent) or a student how has a physical or mental health issue (15 percent).
If education were a NASDAQ stock, CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer would trumpet the bull market on homeschooling. The numbers — from the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2012 — don’t lie. In 1999, some 850,000 students, or 1.7 percent of the school-age U.S. population were homeschooled. By 2012, that share rose to 3.4 percent of school-age children, or 1.8 million American students. Their ranks only will likely continue to grow given Education Secretary Betsy DeVos backs home schooling. As she told Philanthropy magazine in 2013, “To the extent that home schooling puts parents back in charge of their kids’ education, more power to them.” For many homeschooling families, the power of their choice, according to the NHES results, rests in the freedom to instruct their kids using nontraditional approaches (44 percent). Others relish the ability better to cater to a child with special needs (16 percent) or a student how has a physical or mental health issue (15 percent).
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That trio of reasons, or put another way, the advantages of a customized or individualized curriculum and learning environment meant to support individual success, is what families with students with learning disabilities, ADHD, and other learning differences relish about Beacon College.
The nonprofit liberal arts college in Leesburg, Fla. is the first college or university accredited to award bachelor’s degrees in eight disciplines primarily to students who learn differently. In 2016, BestColleges.com named Beacon among its Top 10 Florida colleges or universities. That same year, College magazine ranked Beacon No. 2 in its “Top 10 Best Colleges for Students with Learning Disabilities.”
Parents with a discriminating taste in education — homeschoolers — increasingly will be looking for the kind of quality program Beacon provides for students who learn differently.
The National Center for Learning Disabilities recently reported some 2.4 million American public school students (roughly five percent of the total public school enrollment) are classified as having learning disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
And the ranks are growing. Research by Education Week recently revealed soaring waves of students ages 6-21 with disabilities are crashing down on the American education system.
The visible uptick is especially sharp for kids living with invisible disabilities such as autism, which recorded a 165 percent jump between the 2005-06 and 2014-15 school years of students categorized as having autism. Likewise, the number of students classified as having specific learning disabilities — limitations in the capacity to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell and calculate — also spiked between 2013-14 and 2014-15.
In Beacon College, parents who have chucked the one-size-fits-all learning model in favor of homeschooling’s customization advantages can feel confident their student will enjoy a tailored experience meant to sew up scholastic and developmental success in nine majors: anthrozoology; business management; business management with hospitality track; computer information systems with information systems track; computer information systems with web & digital media track; human services; humanities; psychology; and studio arts.
All in cozy Leesburg, the Waterfront City, an hour from Walt Disney World, but as close to home as a college-bound homeschooler could want.
