A Historical Timeline of the Modern U.S. Homeschooling Movement
This timeline has been revised and updated. View the new timeline here.
An Archived Blog – Inactive
This timeline has been revised and updated. View the new timeline here.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 
This timeline is very well done. It’s so interesting to see the progression and people involved in my 20+ yrs of homeschooling.
Great work! I’ve read so much of these works and followed the founders and writers all through my 23 years home schooling, yet never knew how much and in what ways they were all connected. This will be very useful. Thanks, Ryan
Incomplete, overly focused on Christian influence.
What about Teen Pact?
Fantastic work! Thanks!
Don’t know if it was intentionally left out, but John Taylor Gatto’s “Dumbing Us Down” was very instrumental in my early years of homeschooling my kids. This was a very interesting run-down of the history and politics of the “homeschool movement”. Thanks.
Pretty good I only see one mistake which is just because Wikipedia got it wrong. Josh Harris began publishing New Attitude Magazine in 1993 I was one of the early subscribers the subscription was a birthday present. The early issues covered the Mike Farris Lt. Governor campaign which sticks in my memory since my family happened to be taking a cross country trip and was passing through Virginia during election season.
I am going to have to ask my Mom and Mother-In-Law which of the books mentioned they read in the early days. I remember some of the titles as being on the bookshelf when I was a kid. Both my husband and I were homeschooled from the early days my family started in 1983 and his family in 1982. Both of our mothers were teachers and the idea of homeschooling didn’t come from a book or radio broadcast. My husbands father had strongly disliked school and suggested to his mother that couldn’t they just do it at home since she was a teacher. My Mom wasn’t happy with traditional education which she felt only served 25% of children and heard of a homeschooling family through the grapevine and convinced my Dad to homeschool before I was even born! I wonder how many other families there were who like us made the decision to homeschool before hearing about the founders and leaders of the movement.
You might want to add this:
In August 2000, German home schoolers asked HSLDA assistance. HSLDA and German Homeschoolers establish Schulunterricht zu Hause
http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Germany/200110010.asp
This is fascinating. I was born in 1984, and I was homeschooled all the way through high school. I would assume I started school in 1991. My mom passed away nearly 3 years ago, but she was the instigator of many aspects of homeschool community in my hometown, and she sold supplemental materials at homeschool conventions around the country for most of my life.
This is really interesting–I didn’t realize just how new the homeschooling model was at the time my parents made that decision. My parents made a radical decision for the times. No wonder so many people questioned them. I went on to get a college education and have a good career that I love now, but who knew how the whole homeschooling idea would actually work! For me, I see homeschooling as a valid option alongside private schools and public schools for my future children, and many of my friends who were homeschooled have continued on that route with their own kids.
Thanks for sharing this timeline!
Interesting stuff! I wonder though, and perhaps someone can answer this, isn’t the Christian homeschooling movement just as restrictive and ideological as the public school system? From what I’ve heard about patriarchy adn quiverfull and the various fundamentalist types involved in it, it sounds rather oppressive. Wouldn’t a kid be freer in a public school, provided he or she received religious instruction at church and at home? Doesn’t it make mroe sense?
Jon, I personally think patriarchal and authoritarian Christian homeschooling is far more souls crushing that public school. One of the biggest compounding factors that makes homeschooling so potentially dangerous is social isolation. If you have abusive parents, homeschooling means you are with them 24/7. Public schoolers escape 5 days a week.
@nick, “If” could be……. but facts and statistics stand better….Please do your research before you pull out the social word and the abuse word. There will be always abuse in any situation including inside the doors of public schools. I am sorry that you feel you must escape. That is sad . We can not define public schools or homeschools by the horrible things that take place.. The socialization has been proven false many times over. Please go to your local college Library and read Dumas, T. K., Gates, S., & Schwarzer, D. R. (2010). EVIDENCE FOR HOMESCHOOLING: CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS IN LIGHT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH. Widener Law Review, 16(1), 63-87.and search for more Dumas, T. K., Gates, S., & Schwarzer, D. R. (2010). EVIDENCE FOR HOMESCHOOLING: CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS IN LIGHT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH. Widener Law Review, 16(1), 63-87. It is a beautiful act to work to understand.
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Almost hidden in the 54th footnote is this gem:
“Holt, a humanist, became a cult figure of sorts to the wing of the homeschooling movement that drew together New Age devotees, ex-hippies, and homesteaders–the countercultural left…In the 1970s the countercultural left, who responded more strongly to Holt’s cri de coeur, comprised the bulk of homeschooling families.”
Although later co-opted by the Christian Right, the fact that the homeschooling movement largely began (and was popularized) on the left is not mentioned during the timeline itself.
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