Coalition of Independent Homeschoolers

We are independent homeschoolers. When we say we are independent homeschoolers, we mean we are either parents who have assumed responsibility for the education of our children, or we are children or young adults being educated at home. As independent homeschoolers, we don't look primarily to experts or authorities to guide us, to support us, or to tell us what we ought to be doing in our homes. We aren't so interested in the approval or endorsement of government agencies or educational organizations, and we tend to be skeptical about accepting funds or aid from these sources and even about making use of the services they may be interested in offering to us. Our own study and research, and most importantly, our own experience with our own children and other homeschooling families, have proven to be our best, most trustworthy sources of homeschooling information and guidance. Most of us have embraced homeschooling as a lifestyle; it isn't something we do in addition to all of the other things we do; instead, it informs the way we live our lives moment by moment, day by day, year by year. Maggie, Sol, & Betsy

One thing that has certainly characterized our movement is that it has been nothing but "Move-ment"! The homeschooling movement has been dynamic and exciting, a movement led not only by charismatic leaders and brilliant visionaries but by regular, everyday parents dedicated to their children's educations and future. The diversity of our leadership and our membership has made us a dynamic, ever-changing group which defies stereotyping. All kinds of families homeschool-- two-parent, traditional families, single-parent families, families headed by heterosexual, lesbian, gay and transgender parents, families headed by working parents, large families, small families, families from all faith and religious communities and none, families from every political perspective. We value our shared history and have taken it upon ourselves to record it and to preserve it as best as we've been able, in part because we are proud of what we have accomplished, in part because we never want to forget the importance and significance of our struggles to gain and maintain our freedoms to teach our children by our own lights, in our own way.

Here is one place where we are hoping to come together, to make connections, contribute what we're willing and able, to tell our stories, to speak our minds, and to encourage one another to begin to lead in our communities and in the world, to offer the valuable, important lessons we've learned about education and family to all who are interested. Ours is a movement characterized by voluntaryism, by grass roots activism, by ordinary people committing themselves to live by the old mantra, "Think globally; act locally." We've been courageous people, risk-takers, unwilling, especially in the face of hardship to our children, to ask permission or to take a vote before we take to the streets, call our congressmen or representatives, pull our children out of school, lobby our legislators. We hope to rekindle the pioneer spirit that brought us to this day in history, where homeschooling has come of age, both because it makes us and our children good, responsible and conscientious citizens and because it is this pioneer spirit that will protect and guard this movement we value so highly.

We are about our children and our families. We love them and want what's best for them. We are about our children's education. We have found homeschooling to be the best way for us and our children to learn and grow and thrive.

We are also about educating ourselves and each other. We're about making informed choices - the big and important choices about our lives and our childrens' lives, about our shared futures. We want what's best for ourselves and each other.

And we are about educating our neighbors. We want to share what we've learned and experienced. And we want to inform and equip those who make choices and decisions that have a direct bearing upon our families' futures, so that they too may make wise and informed choices and decisions.

With those things in mind, we come together as a Coalition of Independent Homeschoolers with a common purpose and goal:

The Coalition of Independent Homeschoolers is a nonhierarchical, grassroots network of independent homeschoolers, present, past, and future, dedicated to reclaiming homeschooling as the unique province of children and their parents, unshackled by the Divine Right of Experts. To this end we are committed to:

(1) Informing, inspiring, engaging and connecting individuals and organizations interested in working to preserve the rights of parents to homeschool, and the rights of their children to learn, free of invasive and burdensome oversight and regulation;

(2) Preserving a true and accurate historical record of the homeschooling movement from its earliest inceptions.