Two Recent European Conferences on Home Education

In November of 2012 two important conferences, one in Berlin, Germany and the other in Madrid, Spain, were held.  Both were concerned primarily with fostering a political climate of openness to home education in European countries.

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Why do South Dakota Parents Homeschool?

This post reviews Bonnie F. Boschee and Floyd Boschee, “A Profile of Homeschooling in South Dakota” in Journal of School Choice: Research, Theory, and Reform 5, no. 3 (2011): 281-299.

Floyd Boschee, emeritus professor of education at University of South Dakota, and Bonnie Boschee, assistant professor of education at Northern State University, here present the results of a survey of South Dakota homeschooling parents concerning their motivations for doing so.

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The Cardus Education Survey and Homeschooling

This post reviews Ray Pennings, et. al.,  Cardus Education Survey (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 2011)  [available here]

Phase 1 of the Cardus Education Survey was released a few weeks ago and has garnered significant national attention for its insights into private Christian schooling.  Though not the report’s major emphasis, it also includes some very interesting information about homeschooling. 

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Why are so many Homeschoolers Fundamentalists?

This post reviews Robert Kunzman, “Homeschooling and Religious Fundamentalism” in International Journal of Elementary Education 3, no. 1 (October 2010): 17-28. [Available here]

Kunzman, author of Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling and many articles on American homeschooling, here tries to explain why so many religious fundamentalists have found homeschooling an attractive educational option.

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A New Study on Academic Achievement of Homeschoolers

This post reviews Sandra Martin-Chang, Odette N. Gould, and Reanne E. Meuse, “The Impact of Schooling on Academic Achievement: Evidence from Homeschooled and Traditionally Schooled Children.” Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 43, no. 3 (July 2011): 195-202.

The authors of this study of 74 children, half homeschooled, half institutionally schooled, conclude that structured homeschooling is best, public schooling next, and unstructured homeschooling worst at producing high levels of academic achievement. 

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Are Homeschooling Regulations Too Lax? Are they Constitutional?

This post reviews Timothy B. Waddell, “Bringing it all Back Home: Establishing a Coherent Constitutional Framework for the Re-Regulation of Homeschooling” in Vanderbilt Law Review, 63, 541-598. [Available fulltext here]

Waddell, a recent graduate from Vanderbilt Law School and now a clerk for the U.S. District Court of Alabama, here presents a constitutional argument for increased regulation of homeschooling and much else besides.

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Does Homeschooling Promote Intolerance?

This post reviews Catherine J. Ross, “Fundamentalist Challenges to Core Democratic Values: Exit and Homeschooling.” in William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 18, 991-1014 (2010).  [Available Here]

Ross, Professor of Law at George Washington University, here argues several claims:

1. assertions homeschoolers make to constitutional authority for their practice are false

2. the state’s interest in preparing children for life in a pluralist democracy trumps parental liberty interests in controlling children’s educations

3. in custody battles where homeschooling is at issue, the state should prefer formal schooling to homeschooling

4. states should engage in “far more stringent oversight and regulation of homeschooling than exists in any state at present.” (p. 992)

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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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New Ray Study of Homeschooler Demographics and Achievement

This post reviews Brian D. Ray, “Academic Achievement and Demographic Traits of Homeschool Students: A Nationwide Study” in Academic Leadership Live: The Online Journal 8, no. 1 (February 2010).  [Available Here]

This is the latest of a long line of nearly identical studies Ray has been performing for decades now at fairly even intervals.  In two previous posts I reviewed this large body of work, which you can read here and here.  This new study tries very hard to overcome one of the most persistent deficiencies of his previous work (and the 1999 Rudner study)–the near exclusive reliance on HSLDA’s advertisement to recruit subjects, leading to unrepresentative samples.  This time around Ray tried to recruit families from outside of the HSLDA orbit.  Did he succeed? 

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Duggan on Community College Marketing to Homeschoolers

This post reviews Molly H. Duggan, “Are Community Colleges ‘Home-School Friendly?’: An Exploration of Community College Web Sites as an Indicator of ‘Friendliness’” in Community College Journal of Research and Practice 34: 55-63 (2010).

Duggan, whose earlier work on community colleges and homeschooling I reviewed here, this time asks what community colleges are doing, if anything, to recruit homeschooled students. 

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