It's no secret that large families tend to homeschool their children. But why is this their approach of choice, and how does it work? This week, Josh and June take a look at the origin of homeschooling and discover how the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), an advocacy organization founded by homeschool parents, has effectively created a parallel education system in the United States with almost no oversight or accountability.
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EPISODE ART: Monica Swanson, a Christian homeschool advocate and author of the books Boy Mom: What Your Son Needs Most from You; Raising Amazing: Bringing Up Kids Who Love God, Like Their Family, and Do The Dishes; and Becoming Homeschoolers: Give Your Kids a Great Education, A Strong Family, and a Life They'll Thank You For Later. Swanson also has hosted podcasts about homeschooling and has four sons.
AUDIO CLIPS:
- 42:30 – Monica Swanson, a homeschooling advocate and author of Becoming Homeschoolers, in conversation with Jim Daly on Focus on the Family Radio
- 1:03:58 – Tiffany Jefferson, a homeschool mom, in a HSLDA promotional video entitled "What Is Freedom For?"
- 1:20:07 – A promotional video for HSLDA's online academy on their website
FURTHER READING:
- "Mechanisms of cultural diversity in urban populations" by Harin Lee, Noric Jacoby, Romain Hennequin & Manuel Moussalam (Nature Communications, 2025)
- "Implicit racial biases are lower in more populous more diverse and less segregated US cities" by Andrew J. Stier, Sina Sajjadi, Fariba Karimi, Luís M. A. Bettencourt & Marc G. Berman (Nature Communications, 2024)
SOURCES:
- "A look at homeschooling in the US" by Isabelle Pula (Pew Research Foundation, February 20, 2025)
- US National Center for Education Statistics Fast Facts on Homeschooling
- Becoming Homeschoolers: Give Your Kids a Great Education, a Strong Family, and a Life They'll Thank You for Later by Monica Swanson (Zondervan, 2024)
- "The Dangers of Early Schooling: The Need to Reexamine our Motives and Methods" by Raymond Moore (1973)
- Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice by James G. Dwyer and Shawn F. Peters (UChicago Press, 2019)
- The Homeschool Choice: Parents and the Privatization of Education by Kate Henley Everett (NYU Press, 2021)
- Biography of Michael Farris on the Alliance Defending Freedom website
- Generation Joshua website
- Homeschool Legal Defense Association website
- Center for Responsible Home Education website
FOLLOW THE SHOW:
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FOLLOW JUNE:
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- Other podcast: Kill The Computer
- Writing: June's Substack