FAQ

I was homeschooled for my entire education, studied secondary education in college. I was a licensed secondary English Language Arts and Spanish teacher, and worked in Chicago Public school.

I don’t claim to be an expert, but I want to use my experience in education to advocate for good practices in homeschooling. I have talked to so many parents who are interested in homeschooling and feel lost within the extreme rhetoric of the homeschooling community. I have sought out resources to share with them to guide parents who want a balanced and responsible form of homeschooling. After years of looking for them and not finding them, and have decided to create some myself. I welcome feedback that my approach misses an important perspective or fails to account for something.

I think the homeschool community needs to take some responsibility for the way it is not taken seriously by educators of other school models. The black and white thinking rampant in the homeschool community, the defense of abusive and neglectful homeschoolers, the vilifying of other school options while refusing to acknowledge any flaws in homeschooling, make it impossible for homeschooling to evolve into a mainstream, respect school model.

Traditional educators study the flaws and failures in the public school system and other school models, study data, accept criticism and feedback, and seek to learn better and do better. Recognizing that homeschool offers a mix of good and bad is not accepting failure. It doesn’t undermine it as a school model. What does is insisting that all homeschooling is good, and all other forms of education are bad.

I do not have children. If I did, I cannot answer if I would homeschool them or not. I don’t believe that homeschooling is inherently superior to a traditional education. I think the choice to homeschool should be based on an individual child’s needs and preferences, the specific school options available to them, and a family’s needs, preferences and abilities. There are a lot of aspects of being a homeschool educator that I think would be so fun and rewarding. But I also know that it is a huge undertaking and investment of energy and time.

I was fortunate to have parents who did a great job in many ways as educators. In some areas, I believe I did much better than I would have in public school. But in others, I did much worse. My parents struggled to provide instruction once I reached high school, and I was left to self teach. I experienced a lot of isolation and lacked support when family crises happened. While my parents made every effort to offer us opportunities to socialize, they failed to include opportunities to develop independence or have experiences without my family or siblings present.

I was able to attend college, with some remedial classes to catch up in math.

I acknowledge that my parents had good intentions and made a good faith effort to educate us, but that wasn’t enough to prevent some of the harms that are common in homeschooling.

I also know that if I had gone to public school as well, it would have been a different mix of good and bad. But most public school educators are quick to agree that public schools have flaws and fail some students. Homeschool educators are often not willing to do the same, and their denial puts students in harms way.

I can’t answer that for anyone. I have a definition of responsible homeschooling on this website that outlines some situations in which homeschooling would definitely not be advisable. However, I believe the choice to homeschool should include considering the child’s preferences, needs, and their other school options. There are too many factors to give a blanket recommendation to anyone.

If you’d like to contact me through my website I’d be happy to start a conversation with you about how to navigate that decision for your family.

1. I think there are a lot of curriculum reviews out there for the common homeschool curriculum that come from homeschool educators who have personal experience with them, who can do a better job of advising on this than I can.
   
   I do think it’s important to emphasize that there is no homeschool curriculum review or accreditation process. Anyone, with any credentials or agenda can create and sell a homeschool curriculum. Homeschool curriculum are also not always accurate in the breadth or level of materials they offer. A 3rd grade math homeschool curriculum may be an abbreviated offering of 3rd grade math skills, and not a comprehensive one. It may be 1st and 2nd grade level materials advertised as 3rd grade level, to make the educators who use that curriculum feel good about their child’s progress and feel like their child is ahead of their peers, when in fact they may be behind.
   
   To avoid that situation, I suggest homeschool educators look for education standards aligned curriculum. These curriculum are created to cover the full set of grade level skills that public school students are meant to master. Homeschool educators can also look at their state’s education standards online, to as a foundation for their own curriculum. I provide a link to these on my resources page.

I do. Homeschool has been legalized for thirty years. There are no attempts or conversations about banning it. There are only attempts to put in very basic safeguards to make it harder for homeschool parents to refuse to make a good faith effort to provide an education, to neglect or abuse their children.

This is not a restriction of freedom, anymore than any law restricts the freedoms of those who intend to harm others. No one is entitled to the freedom to hurt others. Passing these restrictions are not an accusation that all homeschoolers intend to do harm. They will not effect parents with good intentions, only those who intend harm.