From the founding of Harvard College in 1636 as a mission for training young clergy to the landmark 1968 Supreme Court decision in "Epperson v. Arkansas," which struck down the state's ban on teaching evolution in schools, religion and education in the United States have been inextricably linked. Still today new fights emerge over the…

"The Wiley Handbook of Home Education" is a comprehensive collection of the latest scholarship in all aspects of home education in the United States and abroad. This book presents the latest findings on academic achievement of home-schooled children, issues of socialization, and legal argumentation about home-schooling and government…

Since the early 1990s when the nation's first charter school was opened in Minneapolis, the scope and availability of school-based options to parents has steadily expanded. No longer can public education be characterized as a monopoly. Sponsored by the National Center on School Choice (NCSC), this handbook makes readily available the most rigorous…

Deepening disaffection with public schools has inspired flight to private schools, home schooling, and charter schools. At present, there are about 1,700 charter schools, with total enrollments estimated to reach one million soon. This book looks at six strikingly different charter schools, including an evangelical home-schooling charter in…

The widespread acceptance of home schooling has persisted long enough to address the question of how well home-schooled children do later in life. In this book, 20 interviews investigate the long-term effects of home schooling in Britain. In the 1980s, the author conducted interviews with several of the same students, when most were teenagers…

This book argues that the American school system is based on a false definition of education that leads to false goals. It explains the need for home schooling and describes the changes that must occur in child-rearing practices in order to shore up America's moral and spiritual fiber. Sixteen chapters are based on the notion that education is an…

During the mid-nineteenth century, Americans created the functional equivalent of earlier state religious establishments. Supported by mandatory taxation, purportedly inclusive, and vested with messianic promise, public schooling, like the earlier established churches, was touted as a bulwark of the Republic and as an essential agent of moral and…

Students who are homeschooled face special challenges when assembling their college-admissions portfolio. This booklet shows parents and students how to write a successful portfolio. It emphasizes the kinds of documents that will be needed and offers tips on documenting the learning process and how to begin and maintain an academic journal. It…

Noting that children bear a natural curiosity and urge to learn about the world around them, and that the nature of compulsory schooling is at odds with this inclination, this book explores why parents remove their children from schools to teach them at home and provides step-by-step guidance for parents who want to home school their children.…

Research has documented that the self-esteem of girls plunges at adolescence. Whether this is true for girls educated outside the school system was studied through interviews with 20 homeschooled girls, a questionnaire completed by 20 more, and tape-recorded responses of 5 others. Subjects were asked to describe themselves and their interests,…

This book is intended to be a comprehensive guide to home schooling the gifted child. Part 1 focuses on how giftedness affects the choice to home school and how being gifted shapes a child's personality, behavior, and education. It also examines the parent's dual roles of parent and teacher and suggests keeping a Home School Journal. Part 2…

Having a home library benefits children and parents alike, by allowing immediate access to literature and reference information and by encouraging reading. The cost of stocking a home library can be prohibitive to forming a substantial collection. This book provides a guide to purchasing books at a discount, including suggestions on essential…

This book is the sequel to "I Learn Better By Teaching Myself," which argued that parents need to follow their personal parenting instincts and to trust that their students know what is best for themselves. Chapter 1 describes how the author's family became involved in home schooling. The second chapter describes how they set standards in the form…

The controversy over whether parents should have the right to determine in detail the type and scope of their children's education harks back to colonial times and has been manifested more recently in court cases considering home instruction in lieu of public school attendance. This first chapter of a book on school law objectively examines both…

This book offers suggestions to parents for implementing interest-initiated learning in home-school situations. Interest-initiated learning is based on three principles: (1) the learner initiates and controls learning according to his or her own interests; (2) the student's own priorities guide the learner; and (3) the teacher only enters the…