This revealing and balanced portrait of homeschooling today provides a full history of the movement, demographic insights, and extensive research on how homeschooled children fare.

This is a lively account of one of the most important and overlooked themes in American education. Beginning in the colonial period and working to the present, Gaither describes in rich detail how the home has been used as the base for education of all kinds. The last five chapters focus especially on the modern homeschooling movement and offer the most comprehensive and authoritative account of it ever written. Readers will learn how and why homeschooling emerged when it did, where it has been, and where it may be going. Please visit Gaither's blog here: http://gaither.wordpress.com/homeschool-an-american-history/

This revealing and balanced portrait of homeschooling today provides a full history of the movement, demographic insights, and extensive research on how homeschooled children fare in the United States. Delving into a movement that impacts more students nationwide than the entire charter school movement, this book explores: • The history of homeschooling in America • How this movement has grown in credibility and enrollment exponentially • The current state of homeschooling, including questions about who gets homeschooled, why, and what is the success—academically and in life—of students who are homeschooled • The impact of homeschooling on the student and on American society In 2010, more than two million students were homeschooled. In the most extensive survey and analysis of research on homeschooling, spanning the birth of the movement in the 1970s to today, Homeschooling in America shines a light on one of the most important yet least understood social movements of the last forty years and explores what it means for education today.

HOMESCHOOLING A HOPE FOR AMERICA is a collection of articles taken from The Voluntaryist, a newsletter with a libertarian outlook which has been published since 1982. The anthology has been assembled by Carl Watner (from many of his past articles, as well as those of others), and contains an original Foreword by John Taylor Gatto.This anthology argues against government education in a unique way. One who advocates voluntaryism opposes government schools, not because he opposes schooling but, because he opposes coercion, which is to be found in government taxation, compulsory attendance laws, and in the monopolization of public services. Most of us would agree that there should not be any state religion; that religion should not be supported by taxation; and that people should not be compelled to attend religious services. Why shouldn't the principles of voluntaryism in religion apply to education?All government depends on the cooperation and/or tacit consent of the majority of its citizens. When the state could no longer use government churches to legitimize its rule of the divine right of kings, some other institution had to be found that would induce consent among the masses. Government schools became the chosen instrument to produce good citizens for the state. Indoctrinate the young: then they will support the state for the rest of their lives.America is at a cross roads of cultural and economic disintegration, yet voluntaryists believe that there is hope. It is to be found in home schooling. Rather than cursing the darkness, parents can light one small candle of wisdom and learning and pass it along to the next generation. "Ages of experience testify that the only way society can be improved is by the individualist method; ... that is, the method of each one doing his best to improve one." This is the quiet or patient way of changing society because it concentrates upon bettering the character of men and women as individuals. As the individual units change, the improvement in society will take care of itself. In other words, if one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself.

This intimate, eminently practical memoir of a successful homeschooled family of six children illuminates today’s most exciting choice in education, and shows how it works from cradle to college. What is it that homeschoolers do that the public schools can’t or won’t? There are at least as many answers as there are studies. But nothing can capture the homeschooling experience in all its richness like the story of a real family that homeschools its children in middleclass America. Homeschooling: A Family’s Journey is the perfect book for those millions of Americans who may know someone who homeschools, who may have read about it, thought about it, and wondered whether homeschooling is right for them. Sharing the concerns of committed parents everywhere, authors Gregory and Martine Millman are consistently practical, informed, caring, and no-nonsense in their approach. They pay special attention to homeschooling and college, the economics of home-learning, and how a parent can really handle a child’s full education. Homeschooling opens a window on an exciting, important way of education—and, even more, a way of life—that can make all the difference in your family’s world.

Homeschool leader Christopher Klicka documents the modern history of the homeschool resurgence in America, profiling the legal issues as well as the tireless champions of this education movement.

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 1,0, University of Education Heidelberg, course: Developing Advanced Writing Skills, language: English, abstract: Like a majority of people, the Connollys had never imagined homeschooling as something they would do. But by the time, their daughter Elise entered sixth grade they noticed a personality change. Her grades began to drop - first a little then a lot. The Connollys tried to talk about it with her, but Elise was distant and noncommunicative. When the school year ended, and they received her report card, the Connollys felt disappointed and discouraged about the education of their only daughter. They immediately telephoned the school, but everyone was out for the summer. Consequently, they had to solve the problem on their own. It was difficult because Elise rejected talking about school until she finally gave way to tears. She explained having problems with some of her peers and with the character of some of her teachers. The Connollys felt that there were elements like peer pressure and violence in the school environment they had no control over. The next day, they started to investigate in homeschooling (Caruana 46). According to the sociologist Mitchell Stevens school is "the most central institution of modern life" (15). This means that daily activities or vacations are adjusted and organized around school. Despite this, we can observe a new trend: Parents teach their children at home instead of sending them to a public or a private school. More and more children get educated at home by their parents or, in some cases, by private teachers. Homeschooling exists in many parts of the world, especially in English speaking countries, but this paper focuses on the homeschooling movement in the United States because a majority of homeschooling families can be found there. Homeschoolers are only connected by their interest in homeschooling their children and