Coleman on Homeschoolers in Middletown

This post reviews Rachel E. Coleman, “Ideologues: Pedagogues, Pragmatics: A Case Study of the Homeschool Community in Delaware County, Indiana” (M.A. Thesis: Ball State University, 2010).

Rachel Coleman, a reader of this blog, graciously sent me a copy of her Master’s Thesis she just defended this month at Ball State University.  It’s wonderful.  In this post I’ll summarize it and stress its main contributions to our knowledge about homeschooling.

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Gunn on how the Cold War created a new American Religion

This post reviews T. Jeremy Gunn, Spiritual Weapons: The Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009).

Gunn, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief (among many other assignments), here constructs a fascinating if flawed argument that the Cold War led to the unique blend of Christianity, militarism, and capitalism that is now the dominant religion in the United States.  First I’ll lay out his argument and then say why I think it’s flawed.  What does all of this have to do with homeschooling?  I think conservative Christian homeschoolers are perhaps the purest expression of the sort of religion Gunn is chronicling here–fiercely committed to the idea that the United States is (or was and should be again) a Christian and capitalist nation, and strongly pro-military.  Why are so many conservative homeschoolers like this?  Here’s Gunn’s explanation:

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A bit more on West’s HARMS OF HOMESCHOOLING

Last week’s post generated by far the most activity I’ve ever had on this blog.  Most of the comments submitted showcase the remarkable zeal with which homeschoolers rush to defend themselves in the face of perceived attack.  The outside observer might find such behavior a bit overdone and melodramatic.  To me it helps explain why homeschoolers have been so successful in the political arena. 

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West on the Harms of Homeschooling

This post reviews Robin L. West, “The Harms of Homeschooling” in Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly 29, no. 3/4 (Summer/Fall 2009): 7-11 [Available here]

West, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, here provides perhaps the most blistering attack on homeschooling to be published in a reputable source in many years.

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Kunzman on Regulating Homeschooling

This post reviews Robert Kunzman, “Understanding Homeschooling: A Better Approach to Regulation” in Theory and Research in Education 7, no. 3 (November 2009): 311-330

Kunzman, well known on this blog as the author of the excellent study Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling, here engages explicitly the aspect of his work that has caused the most controversy.  Kunzman’s book is an in-depth profile of several Christian homeschooling families.  He only briefly mentions government regulation in it, but that small part of the book has been the near exclusive focus of homeschoolers, many of whom now see him as just another critical academic who wants to take away their freedoms.  In this article Kunzman offers a more complete presentation of his position on homeschool regulation.  Here’s what he says: 

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New Ray/HSLDA Study on Homeschooler Achievement

This post briefly reviews preliminary releases of the new study conducted by Brian Ray for HSLDA called “Homeschooling Across America: Academic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics.”  The full study is scheduled for release in November 2009.

While the full report has not yet been published, HSLDA has already posted a press release describing its scope and celebrating its finding that homeschoolers score on average 36-37 percentage points higher than public schooled children on a wide range of standardized tests.   

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Kunzman on Christian Homeschoolers, Part 2

This post continues my review of Robert Kunzman, Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling(Boston: Beacon, 2009).

In part one I summarized the book’s contents and offered a few tepid critiques.  Here I’d like to draw out a few generalizations from Kunzman’s rich data about Christian homeschoolers.

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Kunzman on Christian Homeschooling, part 1

This post reviews Robert Kunzman, Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009).

Kunzman [see his wonderful homeschooling research website here], Associate Professor of Education at Indiana University, Bloomington and author of many works on religion, ethics, and education, here gives us one of the most important books on homeschooling ever written. 

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Joyce on Patriarchal Homeschooling, Part 3

This post is the final installment of my treatment of Kathryn Joyce, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement.

In my first post I summarized the book’s content.  In my second post I offered a few critiques and generalizations.  Here I’d like to offer some speculations about the movement’s future, drawing on a few personal experiences in the process. 

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Glass on Homeschooling and Privatization

This post reviews Gene V. Glass, Fertilizers, Pills, And Magnetic Strips: The Fate Of Public Education In America (Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, 2008).

Glass, a professor of education at Arizona State University and author of numerous studies related to empirical research in education, here provides a sweeping, almost epic account of the broad economic and social trends that have affected recent educational policy.  While homeschooling is not a central theme of his book, it is for him one facet of a larger trend toward educational privatization that he tries to account for here. 

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