A Nov. 11th L.A. Times article for L.A. at Home, which seems to focus on architecture and design for southern California homeowners, carried the cutsy title, “For home-school parents, classroom design is the subject du jour.” The first part of the article does, in fact, focus on parents with a severe yearning to replicate school in their homes, quoting one parent who “…demolished a galley-style kitchen in her home to create a school setting. The house had to be extended into the backyard, with a brand-new kitchen built in.”

Another parent, who the article describes as ‘striving for structure and routine,’ states, “It seems there’s a whole new group of us that I refer to as ‘contemporary home-schoolers…’” The article goes on to explain that she is “so committed to the idea of replicating a traditional school experience for her son that she has given her classroom a name: University School for Children, with uniforms, a logo and school IDs.”

This beginning part of the article almost had me passing it over for mention here, but the second part highlights an entirely different approach, and quotes a longtime friend and author: “Tammy Takahashi takes an ‘unschooling’ approach with her three children, ages 7 to 13. The classroom might be an art table at home, a recycling center or the beach. The inherent appeal of the approach is that the style of teaching can be tweaked to accommodate what works best for the student, said Takahashi, who has also written two books on home schooling.”

There are some good arguments for both structured and non-structured approaches, and lots of food for thought and discussion.

The venerable New York Times Magazine published an article on November 8, 2011 titled My Parents Were Home-Schooling Anarchists, by Margaret Heidenry:

“Tired of the constraints of the 40-hour workweek, my father, in 1972, quit his job in publishing. My parents were in their early 30s, and they had four children under 7. ‘But we still wanted to explore the world,’ my father recalled recently. They bought six one-way tickets to Europe, leaving only a laughable $3,000 to subsist on. Young and idealistic, they thought they could easily educate us along the way. ‘Life itself would become a portable classroom.’”

Margaret explains how for the next four years they “embarked on an uncharted ‘free-form existence,’ traveling through Spain, England, a Midwestern farm, Mexico, and finally settled in St. Louis. She details how her parents stretched their budget to allow for the far-flung classrooms, and writes of the family adventure, “…my parents were consistently inconsistent. There were a few interludes of standardized education, but for the most part, as my mother would later write in this magazine, ‘during all this time, the children traveled with us and received nothing that remotely resembled formal schooling.’”

“Home Is Where the School Is,” published in the Oct. 19, 1975, issue of The New York Times Magazine, was the first article in a national publication to espouse what was then still a fringe educational choice.

Read Margaret Heidenry’s entire article at the link above.

After just a few months of college – in which he enrolled after spending his middle and high school years unschooling – Dale J. Stephens, 19, left school. Based on his conviction that college is not necessary for success and fulfillment, he founded an organization called UnCollege, which promotes ways that young people can “hack their education” by finding individualized paths to self-directed learning. A Thiel fellowship recipient, he is currently writing a book for Penguin called Hacking Your Education and traveling extensively on speaking engagements.

In a guest post for The New York Times, Mr. Stephens explains his belief that any student at any level, even those in traditional education environments, can take charge of their learning:

“Why did I make trouble? Going along with the program seems pretty sweet. I could have written papers, skipped class and partied until dawn. After four years as a college student, I would have had many friends, a good job and letters after my name. But I left college because I realized I couldn’t rely on a university to give me an education.”

Read the entire article at the link above.

Too Cool For Homeschool? (Here’s what you didn’t know), by Melanie O’Brien, shares the activities of families involved with the Baltimore Homeschool Community Center, described as “…bright and friendly, full of laughing kids and smiling adults.” The member-based organization serves homeschooling families throughout the Baltimore area. O’Brien writes:

“But wait a second. Why are homeschoolers away from home, in a center taking classes? If you’re like me (and statistics suggest you probably are), then your state-mandated K-12 education happened in a public or private school. But for about 2.4 percent of Maryland’s school-aged kids, education happens somewhere else.”

The article is long, interesting, fair and balanced, and the final paragraph, while startling and unusual for an article about homeschooling, leaves true homeschoolers with a knowing smile. Recommended reading, for sure.

According to this news report from New Jersey: “Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle will introduce legislation to regulate the home schooling of children. This comes on the heels of a recent investigation by the State Department Of Children And Families into the tragic may death of eight-year old Christiana Glenn of Irvington.

“Christiana died of malnutrition and an untreated broken leg. She was also supposedly home schooled. Vanieri Huttle’s bill would require medical exams and submission of student work portfolios for home-schooled children. It would also prohibit children under the supervision of DYFS from being home-schooled.”

Discussion of this potential leglislation is under discussion at the HEM Networking group, a free forum for homeschoolers prodvided by Home Education Magazine: “This bill is bad. Public school students are not required to undergo medical exams. Furthermore, there has been no evidence that homeschoolers in NJ are not doing a good job and that they suddenly need supervision by the public schools.”

In a contribution to the HEM-Networking group discussion, former HEM News & Commentary editor Valerie Moon shared a link to author Milton Gaither’s review of Timothy B. Waddell’s “Bringing it all Back Home: Establishing a Coherent Constitutional Framework for the Re-Regulation of Homeschooling” in Vanderbilt Law Review. 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.

Valerie shared this excerpt from Gaither’s review:

“As my summary indicates, I really liked this piece. It is the last of a long list of legal articles I’ve reviewed over the past few weeks, and it is the best of the lot in my view. John Holt wouldn’t like it because in his view it was always better to have things unclear than clear, for then you could get away with more. But I for one appreciated not only Waddell’s summary of the issues but his proposal as well. I know some of my readers will react strongly against what I’m about to say, but Waddell’s proposal to me does a good job of maintaining the freedom to homeschool while at the same time providing a mechanism for catching children whose parents are being abusive or neglectful. A homeschooling family that is doing its job should have no fear of outside evaluation–should welcome it in fact, as it will demonstrate to the public at large how effective homeschooling can be.”

This underscores a longstanding concern we’ve had with Gaither’s position on homeschooling, as he deliberately frames John Holt’s pioneering work for homeschooling freedoms in an unfavorable light, while dangerously welcoming government oversight of families.

The New York Times opinion pages for January 5 includes arguments for and against the idea of state tax credits for homeschoolers, which is being promoted as a priority as the the newest Republicans in Congress seek to challenge the federal role in American public education, with an eye toward turning more power over to the states. The collected debates are presented under the banner title Do Homeschoolers Deserve a Tax Break?

HEM political analysts and homeschooling parents Larry and Susan Kaseman have written extensively about this topic, including in the current January-February issue of Home Education Magazine: Beware of Privatization of Education: It Reduces Our Homeschooling Freedoms:

“Homeschoolers can’t assume that as long as they as individuals refuse to accept government money or favors, they won’t be required to comply with state regulations written for homeschoolers who do accept them. Legislators and state regulators are highly unlikely to develop and expect public officials to enforce two separate sets of regulations for homeschoolers, one for those who accept tax credits or tax deductions or reimbursements for educational expenses or who play on public school sports teams or participate in other public school activities and the other for homeschoolers who don’t. If legislation is passed or regulations are developed to hold homeschoolers accountable because some homeschoolers are receiving government money, those statutes or regulations will no doubt apply to all homeschoolers, not just those getting the money.”

Further analysis and information can be found in this 1999 article by homeschooling mother and long-time advocate for homeschooling, Peggy Daly-Masternak: So What About That Free Lunch?

“With little strain, we can all think of many examples where the state is attempting to solve the problems presented by a few with far-reaching blanket laws to cover a worst case scenario. Think curfews. Think proficiency tests. Think greater restrictions on parents rights.

“My dear friends in homeschooling, there is no free lunch. If one currently exists, it won’t last forever. The piper always gets paid.”

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.

Check out this week’s Carnival of Homeschooling: The Tryptophan Edition at Apollos Academy:

“There are wonderful holiday-themed lesson plans, imaginative plans for common subjects, and just some wonderful families enjoying life and their homeschooling journeys by kicking up their heels and taking advantage of this sometimes chaotic time of year to try something new and different.”

“Look at people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison. They all dropped out of school.”

The Unschooled Life is an interview with bOING bOING’s Mark Frauenfelder, by Ted Balaker, from the November 2010 issue of Reason magazine. bOING bOING is a small technology-culture magazine that eventually evolved into one of the Web’s most popular blogs. In addition to blogging at bOING bOING, Frauenfelder is editor in chief of MAKE magazine. Another excerpt:

“Unschooling is letting kids get bored at home and get bored with their friends and come up with their own ways to learn.”

Read the article at the link above.

Psychology Today blogger Laura Brodie follows up:

“Last week I posted an article with a deliberately provocative title: Should Homeschooling Parents Have College Degrees? I didn’t offer my own answer; instead I invited readers to share their thoughts on what, if any, level of education might be required by each state—a bachelor’s degree, a high school diploma, a basic literacy test, no regulation whatsoever? I did, however, state that the fact that parents with GEDs could, if they desired, conduct their children’s high school educations seemed to be ‘setting the bar very low.’

“I expected heated replies, having seen the online outcries that tend to result whenever anyone raises the sore subject of homeschooling regulation. That’s why my article began by acknowledging that the topic of regulation can make tempers flare.

“When I finished writing the piece and pressed the “publish now” button, I thought: Let the storm come. And it came promptly—in comments that ranged from thought-filled to angry to incongruous.”

Continue reading Laura Brodie’s post here.

Spoiler alert: Brodie’s assumptions and assessments are shown clearly in her responses to readers’ comments:

“…homeschooling needs some degree of regulation, especially some outside monitoring of children’s progress, which is more important than parents’ education level. I would like to see more discussion among the homeschooling community about what minimum standards for regulation most parents would feel are reasonable. I realize many people are opposed to all government intervention, but some basic oversight seems useful…”

“Without regulations in all states that require homeschooling parents to inform superintendents of their decisions to homeschool, and that require children to do some sort of annual performance review (standardized test or otherwise) under monitored circumstances, there will be no reliable data.”

Home Education Magazine has published volumes of information about these questions over the years. Here are some helpful links to articles by well-experienced and well-informed advocates for homeschooling:

• Let’s Stop Aiding and Abetting Academicians’ Folly

• Your Homeschooling Decisions Affect My Homeschooling Freedoms

• Hanging On To What Makes Homeschooling Distinctive

• Communicating the Strengths of Homeschooling

• Working for Homeschooling Freedoms: Chore or Opportunity?

• Undoing The Harms of Homeschooling: From Reaction to Prevention

• Where Will That Leave Us?

• Citizenship or Lawyership: Choosing Political Strategies for Homeschoolers