Johns Hopkins Homeschool Connections

In this in-depth interview, Keith Jacobs, Director of Provider Development at Step Up for Students, discusses the ways to homeschool in Florida and the innovative landscape of the personalized education program (PEP). Topics include the PEP program, unbundled services for homeschoolers, district partnerships, and the future of customized education options.

In this episode, Dr. Jonathan Plucker and Annie Connolly-Sporing delve into the challenges facing gifted education, highlighting the fragmented policies and unreliable data that cause many gifted students to be overlooked. They discuss the promising role of homeschooling for advanced learners, emphasize the value of peer connections, and explore how innovative resources like the National Research Center on Advanced Education are paving the way for the future of advanced learning.

In this episode, we explore the intersection of classical education and homeschooling with Dr. Albert Cheng, an education policy scholar and quantitative methodologist. Drawing on the latest research, Dr. Cheng shares insights into the historical roots of classical education, its recent expansion, and what empirical evidence reveals about its reach and impact. We discuss how classical education fits within the broader homeschooling movement and what these trends may mean for educators, families, and education policy.

In this conversation, Dr. Timberly Baker discusses her research on rural home education, particularly focusing on the experiences of Black families in the American Southern Black Belt. She highlights the unique challenges faced by rural home educators, including limited resources, the impact of local school districts, and the intersection of race and educational policy. Dr. Baker also connects her work to broader issues such as the school-to-prison pipeline and calls for more inclusive research in the field of home education.

This conversation with Dr. Cheryl Field-Smith delves into the diversity and dynamics of Black home education, exploring universal lessons, challenges, and opportunities. Dr. Fields-Smith also highlights the evolution of the homeschool research field, the use of intersectionality and phenomenology in research, and implications for minority communities in homeschooling. She also shares her motivations for her research, upcoming projects - including plans for a documentary on Black home education - and a list of who's who in the field.

In this episode, Nina Buchanan, a professor emeritus from the University of Hawaii and a prominent figure in the field of school choice research shares wisdom from her many years in the field. She discusses the challenges she faced when her own gifted child struggled in the traditional school system, which led her to explore homeschooling and other educational alternatives. Nina emphasizes the importance of rigorous research in the homeschool field and shares insights from her local homeschool community on the big island of Hawaii.

Brenda Rosa, founder of the Homeschool Clinic, discusses her journey in the homeschooling community, particularly focusing on the Latino homeschooling movement. She shares insights on the impact of the pandemic on homeschooling, the unique needs of Latino families, and the importance of representation and leadership within the community. Brenda emphasizes the role of ESAs as a means to make homeschooling accessible and equitable for all families.

In this episode of Homeschool Connections, Angela Watson, the director of the Homeschool Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University discusses the purpose of the lab, the evolution of homeschooling research, and the current dynamics of the homeschool population in the U.S. Angela shares insights on the diverse practices of homeschooling today, the interaction between policy and practice, and exciting projects the lab is working on.