From the April First Things: “Schooling Dangerously”

Homeschooling in America: Capturing and Assessing the Movement
by Joseph Murphy?
Corwin, 200 pages, $34.95??

The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling ?
by Quinn Cummings?
Perigee, 240 pages, $23.95

I’m tempted to compare homeschooling to a YouTube video gone viral. Defying regulation, thwarting would-be competitors, and multiplying without official sanction, homeschooling just keeps popping up in more homes. Over the past three decades, the number of homeschooled children has grown by at least 7 percent a year”the number may now exceed the number attending charter schools”and between 6 and 12 percent of all students are educated at home at some point between kindergarten and twelfth grade. See it; like it; forward it to a friend.

My husband and I began homeschooling in 1994 for multiple reasons. Our three children were neither enjoying nor learning much in school, our professional lives were crowding out family time, and our children’s school treated religious faith as a curiosity, if not an active barrier to reason. We would be spending a year away from home while my husband was a visiting professor in Utah, and we craved more flexibility to explore this new corner of the world. Besides, how much harm could we do in a year? . . . Continue Reading »