CBS affiliate News Channel 7 in Asheville, SC has a two and a half minute video newsclip about homeschooling and a short summary titled Homeschooling Numbers Up in South Carolina:

In South Carolina the number of parents choosing home school for their kids is growing. Studies show over the last ten years, home schooling has more than doubled across the state. Right now the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools estimates 19,000 children are homeschooled statewide, up 131 percent from 1999.

Channel 15, an ABC affiliate out of Phoenix, Arizona, featured a piece with reporter Allison Dugaw interviewing two homeschooling moms in Ever thought of homeschooling your kids? 2 moms share their experience:

PHOENIX – Several studies show that homeschooling kids may benefit some children later in life. But a lot of parents don’t really know where to start.

Kim Wilson, a mother of five from Gilbert, just started lessons with her 7-year-old son Kyden. She says he liked kindergarten but struggled with first grade so she decided to try out homeschooling.

Raeleen Brown is a mother of seven who homeschools all of her children. She says her decision was based on being in charge of the content of the curriculum, teaching responsibilities at home and teaching about the family’s faith.

Continue reading or view the video clip at the link above.

Susan Ryan shares a heart-warming story at her Corn and Oil blog about a homeschooling family who purchased a local school and are sharing it with their community:

“When they heard about the sale of the school and its contents, Melanie and Gary Doyle thought they may end up purchasing school supplies for their home-schooled kids. Instead, they bought the school itself.”

CNN news video by Fredericka Whitfield titled African-American Homeschooling On The Rise, But Why?

Features Joyce Burges of Indiana, founder of the National Black Home Educators, talking about her family’s experiences, along with James and Vanessa Leak, who homeschool their children in Georgia. According to the video homeschooling in the US has gone up by 74% since 1999.

Typical local homeschooling piece, Homeschooling in Huntsville, for WAAY-TV, asks the usual questions, provides the usual answers: “HUNTSVILLE, AL—From the first day of kindergarten to graduation, a student’s progress through school is marked with regular rites of passage. Lockers, hall passes and high school cliques are all part of life along the way. But more and more families are choosing a different path: homeschooling.”

This piece – Homeschooling the right choice for Great Falls family – is short, predictable, and merely a lead-in to an evening newscast for Great Falls, Montana, but still…

“It’s a common afternoon scene in kitchens across the country: a teenager sitting at the kitchen table doing homework.

“But for 8th-grader Ryan Keith in Great Falls, the kitchen table isn’t just a place to do homework – it’s his classroom.”

The Air Force Times features an article on homeschooling by staff writer Jon R. Anderson, titled the ABCs of Home Schooling:

Experts estimate there are 2 million home-schoolers, with their numbers growing as much as 12 percent annually in recent years. And there is data to indicate that military families are home schooling at perhaps twice the national average.

That doesn’t surprise the Rexfords, who have been home schooling for 10 years. “Home schooling fits the military lifestyle very well,” James Rexford says. “When you move, the school goes with you. When you have time off, the kids can take time off with you.”

Former News & Commentary editor and Home Education Magazine columnist Valerie Moon, who runs the website The Military Homeschooler, remembers when the brass in Europe tried to forbid homeschooling, but adds, “That’s all gone now, the military has become very supportive.”

A sidebar highlights support resources for military homeschooling families, and explains how writer Jon R. Anderson’s family got into homeschooling: “My gut tightened when my wife first floated the idea of home schooling six months ago.”

The Military Times Media Group has been the premiere source for military news and information for the military and government sectors for over 60 years.

The Mississippi homeschooling family of Robert and Debra Shinn is facing every homeschooler’s – no, every family’s – nightmare. In a post aptly titled When Hell Came to Our Home the homeschool blogger mom known as Lioness writes “a story that gets scarier and more bizarre the further along it goes.” She implores readers, “Please repost this story far and wide. One forum already refused it as being too “troublesome”, but I am terrified as to what will happen to my children and myself if no one knows.”

An excerpt:

What with all the upset, it’s nightfall before I get around to mentioning to dh that the internet went down right before this started. Dh teaches computer building and maintenance classes. He gets out his kit and checks the line. He reports back that there’s 1/10th volt on the line, and the only thing that could have caused that would be if it were deliberately switched off at the relay station.

Dh goes over to Good Buddy’s house to make phone calls. He calls the cops. They say, “Get out. Get out now. It’s not safe.” He calls a relative in another county for shelter.

Sunday Morning.

We throw everything in the car and leave for the relative’s house.

Then things start getting scary.

Sound a little over-the-top? Read Lioness’s multiple posts and decide for yourself, and read the updates she’s posting to continue following the developments. And share her story far and wide, not only to help Lioness and her family, but to help others who might face similar situations and be wondering what they can do.

In an increasingly bizarre situation a school district in Texas is “seeking to bankrupt” a now-homeschooling family. Writing for the Houston, Texas FOX News channel, reporter Greg Groogan explains the case in an article he titled School District Seeks to Bankrupt Disabled Student’s Family:

In May, 2007, after learning that their son Chuka was not receiving the help he needed from the local school, Kenneth and Neka Chibuogwu filed a procedure called “due process” where a sort of education judge listens to all the evidence and decides the issue. But instead of seeking compromise, the school district launched a full-blown legal counterattack against the family:

“These people had been railroaded, these people had been maligned,” says special education advocate Jimmy Kilpatrick who represented Chuka and his parents.

Drained and discouraged, Kenneth and Eka dropped their due process case and Chuka never returned to class.

The conflict could have ended there, but Alief Superintendent Louis Stoerner and then board president Sarah Winkler had other plans.

The District sued the economically distressed parents of a special needs child for every penny of the district’s legal expenses, an amount, at the time approaching $170,000 dollars and now estimated at close to a quarter million.

“What I feel is that they are trying to bully me for asking for a chance for my son¿s life,” says Kenneth.

Reporter Groogan continues:

Those who represent special needs families suspect a larger more sinister scheme.

“What they are trying to do is send a chill down parent’s spine about advocating for their children,” says Louis Geigerman, president of the Texas Organization of Parents, Attorneys and Advocates.

“Lets set some examples, lets hang a few of them at high noon right out here in the middle of the town square and show you what we do to people who want to advocate for their children,” adds Kilpatrick.

“If I don’t fight them, you know they are going to do it to other parents,” says Kenneth Chibuogwu.

Read the entire article at the link above. Discussion of the article is taking place on the HEM Networking discussion list:

“I suspect too, that that school district doesn’t care if they win or lose (they’ve lost so far) that lawsuit. They are sending a message with the use of local, Texas and federal tax monies. LOTS of money.” ~Susan Ryan

The last of three articles on local homeschooling families is a positive, upbeat article from the Oct. 7th issue of the Dansville-Genesee Country Express in Dansville, NY, titled Homeschool Gives Choice to Students, Parents:

The freedom to pursue what a parent deems best for their child is still allowed in America.

That’s the feeling of Heather DeNee of Sparta, who feels “very blessed to have the opportunity and choice to homeschool.”

This mother of three (soon to be four) added that she understands that homeschooling is not for everyone, but, “there’s an opportunity for those who have that desire.”

Read the entire article at the link above.