THE CHANGING CONVERSATION AROUND HOMESCHOOLING: More Data and Less Ideology

Record: Mary Rice Hasson, “The Changing Conversations around Homeschooling: An Argument for More Data and Less Ideology” in The University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy (2012*): 1-23. [First Page]

Summary: Hasson is a fellow at the Catholic Studies Program of the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. As the title suggests, she argues that policymakers should focus on the data and research behind homeschooling rather than ideological rhetoric.

Much of the article deals with how homeschooling has changed in the past 30 years.

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TOLERANCE AND LIBERTY: Michael Farris Defends Homeschooling

Record: Michael Farris, “Tolerance and Liberty: Answering the Academic Left’s Challenge to Homeschooling Freedom” in Peabody Journal of Education 88, no. 3 (2013): 393-406.

Summary:  Farris, the United States’ most influential homeschooling leader for the past 25 years, here summarizes and then rebuts arguments made by some academics and lawyers who seek to increase regulation of homeschooling.

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Homeschoolers and Mathematics?

This post reviews Kathleen Ambruso Acker, Mary W. Gray, Behzad Jalali, and Matthew Pascal, “Mathematics and Home Schooling” in Notices of the AMS 59, no, 4 (April 2012): 513-521.

All four authors of this paper are affiliated with American University.  The stated aim of this misleadingly titled paper is to analyze the legal framework for homeschooling, noting especially the place of mathematics in it, and then to examine how well homeschooling prepares students for college and employment.

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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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