In this brilliant video lecture, The history of alternative schooling and homeschooling, Canadian-American documentary filmmaker and writer Astra Taylor describes her own homeschooling – specifically unschooling as promoted by John Holt in his ground-breaking publication Growing Without Schooling (“delivered to our mailbox in a brown paper bag”). She contextualizes her unschooled experiences and the progressive homeschooling movement by reference to the history of alternate education, especially the public conversation about it in the sixties and seventies:

“Raised by independent-thinking bohemian parents, Taylor was unschooled until age 13. Join the filmmaker as she shares her personal experiences of growing up home-schooled without a curriculum or schedule, and how it has shaped her educational philosophy and development as an artist.”

Recently two homeschool advocates were guests on the Kojo Nnamdo radio show titled “Homeschooling Goes Mainstream.” The discussion centered on the history of homeschooling and the diversity of the greater homeschooling community.

The guests were Celeste Land, Director of Government Affairs for the Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers, and a member of the board of directors; and Michael Donnelly, a member of the Staff Counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association.

On October 14th Amy Wilson, also of VaHomeschoolers, reported on the program for the VaHomeschoolers Connection:

Celeste Land, VaHomeschoolers’ Director of Government Affairs and a member of our Board of Directors, was a guest on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU 88.5 in Washington DC on October 13, 2010. The program segment, entitled “Homeschooling Goes Mainstream,” also included Mike Donnelly of the Home School Legal Defense Association. Kojo and his guests discussed the history of the homeschooling movement, beginning with “anti-establishment freethinkers” in the 1960s, as well as the growth of conservative Christian homeschooling in the 1970s, and the appeal of homeschooling to a diverse cross-section of the American population today.

Read the rest of Amy’s good post at the link above. Also very interesting are the comments and questions posed for the two guests, available at the link for the free podcast of the program.

The Carnival of Homeschooling #239 is hosted this week at The Common Room blog:

“Although a theme is not necessary to host the homeschooling carnival (I have hosted with no theme before), it can be fun. This week’s theme is a bit ambitious. It is… the history of homeschooling in America. Please understand this history is somewhat subjective and is in no way intended to be comprehensive.”

It may not be comprehensive, and there are some sections we would quibble with, but all in all it’s an interesting and often entertaining jaunt through parts of homeschooling’s history.

The following article is a pleasant enough bread & butter article about homeschooling in New York state. The one incongruous note is almost a historical footnote, ‘who started what kind of homeschooling, and when.’

Home schooling on the rise locally, 15 June 2007, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York

Those reasons offer a glimpse into why close to 1,700 students are home schooled in Monroe County — and why the practice is growing both locally and nationally.

…

Home schooling was the norm when the United States was founded but died out when public schools were founded and lawmakers made at least some formal education a requirement, said Ian Slatter, director of media relations for the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association. The practice began to re-emerge in the 1960s with the rise of the hippie movement and continued to gain momentum as prayer in public schools was challenged.

“This sparked the evangelicals,” Slatter said, and by the 1980s, more and more people were trying home schooling.

School prayer may have sparked part of the boom in homeschooling, but that isn’t the full story. A less pleasant part was the Supreme Court removal of tax-exempt status from schools that refused entry to black children.

The Burger Court 1969 – 1986, History of the Court, The Supreme Court Historical Society

When the Internal Revenue Service declared in 1970 that private schools discriminating against blacks could no longer claim tax-exempt status, the action went largely unnoticed by the public. In 1983, it became prime-time news when two religious schools having admission policies based on race sought to regain tax-favored status and the case reached the Supreme Court.

Counsel for Bob Jones University and Goldsboro Christian School argued that their policies were based on sincerely held religious beliefs. But the Court ruled that the First Amendment did not prevent denial of tax-favored status. Eliminating racial discrimination in education substantially outweighed any burden placed on the free exercise of religion, according to the eight-to-one majority.

Christian Fundamentalism in the United States, page 469, Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the Family and Education

While Christian schools were allowed to ignore questions of cultural pluralism in their curriculum, they were not allowed to avoid integration and still maintain their tax-exempt status. … In May 1983, the Supreme Court upheld the denial of tax-exempt status to segregationist schools. The decision based on the case of Bob Jones University … struck a blow to the evangelical right.

With the loss of tax-exempt status underscored by the Supreme Court, it is probable that many schools had to raise their tuition rates. It is also possible that they went out of business if they chose not to integrate. For parents who could not afford the tuition rate increase, did not want their children in an integrated setting, or whose schools closed, the educational choice was between public school and homeschooling.

A Brief History of American Homeschooling, Excerpted from Homeschoolers’ Success Stories: 15 Adults and 12 Young People Share the Impact That Homeschooling Has Made on Their Lives by Linda Dobson

In the 1980s, changes in the tax regulations for Christian schools forced the smaller among them to close down by the hundreds. Suddenly, the parents of the students attending these schools were faced with a choice between government school attendance and homeschooling. For many, this really wasn’t a choice at all, and these Christian families became part of a large second wave of homeschooling, joining earlier homeschoolers and boosting the numbers to record highs. Christian curriculum providers, already well-established businesses that had just lost a large chunk of their original market, followed the money and easily courted the new market of homeschooling parents.

Many apparently chose homeschooling.

posted by Valerie