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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Does Homeschooling Undermine the Public Interest in Children?

This post reviews J. C. Blokhuis, “Whose Custody is it Anyway?: ‘Homeschooling’ from a Parens Patriae Perspective,” in Theory and Research in Education, 8, no. 2 (August 2010): 199-222.  [Abstract available here]

Blokhuis, Assistant Professor of Education at Renison University College at the University of Waterloo in Canada, here presents a bracing challenge to the common claim that parents have a Constitutional right to raise their children as they see fit.  He does this by explaining how the common law doctrine parens patriae limits their custodial authority.  He hones in especially on how this doctrine limits homeschooling rights. 

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Three Lawyers Praise Homeschooling

This post reviews Tanya K. Dumas, Sean Gates, and Deborah R. Schwarzer, “Evidence for Homeschooling: Constitutional Analysis in Light of Social Science Research” in Widener Law Review, 16, no. 1 (September 2010): 63-87. [Abstract available here]

The authors here are all lawyers who homeschool their children.  Schwarzer particularly is well-known in California as a member of the Board of Directors of the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum and especially through her work with the Homeschool Association of California’s efforts to overturn the In re Rachel L. decision that caused such consternation back in 2008.

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