Achtung! Germany forces homeschool kids to class 
A Nazi-era law requiring all children to attend public school, to avoid "the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions" that could be taught by parents at home apparently is triggering a Nazi-like response from police.

School District Backs Down from Unauthorized Demand
Home School Legal Defense Association - Oct 26, 2006… of Education. . Homeschooling parents in Kansas do not need to submit any information to their local school district. Once families …

A controversial chapter in education: unschooling 
A fast-growing subset of homeschooling called 'unschooling' turns traditional education its ear.

Violence in Schools Encourages More Homeschooling
Winchester Sun - Some of us rely on the security provided in public schools, our choices limited, our fingers crossed. Some of us find it through homeschooling or in a private facility. None of us should have felt more secure than the Amish, who reject modern ways

A new homeschooling movement led by black familiesBenjamin and Tanya Marshall are part of a new homeschooling movement led by black families fed up with the public-school system. …

Rappahannock home schoolers start school on their own schedule
Rappahannock News, VA - Sep 13, 2006Homeschooling in Rappahannock begins at various times throughout the year, with each family following their own schedules and extra-circular activities. …

Why parents opt for homeschooling
Jakarta Post, Indonesia - Sep 22, 2006Homeschooling is a viable education alternative to institutional schooling. … Homeschooling, on the other hand, allows them to design their own curriculum. …

If you're new to homeschooling, one of the biggest decisions you face is what curriculum to use. Deciding on a curriculum can be overwhelming for many new homeschool parents due to the sheer variety of possible options.

If you're interested in a Charlotte Mason-based education, Ambleside Online offers free homeschool curriculum from grades K-12, including a reading list and a suggested schedule to keep you on track.

Federalization is Not the AnswerOther parents have opted out of the public system and have chosen to educate their children at home. Home-schooling is growing rapidly and home-schooled children are outperforming their public-school peers on standardized achievement tests

This is an excellent article about how colleges (notably Stanford University and Columbia College) are encouraging homeschooled students to apply and enroll. Colleges ignore homeschool students at their peril—the demographics of the homeschool population simply cannot be ignored. The most recent estimate is that the homeschool population is increasing by roughly 11% a year!

Colleges Coveting Home-Schooled Students
By Alan Scher Zagier

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Bombarded by choices at a college job fair, Sara Kianmehr quickly found her match: Columbia College, a small, private school that didn't mind that her transcripts came from her parents.

The college "was the only institution that didn't have a puzzled look and say, 'Home school,' and ask me a million questions," the 19-year-old junior said. "There was a big appeal."

With colleges and universities aggressively competing for the best students, a growing number of institutions are actively courting homebound high achievers like Kianmehr, who took community college courses her senior year of high school and hopes to eventually study filmmaking at New York University or another top graduate school.

The courtship can be as subtle as admissions office Web sites geared to home-schooled applicants or, in the case of Columbia College, as direct as purchasing mailing lists and holding special recruiting sessions.

After years of skepticism, even mistrust, many college officials now realize it's in their best interest to seek out home-schoolers, said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

"There was a tendency to kind of dismiss home schooling as inherently less rigorous," he said. "The attitude of the admissions profession could have at best been described as skeptical."

Home-schooled students - whose numbers in this country range from an estimated 1.1 million to as high as 2 million - often come to college equipped with the skills necessary to succeed in higher education, said Regina Morin, admissions director of Columbia College.

Such assets include intellectual curiosity, independent study habits and critical thinking skills, she said.

"It's one of the fastest-growing college pools in the nation," she said. "And they tend to be some of the best prepared."

The number of home-schooled graduates enrolled at Columbia College is small - about a dozen out of a full-time undergraduate population that hovers near 1,000. But they count among their supporters an influential advocate.

Terry Smith, a political science professor and the school's dean of academic affairs, home-schooled three of his four children in the 1970s and '80s. Each of those children went on to graduate from college, with two earning master's degrees.

"All of my professional work has been influenced by this family schooling experience," he said. "We're all teachers and learners. They're just the apprentices, and we're the master learners."

The school's admissions standards for home-schooled students are identical to those for traditional graduates - minus the formal transcript requirement. Some colleges and universities, though, continue to require home-schoolers to earn a GED high-school equivalency diploma or take subject-specific SAT tests along with the standard requirements.

At Stanford, sympathetic admissions officers have helped make the university a beacon for high-achieving home-schoolers. The support can be seen on the Stanford admissions office's Web site.

"The central issue for us is the manner in which you have gone about the learning process, not how many hurdles you have jumped," the office advises home-schooled students. "We look for a clear sense of intellectual growth and a quest for knowledge in all of our applicants."

Jon Reider, a former senior associate admissions director at Stanford, said the school's pursuit of home-schoolers fits its academic and social mission.

He also acknowledged that Stanford and other schools now realize that home-school students are a prominent enough population that can only be ignored at a university's own peril.

"Part of it is driven by demographics, " said Reider, now a guidance counselor at a private high school in San Francisco. "There's a surplus of college spaces" and attracting good students to them is important everywhere.

Magdalene Pride, a first-year Columbia College student, was a beneficiary of the school's aggressive recruitment of home-schoolers.

After earning more than 50 credit hours through a combination of community college classes near her suburban St. Louis home and online Advanced Placement course, Price was awarded a four-year scholarship to Columbia College that covers the school's $12,414 annual tuition.

Among those who helped sell her on Columbia College was Kianmehr, a student ambassador who spoke at a college fair Pride attended.

"They're so open to home-schoolers here," she said. "No one looks down on me, or treats me different. It's very accepting."