The right to home school is based on two fundamental principles of liberty: religious freedom and parental rights. Whenever one of these two freedoms is threatened, our right to home school is in jeopardy. Here are the battles we think home educators will be facing as we enter the next century:
The Homeschool Speakers and Vendors Association (HSVA) was originated and founded by Steve Clark, a homeschooling dad from Louisville, KY. From 1998 to the present, Clark also spent over 2000 hours working in homeschool booths and speaking at homeschool conventions all across the US and Canada. After meeting hundreds of other speakers and vendors at these conventions, Clark saw that there was a great need for an association that would provide support and assistance, mainly in the areas of compiling convention information and developing marketing resources. After brainstorming the idea with other vendors and speakers, Clark and his wife, Katrina, launched HSVA in 2003.
A look back at the history of the Home School Lega Defense Association with Michael P. Farris, J. Michael Smith, Christopher J. Klicka, and David E. Gordon. Hear about the early years of HSLDA, the way home schooling has changed, and some of their most memorable cases.
Get tips on how to understand the homeschool market, how to do market research on a home business budget, and whether or not you should buy advertising.
Parents Educating at Home (PEAH) has as its goal to network with businesses and organizations to raise the awareness of home schooling in the community. They work to manage and communicate discounts and savings that home schooling families can receive as well as continually work to obtain additional discounts both nationally and locally on behalf of the homeschooling community. In order to become a member, you must pay a fee.
Although HSLDA has changed over the past 30 years—in terms of the size of our membership and staff and our physical location—our original vision and purpose remain unchanged. HSLDA exists expressly for the purpose of advocating family and freedom.
A short history of homeschooling in America from its roots in the family-centered lifestyle of the nineteenth century to today. Includes a general discussion of the evolution of homeschooling in the twentieth century.
A look at the change in the homeschooling movement from an inclusive philosophy to a more structured, compartmentalized, and politicized structure.
A media kit is a document you provide to potential advertisers and other parties you are interested in working with information about your value as a partner. It is meant to reflect your reach as a blogger. A media kit can be as simple as an ad page with basic blog and social media numbers or as complex as a full-blown demographic study of your readers printed and bound. Whatever kind of media kit you choose to create, remember to be clear and concise.
Maureen McCaffrey Williamson examines the homeschool market and shares several resources for contacting with the homeschool market, including mailing lists of homeschoolers, periodical available for advertising, and more.
The Homeschool Marketer is the place to gather all your tips about homeschool marketing and public relations. Whether you are considering marketing to home educators, are a homeschooler attempting to spread the word about your business efforts, or just want to know the news from the busy bees at The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, this is the place to get the "buzz".
This article, written in 1998 on the fifteenth anniversary of Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), chronicles HSLDA’s growth.
If you’re looking for a perfect niche market for your specialty toys, you might try homeschoolers. Since they are outside of the mainstream, they tend to be more skeptical about mass-marketed products and more inclined to make unorthodox choices, as a scan of homeschooling websites and a survey of five homeschooling moms revealed.
This is a great list of famous people who did their learning at home. Includes presidents, athletes, performers, scientists, artists, inventors, educators, writers, and entrepreneurs.
Cheryl Seelhoff continues her look at the history of homeschooling by examining the influences of unschooling, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, Bill Gothard, and more.
In July 2000, Louisiana residents Joyce and Eric Burges created the National Black Home Educators Resource Association, a nonprofit organization that provides advice on curriculum materials, pairs new families with veteran home educators, and produces an annual symposium. The Burgeses’ goal is to encourage other African-American families to become more involved in their children’s education. This article tells their personal story and how they have impacted the community in which they live.
Homeschoolers are actually not the easiest marketing targets in general. You might think that we are such a specific subset of the population that we basically have a marketing bullseye on our foreheads, but the truth is that people homeschool their children for such a wide variety of reasons that figuring out where we are coming from can be a full-time job in itself. The one thing homeschoolers DO have in common is their belief that by homeschooling, they are providing a customized education for their child.
Patrick Farenga looks at the history of homeschooling from before the founding of our country to present day. He includes discussion of the work of some important people in the homeschooling revolution.
Would-be reformers of the current educational system, including corporate altruists nor philanthropic foundations, have shown much interest so far in homeschooling's increasing popularity. Instead, they've focused on the promotion of charter schools and school vouchers. In this article, Greg Beato details some of the efforts of big business to reform public schooling, taking a look at corporate sponsorships, grants, and scholarship programs. It examines the dichotomy between those who criticize the system as an Industrial Age artifact and simultaneously push for more standardization and regimentation. Homeschoolers have provided an alternative that offers positive results in academics and other accomplishments. The article continues by looking at the future of the relationship between business and homeschoolers, from increasing scholarship opportunities to partnerships between homeschooling groups and corporations.
When Michael Farris and Michael Smith founded Home School Legal Defense Association in March of 1983, home schooling was just a tiny blip on the education radar screen. The concept of parents teaching their children at home was relatively obscure, and the families who chose to follow this non-traditional education route were fairly certain to face opposition from the educational bureaucracy and following legal entanglements, as well as from their own friends and family.