Moderate temps, shorter days, state fairs, football, peppers and gourds, “Labor Day” weekend….back to school.
Except for some. A growing number of families have bucked the autumn tradition of pep rallies and discount office supply shopping. They have chosen to homeschool.
A few posts back, Brad showed how Sweden is trying to outlaw homeschooling. This is a travesty, and if you want to try to help all those young Bjorns and Bjorks who might have had a taste of true freedom, there is a petition here.
Reading about how Sweden is trying to crack down on homeschoolers, I get a very rare feeling of pride to be an American. Liberty lovers are losing the battle on all sides right now, but we do have one extraordinary victory in the recent past we can point to with pride, and that is the homeschooling movement.
In 1964, John Holt published How Children Fail, a small book of observations from a teacher, epic in its implications. Although he didn’t know it at the time, Holt was tearing down the notion of formal classroom schooling so thoroughly that he would kick off an international movement.
Holt wasn’t alone, of course. Many parents, teachers, and child psychologists in the mid-sixties were beginning to suspect that kids might be better off if they stayed away from school altogether. So some of them started leaving their kids out.
These early pioneers frequently operated in violation of compulsory attendance laws. In 1976, Holt, now fully convinced that the classroom was a destructive place, called for a “Children’s Underground Railroad” to help children escape compulsory schooling. Families that were homeschooling in secret around the country contacted him. Through Holt, homeschoolers formed a network to help one another and work at legalizing their activity.
Homeschooling grew in the 70s as the movement figured out creative ways to get around compulsory attendance laws. With this growth came successful removal of legislation that prohibited it, state by state, including a landmark case in 1978 that concluded that “the Massachusetts compulsory attendance statute might well be constitutionally infirm if it did not exempt students whose parents prefer alternative forms of education.”
By 1980, homeschooling was completely legal in 40 states, and legal in the other 10 if overseen by a government-certified teacher. In 1983, The Homeschool Legal Defense Fund was founded. Once that legally approved door was opened, fundamentalist Christians began entering the homeschool movement in large numbers.
Today homeschooling is legal in all 50 states. 2.5 million kids are doing it.
And, as Fr33Agent readers would expect, the homeschoolers are torching their government school counterparts. On average, homeschool students score 37 per cent higher than their peers on standardized tests. There are no discernable achievement gaps between races, genders, and income levels in the homeschool movement, with homeschoolers consistently landing in the 85th percentile or higher on achievement tests, regardless of background. The average annual education-specific expense for a homeschooler is $500. For a government school student, it is $10,000.
With American homeschooling, we have a pro-liberty, anti-state movement that is:
a) Achieving positive results that far surpass the government alternative.
b) Growing rapidly.
c) Allowing a huge number of children to grow up in freedom.
d) Resistant to government attempts to thwart it.
It’s letter D that I think of as I read about the poor Swedish kids. In America, the government, which is winning in the battle against liberty at every turn, is losing its battle to shut down the homeschool movement. In 1997, as the explosive growth in homeschooling was first becoming evident, the National Education Association adopted its first anti homeschooling resolution, saying that homeschooling programs “cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience.” Clearly fearing that homeschooling would expose the government schools for the scheme they are, the NEA also resolved that, if homeschooling is chosen, “instruction should be by persons who are licensed by the appropriate state education licensure agency.”
The NEA continues to adopt an anti homeschooling resolution in their charter every year, and lobbies state governments to make it harder to homeschool. The UN has adopted and is now considering resolutions that clearly are opposed to homeschooling.
Homeschoolers are under the same assault as anyone else trying to secure freedoms from the government.
But unlike most other pro-freedom movements, the homeschoolers are winning.
Since the NEA adopted its first anti-homeschooling resolution, the number of homeschoolers has doubled. Their number is growing at 7% a year, and through an immensely organized nationwide effort, they continue to win court cases and legislative battles making it easier to homeschool in America, even as the NEA tries to make it harder.
In homeschooling, I see real-time activity that improves lives, increases freedom, contributes to our efforts to one day achieve a free society, and successfully holds back the state. Not only is it growing, but its growth rate is accelerating.
Clearly we have a model of success. I wonder what lessons we might learn from the homeschool movement that can be applied to other freedom-seeking efforts.
Stewart Browne called himself a libertarian in the mid-nineties, an anarcho-capitalist for about ten years after that, and has flirted with the titles agorist and voluntaryist, and now just calls himself a libertarian again. He blogs at 
Excellent, EXCELLENT article. I have always been in favor of homeschooling over public “education” but never really thought of it in anarchist terms. Thanks so much for this article!
Show allegiance to the flag whatever flag they offer.
Never hint at what you really feel.
Teach the children quietly for some day sons and daughters.
Will rise up and fight where we stood still.
These are the types of articles that deserve to be shared with others. I did so on facebook. I think this Fr33 Agents site has great bloggers. Stewart, this was a great article.
Thanks for the positive comments! As a parent of two toddlers, I’ve taken interest in what educational options are out there. The more I look into homeschooling, the more impressed I am at the success of this movement.
Thank you for a great article! As a second year homeschooling mom, I have many reasons for choosing homeschool over other options. It being a personal liberty is a reason that has always been high on my list.
Great article. I don’t have much to add, except that most cities have homeschooling associations of one sort or another, and they usually accept donations. I have well over 1000 books, and last time I cleaned out the shelves, I brought them 12 boxes full. Those kids are very indpendent, and so any kind of book is usually appreciated, not just specifically school books.
Next time, I’ll see if I can put some gentle agorist feelers out.
Stewart, nicely put. It all comes down to an individual’s right to choose. If the parents of 2.5 million kids in the U.S. prefer to educate their young ones at home (despite free public education), all power to them.
I am now entering my 13th year of homeschooling my children. We are as free as it is possible to be in this country. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
2.5 million kids! Out of how many? What’s the percentage breakdown?
Y’all may be interested in this video/blog post we at MHD recently posted with Debbie “The Suburban Voluntaryist” who cites this as the issue that caused her to become active in the freedom movement: http://motorhomediaries.com/debbie-the-suburban-voluntaryist/
excellent, inspiring interview. The per cent of kids who homeschool as part of the total number of school age children is 2.9% according to the US Department of Ed and 4% according to the Home School Legal Defense Association. From a dept of ed report: “When parents were asked why they chose to homeschool their children, 36 percent cited a desire to provide children specifically religious or moral instruction. After that, 21 percent of parents pointed to concerns about the environment of schools, 17 percent cited dissatisfaction with educational quality in the schools, and 14 percent cited “other reasons.” Among those “other reasons” was a concern for more family time together.”
Homeschooling is the way to go! As you can see if you watch the video Pete linked to about my experience, it was homeschooling that began my move toward voluntaryism.
As to the numbers, there are people out there who are still underground because in some states it’s possible to never report to the state if your child has never attended school. So one of the beautiful things is that ‘they’ really don’t know for sure how many kids are actually being homeschooled. I love that.
I am a big believer in homeschooling as one of the best avenues of creating a future filled with adults who understand that we really don’t need the state. Education is where it all starts.
If I can do anything to help anyone, please let me know. Also, I am doing a blog project intended to show how freedom and flexibility is what makes homeschooling work and I’m asking homeschoolers from all over the country (well actually the world as I’ve now gotten one from Italy) the same 4 simple questions. As people read the interviews from many different families, they can start to learn more about homeschooling by catching glimpses inside other families. Here’s the link:
http://www.homeschoolingisfreedom.blogspot.com
Interesting article. What’s strange about Sweden is that it has a school voucher scheme — parents send their child to whatever school they please and the State pays a fixed sum towards the tuition.
I’d take issue with your cost calculations however; the cost of homeschool doesn’t take into account the opportunity cost of one parent having to do the teaching — it may be better to hire a tutor and that parent do housework or go out and work instead.
I’d add that the strengths of homeschooling, as I see it, is the major emphasis on exploratory rather than instructive learning — giving the child a thirst for knowledge rather than a resentment for it.