Achieving prosperity for all Americans could not be more urgent. Although the United States remains the most prosperous nation on earth, millions of citizens are losing faith in the American dream of upward mobility, and in American-style capitalism itself. This crisis of confidence has widened the divide afflicting American politics and cries out…

Elective home education (EHE) is a legal alternative to school in England but the statutory requirements for provision are remarkably vague. This book explores the use of EHE by Gypsy and Traveller families. The accounts of their experiences and their views about education spaces reveal the racism and discrimination their children encounter in…

The National Association of Scholars believes that higher education should gather scholars and students to cultivate excellence and pursue the truth, transmit the heritage of Western civilization to a new generation, prepare cultured and virtuous citizens, and train students for vocational success. American colleges and universities should embody…

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…

Home-schooling students in the Cupertino Union School District, California, are enrolled at one alternative school. Each home-schooling family is assigned a resource teacher who is responsible for meeting with students and parents at least once a month. The district provides a variety of materials and services. (MLF)

Public schools and home-school advocates have moved closer in tolerance. All 50 states now allow some kind of home schooling. Four states (Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and Iowa) allow home-schooled children to take part in public school extracurricular activities. One California district provides funds to home-schooling families to purchase…

Legal challenges to state compulsory attendance laws have emphasized four interrelated constitutional claims. Under provisions of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, parents have challenged the state's authority to require public school attendance in lieu of home instruction and private, religious organizations have refused to comply…

In Maine and across the nation, increasing numbers of parents are choosing to educate their children at home, often illegally. The anarchistic home schooling movement springs from various motivations: religious views, pursuit of independent lifestyles, desire to spend more time with one's children, and others. Whatever their reasons, home…

This paper describes an ethnographic study of how fundamentalist Christian parents new to home schooling are socialized to norms, beliefs, and values of the Christian home schooling organizations with which they are affiliated. Research involved participant observation and interviews with "home schoolers" and educators over an 18-month…

The social context within which home schooling takes place is described, and the ideological frameworks and contexts within which parents (most of them fundamentalist Christians) make schooling decisions are examined. Research involved participant observation and interviews with 16 home schooling families (13 families self-labeled…

There are parents and students who are to be won or lost depending on which sector--public or private--answers their calls for programs to match their learning styles and desire for rigor, vitality, and variety. This report examines where choice has evolved from, what it offers parents and students, and how its disappearance could affect this…

"Education Indicators" are facts and statistics that help to describe a public education system. They are tools which are useful in examining and measuring the effectiveness of the system. Examples include information such as the amount of local funds raised to support local schools, per pupil expenditures, pupil-teacher ratios, and…