When Michael Farris and Michael Smith founded Home School Legal Defense Association in March of 1983, home schooling was just a tiny blip on the education radar screen. The concept of parents teaching their children at home was relatively obscure, and the families who chose to follow this non-traditional education route were fairly certain to face opposition from the educational bureaucracy and following legal entanglements, as well as from their own friends and family.
Homeschooling can feel intimidating for many parents. But don't forget, it comes in all shapes and sizes. This guide helps you familiarize yourself with all things homeschooling.
A look at the battle for the homeschooling movement and the demographics of homeschooling families that challenges the notion that all homeschoolers are conservative fundamentalists. This article is a critical look at the HSLDA.
Cheryl Seelhoff discusses the controversy between her and other homeschool movement leaders.
The Homeschool Marketer is the place to gather all your tips about homeschool marketing and public relations. Whether you are considering marketing to home educators, are a homeschooler attempting to spread the word about your business efforts, or just want to know the news from the busy bees at The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, this is the place to get the "buzz".
How homeschoolers interact with social media. Myths about using social media for marketing to the homeschool audience. Social media preferences for the homeschool market.
With podcasts you have a chance to reach a new component of the homeschool audience that you might not reach via newsletters, blog posts, or social media. This video details three advantages to marketing through podcasts.
House Resolution 6 of 1994 was a reappropriations bill for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Ordinarily such bills deal with public education and would have little, if any, impact on home educators. But that year, a few small wording changes affected thousands upon thousands of home schooling families, and resulted in over a million phone calls to Congress.
This article, written in 1998 on the fifteenth anniversary of Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), chronicles HSLDA’s growth.
A look at the change in the homeschooling movement from an inclusive philosophy to a more structured, compartmentalized, and politicized structure.
Patrick Farenga's discussion of the role John Holt played in the evolution of the homeschooling movement.
Homeschoolers are actually not the easiest marketing targets in general. You might think that we are such a specific subset of the population that we basically have a marketing bullseye on our foreheads, but the truth is that people homeschool their children for such a wide variety of reasons that figuring out where we are coming from can be a full-time job in itself. The one thing homeschoolers DO have in common is their belief that by homeschooling, they are providing a customized education for their child.
This is an interview with Dr. Raymond Moore, with an emphasis on his and his wife's influence on the homeschooling movement.
Cheryl Seelhoff continues her look at the history of homeschooling by examining the influences of unschooling, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, Bill Gothard, and more.
No other book on home education has encouraged more teenagers to "rise out" of school than Grace Llewellyn’s Teenage Liberation Handbook. Seven years and many liberated teens later, she has evolved into a recognizable, respected voice that unschoolers embrace.
This is the final installment of Cheryl Seelhoff's series on the history of homeschooling in America.
If you’re looking for a perfect niche market for your specialty toys, you might try homeschoolers. Since they are outside of the mainstream, they tend to be more skeptical about mass-marketed products and more inclined to make unorthodox choices, as a scan of homeschooling websites and a survey of five homeschooling moms revealed.
Would-be reformers of the current educational system, including corporate altruists nor philanthropic foundations, have shown much interest so far in homeschooling's increasing popularity. Instead, they've focused on the promotion of charter schools and school vouchers. In this article, Greg Beato details some of the efforts of big business to reform public schooling, taking a look at corporate sponsorships, grants, and scholarship programs. It examines the dichotomy between those who criticize the system as an Industrial Age artifact and simultaneously push for more standardization and regimentation. Homeschoolers have provided an alternative that offers positive results in academics and other accomplishments. The article continues by looking at the future of the relationship between business and homeschoolers, from increasing scholarship opportunities to partnerships between homeschooling groups and corporations.
This timeline highlights the important milestones in the fight for homeschool freedom in the United States.
A look at what homeschoolers buy and different ways to reach the homeschool market.