BUILDING GOD’S KINGDOM: Christian Reconstruction’s Influence on Homeschooling and More

Record: Julie J. Ingersoll, Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015) [Available Here]

Summary: Ingersoll is in a unique position to write a book like this.  As a young woman she was married to one of the sons of prominent Reconstructionist Bob Thoburn and was very active in several Religious Right organizations.  She and Mark Thoburn divorced in the early 1990s and Julie spent most of that decade earning a Ph.D. in Religious Studies, eventually becoming a professor at the University of North Florida.  Her dissertation was published in 2003 as Evangelical Christian Women: War Stories in the Gender Battles. This is her second book.

Read Full Post »

HOMESCHOOLING IN SOUTH AFRICA: Implications for other African Nations

Record: Michael Olalekan Olatunji, “Contemporary Homeschooling in the Republic of South Africa: Some Lessons for Other African Nations” in Middle Eastern and African Journal of Educational Research 9 (2014): 4-16. [Available Here]

Summary: Olatunji, whose affiliation is listed as the Botswana Institute for Educational Leadership, here summarizes the home education situation in South Africa and uses it to exemplify opportunities and potential pitfalls for other African nations.

Read Full Post »

Chris Klicka, Rest in Peace

Yesterday homeschooling activist lawyer Chris Klicka died after a 15 year battle with multiple sclerosis.  Klicka was hired by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) in 1985 before it had really gotten off of the ground, and he helped grow it into the powerhouse advocacy organization that it is today.  In my book on homeschooling history Klicka gets extensive treatment because of his central role at HSLDA.

Klicka also wrote one of the first histories of the homeschooling movement, Home School Heroes: The Struggle & Triumph of Home Schooling in America.  Though it has its flaws, it contains some great first-person accounts of pivotal moments in the legal history of homeschooling and some revealing insider information about HSLDA.

As you can see from the in memoriam page posted by HSLDA, Klicka was a pious Christian and a devoted family man.  He leaves behind his wife Tracy (read her journal describing Chris’ last days here) and their seven children, all of whom were homeschooled.  Though many people with whom I spoke in the course of my research do not share all of Klicka’s political or theological opinions, he was universally regarded as a generous and compassionate human being.

Klicka’s death is a real loss for the movement and a milestone in the history of homeschooling.  I tend to interpret the history of the homeschooling movement thus far as having had three phases.  Phase one was the era of Holt and the Moores.  Phase three is the recent trend toward a more mainstream and hybridized movement.  It would not be an overstatement to call phase two, when HSLDA was the dominant force in American homeschooling, the era of Chris Klicka.

Read Full Post »

Howard Ahmanson’s Astonishing Political Switch

This blog is usually not really bloggy, in the sense that I don’t normally comment on other blogs posting about this or that passing tidbit.  But today I’ll break from my normal modus operandi for a truly remarkable tidbit.

Yesterday I read on Rod Dreher’s “Crunchycon” blog that Howard Ahmanson, the famous Orange County Billionaire whose funding has long been of vital importance to conservative Christian causes, had become a Democrat.  From the perspective of homeschooling history, this is amazing. 

Read Full Post »

Jones on Religious Schools and Homeschools

This post reviews Steven L. Jones, Religious Schooling in America: Private Education and Public Life (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008).

Jones, Associate Professor of Sociology at Grove City College, here offers a fascinating book about the history of private religious education in America.  It’s not a straightforward chronological history but rather a thematic look, showing in chapter after chapter how common themes have animated the Catholic school movement of the 19th century, the Jewish day school movement of the mid 20th century, and the Protestant day school and homeschool movements of the more recent past. 

Read Full Post »

Gaither on Eating Humble Pie

Yesterday I received an email from Dr. Robert Kunzman, a professor at Indiana University who has written widely on topics related to moral and religious education in public schools and is currently working on a book on homeschooling.  After saying many kind and flattering things about my book he gently alerted me to an error it contains.  I’d like here to make this error public and explain how I made the mistake I did.  I know that there are many graduate students and others interested in research reading this blog, and hopefully my lapse here will serve as a lesson for others. 

Read Full Post »

Haan and Cruickshank on Homeschoolers in College

This post reviews Perry Haan and Cam Cruickshank, “Marketing Colleges to Home-Schooled Students” in Journal of Marketing for Higher Education 16, no. 2 (2006): 25-43.

Haan and Cruickshank, both affiliated with Tiffin University in Ohio, here orient college administrators to the homeschooling movement and make a case for increased recruitment from its ranks as a viable strategy for enrollment growth. 

Read Full Post »

Review of Heidi Williams, ed., AT ISSUE: HOMESCHOOLING, part 1

This 2007 release by Thomson Gale is a convenient anthology of articles all previously published elsewhere covering a range of topics and points of view on homeschooling.  The aim of the collection is to provide a sort of point/counterpoint on the topics covered.  In my next few posts I will provide brief summaries of and commentary on the articles included.  Today I will talk about the first two. 

Read Full Post »