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.
Patrick Farenga's discussion of the role John Holt played in the evolution of the homeschooling movement.
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.
This timeline highlights the important milestones in the fight for homeschool freedom in the United States.
An interview with John Holt from 1980 from The Mother Earth News. Holt discussed his own schooling experiences, how he discovered the key to real learning, and how the idea of homeschooling developed. He also discussed some concerns that parents new to the idea of homeschooling have. There is a short description of some of the legal issues that homeschoolers have faced and where the homeschooling movement is headed.
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.
Cheryl Seelhoff continues her look at the history of homeschooling by examining the influences of unschooling, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, Bill Gothard, and more.
This is the final installment of Cheryl Seelhoff's series on the history of homeschooling in America.
An interesting list of homeschoolers from history, along with a short description of homeschooling experience.
The years 1990-1992 marked an important turning point in the homeschooling movement. Cheryl Seelhoff looks at this important time. She explores educational philosophies as a source of division, the home-centered living movement, the issue of remarried homeschoolers, the expertization of homeschooling, and more.
Cheryl Seelhoff discusses the controversy between her and other homeschool movement leaders.
With podcasts you have a chance to reach a new component of the homeschool audience that you might not reach via newsletters, blog posts, or social media. This video details three advantages to marketing through podcasts.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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".
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.
Recognition of April 8, 2005, as Home Education Day in Colorado.
This is the first part of a comprehensive series on the history of homeschooling in America.
This article, written in 1998 on the fifteenth anniversary of Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), chronicles HSLDA’s growth.
Beginning in the late 1970s, as parents became dissatisfied with the public education system, the modern homeschooling movement grew rapidly. The 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, confirmed some parents belief that their children were receiving a mediocre education in public schools. Research by John Holt and Dr. Raymond Moore encouraged many parents confidence in their ability to homeschool. Conflict between some Colorado public school districts and parents led to the adoption of a 1988 legislative bill that established guidelines for home education. A timeline of important events is detailed here.