History of Homeschooling

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History of Homeschooling

“The home-schooling movement, the unprecedented parental rebellion which

erupted in the late '70s against our monolithic government school systems, stands as one of the most significant educational developments of the century. The number of American children being taught at home, although minuscule compared to public school enrollments, had grown by the late 1990s from near zero to a near million” (Wagner, 2001, p. 58). Indeed, the rise of homeschooling is one of the most significant trends of the past half-century. Homeschooling is vastly growing to nations as widespread as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, as well as the U.S. (Ray, 2001). The main reason for this reemergence of an old practice is a desire to gain control from the education bureaucrats and reestablish the family as central to a child’s learning (Lines, 2000). The homeschooling movement surprised the professional education establishment with its rapid growth. The number of homeschoolers nearly tripled in the five years from 1990-91 to 1995-96 when there were approximately 700,000 homeschoolers (Lines, 2000). Patricia Lines conservatively estimates the number of homeschooled children at approximately 1 million, while less conservative appraisals among homeschooling researchers and associations place the number of homeschooled children at approximately 1.2 million (Welner & Welner, 1999).

Homeschooling is definitely not a new practice or idea. In a brief period of time, compulsory, universal and comprehensive schooling is a comparatively new invention. State legislatures did not begin to require local governments to build schools and forcing parents to enroll the...

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... study conducted in the mid 1990s. A Canadian Study of Homeschooling.

Wagner, M. (2001, October). The homeschooling revolution. Report Newsmagazine, 28, 58-59.

Michael Wagner is an Edmonton freelance writer and home-schooling father. In this article he writes about a book written by Isabel Lyman. He summarizes her points in the book and tells the readers that public education should take notice of homeschooling.

Educational Encyclopedia

Kaseman, L. & Kaseman, S. (1997, November/December). Taking charge: hanging on to what makes homeschooling distinctive. Home Education Magazine. Retrieved April 28, 2002 from Encyclopedia Britannica Online

The authors of this article wrote about the importance of homeschooling staying significant. They do not want homeschooling to become even a small insignificant part of conventional schooling.

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