Can Home School Math Be given More Than One Credit Per Year?

Home school parents usually tend to look for mastery of subjects before moving forward. This is demonstrated when parents require "more than regular work" in complicated subjects like math and science. While public and private schools might not complete a math textbook throughout a school year, some home school parents will consider a year unsuccessful unless the book is completed. This can result in an excessive number of hours spent on one subject. One mom reported to me that her son did all 344 lessons in Pre-calculus and easily invested around 10 hours per week on his math lessons. Her question was whether she ought to give her son more than one high school credit for his work.

Sadly, one complete high school course like Pre-calculus is one whole credit. One textbook is also one credit - even when it takes forever. Even if you count over 120 hours, it's still just one credit. When our boys did swim team, for instance, it was hundreds of hours however just one credit a year for PE. Math is just one of those subjects like organized sports that usually requires a great deal of hours to finish each year, but should still be one high school credit. It's a big, beefy, manly credit since it's Pre-calculus, and you can be happy with that!

Now is a good time to mention that you don't have to count hours AND count textbooks. You can calculate credit value by counting hours OR by completing a textbook, but don't measure both ways. When you use a textbook, measure credits that way, and don't bother counting hours.

No matter what you decide, bear in mind the parent always knows best. You may decide that your son deserves something greater than just one credit on his transcript. In that case, you might think about giving him honors credit to account for all the extra work he did for his class. You are in control of your child's education. I'm only here to give my opinion based on my years of experience and gray hairs.