Discusses whether the alternatives to traditional education that were promoted in the past decade have lived up to their promise of creating a school environment that is conducive to learning for all students, focusing on magnet schools, educational vouchers, privatization and charter schools, and home schooling. (SM)

Describes home schooling movement and argues home schooling is viable alternative to public education system. Discusses increase in home-schooled students applying to college, taking and performing well on college entrance exams (ACT and SAT), engaging in extracurricular activities, and succeeding in college. Addresses and refutes criticisms of…

Today's after-school programs and sports are often year-round activities, and children are pressured to focus on one activity to the exclusion of others. Homework for students who attend highly competitive high schools can take three to five hours per night. Not only schools, but the whole culture is different. People listen to music through…

The promise to raise literacy standards significantly at age 11 in economically disadvantaged areas has been an important part of the present British Government's educational policy. Integral to this promise has been the introduction of official homeschool contracts or agreements, which oblige parents to engage in specific literacy activities with…

Homeschooling is becoming increasingly popular in Canada. Drawing on a variety of secondary sources and our own data from the province of Ontario, we advance three arguments. First, homeschooling is gaining legitimacy from the increasingly pluralistic nature of educational politics. Second, the lobbying tactics of homeschool advocates increasingly…

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…

This study offers a profile of Alaska home study students and their families. Subjects were 88 students drawn from enrollees in the state-run K-12 Centralized Correspondence Study program. Survey results showed that the students live in both rural, isolated regions and larger, more urban areas of Alaska. Most of them are taught by the mother, who…

The Education Freedom Index measures the extent of government-subsidized or government-regulated educational choices offered to families in each state. The Education Freedom Index score is the average of four components: charter school choice, subsidized private school choice, home schooling choice, and public school choice. This paper analyzes…

This document discusses issues related to the historical development of school choice and its impact today. Over the past 2 decades, 9 states have adopted publicly funded voucher or tax credit programs, 40 states and the District of Columbia have enacted charter school laws, and others have established public school choice within and between…

When dealing with the issues of quality control and the rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their school-aged children, one of the key factors that affects parental rights is compulsory attendance laws. Put another way, insofar as parents must educate their children, whether in regular public or nonpublic schools or by homeschooling…

This article profiles author and activist Grace Llewellyn and her cult classic book, "The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education." Llewellyn's book, which she published in 1991, created a controversy as it teaches kids everything from how to convince parents to let them leave school to how to…

Years of conflict and instability have taken a heavy toll on education in Afghanistan. While the government rebuilds its public education system, formal schools fail to reach many of the country's children. Girls remain particularly underserved as a result of the looming effects of the Taliban's sanctions against educating women. Among the reasons…

Discusses the use of public libraries by homeschoolers and gives examples of ways to serve homeschoolers, including specialized tours and using homeschooled children as volunteers for library programs. Homeschooler-initiated outreach programs are described, and a list of resources including Web sites, books, and journal articles is provided. (LRW)

This essay shares a parent's homeschooling discoveries and choices as she taught her gifted daughter through the middle school years and two years of high school, how these learning choices deepened her self-knowledge, and how home schooling interfaced with the location and learning environment transitions her family faced. (Contains references.)…

Home schoolers have much to offer their school board and administrator colleagues. Parents who teach their children at home can offer lessons in the following: (1) children setting their own reading goals and achieving them; (2) using vertical age grouping in instruction; (3) children forming friendships with adults; and (4) using student…