Homeschooling is not a new phenomenon so much as an historically dominant trend revived in the modern age. Yet homeschooling is also a revolutionary force in American education and family culture, with approximately 2.5 million homeschooling families in the US who spend over $3 million annually in a budding homeschool market.
From the founding of American colonies in the 17th century and throughout much of the movement westward in US history, American families have educated their children at home - either instructing them directly or, for the wealthy, hiring tutors. The first public schools began in Massachusetts. These spread throughout the US gradually, but reached height during the late 19th century. The Industrial Revolution and Immigrant movement moved public schools to the main-stage of American education. Absent parents and new citizens needing aculturation and language training made public education necessary.
Yet, Americans have always placed high value on education. Democracy requires an educated citizenry, which is why Thomas Jefferson outlined an education plan for US citizens. Protestants, always dominant in the US, have also placed high value on education, to advance a Bible-centered Christian journey. Catholics represented a large body of US immigrants in the late 19th century, and they set up a rich and expansive private school system to ensure Catholic children retain their faith in this largely secular and protestant American nation.
The modern homeschool movement came from diverse forces, starting in the 1960s:
* Some whites in the South, and sometimes in other parts of the US, pulled their children out of schools when desegregation and busing began in the 1960s.
* The progressive movement in education shifted educational techniques dramatically, and parents wanted out of the free-form inquiring approaches championed in the 1970s.
* Declining standardized test scores in US schools encouraged families to pull their children out. They'd lost faith in the educational system.
* A revival of faith denominations - Evangelical first and later, and a smaller movement, among Catholics began. (Many Catholics also lost faith in Catholic schools coopted by liberalism).
* John Holt, a progressive educator who wrote books in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, rejected schools and encouraged progressive parents to unschool their children for a freer lifestyle.
Strange bedfellows indeed - Evanglical Christians joining hands with conservative Catholics and liberal unschoolers. But such is the evolution of the current homeschool melting pot.
Undergirding the homeschool movement is a confidence in parents to educate their own children, a lost of faith in the public (and for some, the parochial) school system, rising costs of private schools and colleges, and a market explosion in homeschool resources, correspondence schools and enrichment opportunities.
Another factor, unrelated to educational goals, motivates homeschoolers: family life. Homeschoolers strive for a more natural and connected family, rather than one fragmented by long school days. They stand in contrast to many modern, two-career parent families. Homeschoolers strive to keep the family close by staying more connected through the days and in their learning lives.
The homeschool movement represents a revival of educational practices common for 17th through 19th century US history, but with a wealth of modern resources and information.
Take a look at our founding fathers, US presidents and a long line of inventive geniuses (from Alexander Graham Bell to Albert Einstein) - they all homeschooled.
Contemporary homeschoolers may be motivated to keep the family close, give their children a freer, better or faith-filled education, but most don't consider themselves revolutionaries - just loving parents looking for a best way to raise and educate children.