A RISING TIDE LIFTS ALL BOATS: A New Cardus Survey of Homeschooling in Canada

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: R. Pennings, et al., “A Rising Tide Lifts all Boats: Measuring Non-Government School Effects in Service of the Canadian Public Good” (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 2012).  Available for free download here.

Summary: Back in 2011 I reviewed the first Cardus Survey, which provided rare randomly sampled data about young adults who had been homeschooled in the United States.  This new study does the same for Canada.  In the first study the Cardus researchers uncovered some fascinating information about adult homeschoolers, some of which proved rather controversial because it was not very flattering toward homeschooling. Continue reading →

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HEALTH CARE ACCESS: Homeschoolers and Health

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: Alissa Cordner, “The Health Care Access and Utilization of Homeschooled Children in the United States” in Social Science and Medicine 75 (2012): 269-273.

Summary: Cordner, a graduate student in sociology at Brown University, here offers her first foray into homeschooling research.  She used the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), a government phone survey of over 91,000 households randomly sampled from the national population.  The NSCH asked families about the kind of schooling the child being reported on attended, including homeschooling, so Cordner’s got great data from which to draw conclusions. Continue reading →

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A PROFILE OF HOMESCHOOLING: Why do South Dakota Parents Homeschool?

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: 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.

Summary: 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. Continue reading →

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FREE TO LEARN: Homeschooling in Albania

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: Timothy Hagen, “Free to Learn: The Rationale for Legalizing Homeschooling in Albania” in Central European Journal of Public Policy 5, no. 2 (December 2011): 50-85 [available fulltext here]

Summary: Hagen, a professor of economics at Epoka University in Albania, here offers what is I think the first ever article about homeschooling in that country.  He begins by noting that after the fall of Communism in 1991 the Albanian government began to allow private schooling.  He argues here that the halting steps Albania is making toward acknowledging the right to homeschool is the right way to go, and that homeschooling should take its place alongside other forms of schooling in the panoply of options available to Albanians. Continue reading →

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WHEN ‘I DO’ BECOMES ‘YOU WON’T’: Homeschooling and Divorce

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: Anthony Barone Kolenc, “When ‘I Do’ Becomes ‘You Won’t!’–Preserving the Right to Home School After Divorce” in Ave Maria Law Review 9, no. 2 (2010-2011): 263-302.

Summary: Kolenc is a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law, homeschooling father of five, was until very recently author of the monthly column “Legally Speaking” in The Old Schoolhouse magazine and is now writing a legal column for the magazine Practical Homeschooling.  Here he constructs a legal argument aimed at helping divorced homeschooling parents involved in custody disputes.

Kolenc begins with the Kurowski case. Here’s a summary of the facts of the case: Continue reading →

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EDUCATION, SCHOOLING, AND CHILDREN’S RIGHTS: How to Regulate Homeschooling

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: Robert Kunzman, “Education, Schooling, and Children’s Rights: the Complexity of Homeschooling” in Educational Theory 62, no. 1 (February 2012): 75-89.

Summary: Kunzman is author of Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling and many articles on homeschooling.  This piece is a bit more theoretical.  It aims not so much to set out an explicit policy proposal as to argue for why certain domains should be considered legal rights (and thus be scrutinized by the government) while other, perhaps equally important domains, should not. Continue reading →

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EXPERIENCES OF PARENTS: Autism Spectrum Disorder and Homeschooling

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: Karen S. Hurlbutt, “Experiences of Parents Who Homeschool Their Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders” in Developmental Disabilities 26, no. 4 (December 2011): 239-249.

Summary: Hurlbutt, who now goes by the name of Karen Eastman, is a Special Education professor at Minnesota State University.  Here she presents the results of a qualitative study of nine families who have chosen to homeschool their children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).  She begins by noting that several experts in the field point to autism as the most challenging of conditions for public school teachers due to the rapidly changing nature of diagnosis and treatment protocols.  Many teachers and schools feel unprepared to deal well with children with ASD, and as a result a growing number of families with ASD kids are turning to homeschooling. Continue reading →

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HOMESCHOOLING PARENTS: Practices and Beliefs about Vaccinations

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: Elizabeth L. Thorpe, et al., “Homeschooling Parents’ Practices and Beliefs about Childhood Immunizations” in Vaccine, 30, no. 6 (February 2012): 1149-1153.

Summary: This paper, written by a group of physicians and medical researchers, noting the rise both in occurrences of “vaccine preventable disease” (VPD) and the rise in homeschooling, tries to probe the attitudes of homeschoolers toward vaccination. Continue reading →

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LINKING PARENTAL MOTIVATIONS: Comparing Parents who Homeschool with Those who Don’t

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: Christa L. Ice and Kathleen V. Hoover-Dempsey, “Linking Parental Motivations for Involvement and Student Proximal Achievement Outcomes in Homeschooling and Public Schooling Settings” in Education and Urban Society 43, no. 3 (May 2011): 339-369. [Abstract available here]

Summary: Hoover-Dempsey and Ice ask two questions in this article.  First, are there important differences between how parents who choose homeschooling view their abilities to teach, level of engagement with their kids, and perception of their kids’ capabilities, and how parents who choose public schools for their kids view the same variables?  Second, do the differences in parental perception lead to differences in student performance and self-image? Continue reading →

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EDUCATION ON THE HOME FRONT: The European Union and Home Education

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Milton Gaither

Record: Colin Koons, “Education on the Home Front: Home Education in the European Union and the Need for Unified European Policy.” Indiana International and Comparative Law Review, 20, no. 1 (2010): 145-174.

Summary: Koons, a recent graduate from Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis, here explains the diversity of home education law in various European countries and tries to figure out what the European Union’s legal parameters would be for the practice.

He begins by laying out Amanda Petrie’s three categories of home education law in Europe.  Continue reading →

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