Homeschooling's 1970s advocates came from both the left and the right of the political spectrum.

'Unschooling' advocates believe education should be student-directed, with adults acting as facilitators.

Explore an archive of Growing Without Schooling, the influential homeschooling newsletter published by 'unschooling' advocate John Holt.

Homeschooling was illegal in some US states until 1993.

A 1972 Supreme Court decision about Amish children and education helped pave the way for homeschooling in the US.

A 1922 Oregon initiative that sought to ban private education inadvertently strengthened parents' ability to pursue options outside the public school system, building the legal case for homeschooling.

After expanding significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, homeschooling has continued to grow since.

Some parents who began homeschooling their children during the COVID-19 pandemic said the experience convinced them it was more beneficial than traditional school.

Horace Mann was America's leading champion for free, standardized public schooling in the 19th century and helped build the template for the modern public school system.

Retracing the 1960s history of dropping out

A core element of the 1960s counterculture was the idea of dropping out of school and the broader technocratic institutions at the time. This push coincided with paranoia over mind control during the Cold War, and as some rogue psychologists advocated for the liberating use of psychedelics.

Private schools are free to experiment with teaching styles

Because they’re not beholden to national curricula, private school teachers can use different pedagogical approaches, like Harkness, which was developed at New Hampshire’s Phillips Exeter Academy. The method brings students to a large round oval table and encourages them to lead the lesson through inquiry.

Montessori is an educational style that's grown popular in private education

Montessori, which was developed in Italy and became popular in the US in the 1950s, emphasizes child-centered learning. Though it’s often associated with younger students, the Montessori philosophy can also be found in middle schools and high schools.

The earliest colonial schools were often religious

The earliest American schools were far from our notions of “public” or “private”—they were neighborhood institutions, often founded by religious groups, that sought to educate children academically and spiritually.

Many private schools follow Dewey's experiential learning model

John Dewey is perhaps the biggest figure in American education. He is known for emphasizing active, experiential learning and founding one of the country’s most renowned private schools: the Experimental School, which would later become the Laboratory Schools in Chicago.

Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025) broadened parents' rights regarding what their children learn in public schools

The case, brought by parents in Maryland, focused on religious objections to books with same-sex and transgender characters in elementary classrooms. The court ruled that the district's denial of parents' opt-out requests violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

School choice allows families to use public funds for private education

Some private school advocates support school choice, a broad policy that provides families with public money (sometimes called “vouchers”) to spend on private education, including religiously affiliated schools.

Visually explore the federal government's evolving role in education.

Hear from both sides of the attempt to ban books across the country, which spiked by more than 1,100% between 2020 and 2022

During that period, more than 2,500 titles were challenged across 37 states, with activists targeting books on race, slavery, and gender identity. This CBS report hears from the founders of Moms for Liberty, a teacher removed for giving students access to banned books, and "Maus" cartoonist Art Spiegelman.

The origins of public education in the US stem from Puritan religious views

The 1647 Old Deluder Satan law reflects Puritan belief that illiteracy allowed Satan’s influence. The law—the first of its kind in the colonies—mandated towns of over 50 households hire a teacher and over 100 support a grammar school.

The Industrial Revolution changed childhood—including education

Industrialization transformed childhood—from free-range, mixed-age play long embedded in human culture to the regimented, adult-controlled environments of today's schools.

Most states don't require homeschool students to take standardized tests.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes championed the idea of speech as a 'marketplace of ideas'

In his landmark dissent in Abrams v. United States, Justice Holmes argued that the best way to combat harmful ideas is through open competition—a principle that became foundational to modern First Amendment law.

Private education offered an alternative for Black Americans

The early public school system was ostensibly designed for all Americans, but it was also racially segregated, offering substandard schools for Black Americans. Some private schools were founded to combat that problem, including St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, the United States' oldest predominantly Black Catholic high school.

Learn about the political history of the Department of Education

The Department of Education, created in 1980, has faced calls for elimination since day one. Though it contributes a small portion of K-12 funding, it plays a vital role in civil rights enforcement, federal grant distribution, and education research—making its existence and work symbolically controversial.

Learn about the history of soapbox speeches in the United States

From the 1890s to the 1960s, soapbox oratory was common across the US, with speakers gathering crowds in public spaces to share political, religious, and philosophical views.

The long-tail influence of Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'

His essay "Civil Disobedience" laid out both a practical and a moral plan for resisting unjust governments, inspiring civil rights leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as anti-war anarchists like Emma Goldman and literary figures like Leo Tolstoy.

Catholic education has grown smaller in the 21st Century

Declining numbers of priests and nuns, who often worked in the schools for free, led schools to increase tuition, which inadvertently turned away the schools’ primary demographic: working-class immigrant families. At the same time, the sexual abuse scandals of the early 2000s left many others feeling like Catholic schools were dangerous.

Eleanor Roosevelt sheltered student activists at the White House after they were subpoenaed by HUAC

In 1939, when Congress subpoenaed leaders of the American Youth Congress on suspicion of communist ties, Eleanor Roosevelt attended the hearings herself and then invited all 10 students to stay at the White House, as they had nowhere to sleep.

The man who championed the ‘case method’ for higher ed later found it insensitive

The "case method" style of education is core to most MBA programs across the country. Recent research posits that Wallace Donham’s (who is credited with establishing the method as a force at Harvard Business School in the 1920s) views on the method changed in later years.

Abolitionists shaped American history from the Revolution to the Civil War

Abolitionists of all backgrounds organized against slavery from the founding era onward. Historian Manisha Sinha argues that their decades of activism fundamentally shaped American democracy and made emancipation possible.

In the 1970s, a former NASA engineer pitched remote work as a solution to an energy crisis

His name was Jack Nilles, and he wrote a book that is considered the "founding document of telecommuting" in 1973 called "The Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff," coining the terms "telecommuting and telework." Nilles argued that telecommuting could serve as an "alternative to transportation," helping cut down on gridlocked traffic and reduce society's reliance on nonrenewable resources like oil. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Driver education was largely removed from public schools in the 1990s

Maintaining fleets of cars proved too expensive for many school districts, relegating driver education to private classes taken outside of school.

In 1976, segregation was outlawed in private schools

Over two decades after Brown v. Board of Education, Runyon v. McCrary banned the segregation academies, forcing them to admit non-white students or shut down.

Pregnant teachers were once banned from public school classrooms after their first trimester, with school boards believing that they were bad influences on students.

After public schools were integrated, segregation found a home in private schools

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling banned segregation in public schools, but it didn’t eliminate the problem: Many white families moved to “segregation academies,” which were private schools founded to skirt the new law

Even medieval teachers sometimes complained about their students

Although it's tempting to assume that the youngest generation has gone astray, it's important to remember that older generations throughout history have been annoyed, and even dismayed, by the behavior of the youth. Look no further than this collection of medieval teachers complaining about their students, including one father who complains that his son prefers "license to restraint and play to work and strumming a guitar while the others are at their studies."

Science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury couldn't afford college, but he spent several days a week in his local library, teaching himself how to become a writer.

School choice vouchers have had mixed results

This podcast breaks down the arguments for and against vouchers and untangles what data suggests about them. While some states showed vouchers improving student learning, studies in Louisiana and Indiana showed that students who left public schools for private schools performed worse.

The history of brainwashing in America

"Brainwashing" refers to a coerced shift in worldview, often associated with cults or oppressive totalitarian governments. Though such processes are not well understood on a neurological level, they hold an outsized role in public imagination, particularly in science fiction and dystopias. This article reviews the history of the term, first popularized by Edward Hunter in 1950, and the subsequent use of the approach in pop psychology, the CIA, and more.

The political theory of Henry David Thoreau

The two years, two months, and two days that Thoreau spent living in a modest cabin at Walden Pond informed his beliefs that people should live simply, deliberately, and become self-reliant. Those beliefs were later articulated, in a political sense, in his landmark essay, "Civil Disobedience."

Hippies explored the possibilities of organic food

The 1960s counterculture sought to buck traditions, including culinary ones. Hippies believed that healthier food was integral to dismantling the status quo and, in turn, started health food stores, espoused vegetarian diets, and cultivated organic food, which they found to be a welcome alternative to the over-commercialized farming industry. In the decades since the movement’s decline, many of its practices have been absorbed by the mainstream.

Massachusetts passed the first law requiring children to be educated as early as 1642.

One teacher's lesson on existentialism and social media use

During a unit on existentialist literature and philosophy, one teacher at Massachusetts’ Phillips Academy asked students to surrender their cell phones to test Kierkegaard’s thoughts on the danger of conformity and Sartre’s belief that humans are “condemned to be free.” Many of them were surprised to find how liberated they felt once they left behind social media.

Some parents have objected to yoga in schools

Yoga has been introduced in some public schools as a form of exercise and emotional regulation. Some parents, however, have objected to its inclusion, arguing that it promotes the Hindu and Buddhist religions. Note that this resource will be paywalled for some readers.

'Sesame Street' was once removed from television in Mississippi for being too controversial.

Why school boards ban dystopian books

Journalist Ali Velshi analyzes the lasting appeal of Lois Lowry's "The Giver" and George Orwell's "1984," two dystopian novels that have courted controversy since their publications. Beyond his interpretations, though, Velshi wants to understand why school boards perennially ban these books—and what makes them so fascinating for adolescent readers. In his search, he talks to Lowry about the lasting influence of her novel and to Orwell expert James McCallister about the prescient political portrait in "1984."

Some believe 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' is a political allegory

Although Baum claimed his book was intended as a simple children's story, scholars challenged that notion. One high school history teacher, Henry Littlefield, began teaching the book as a satire of the Gilded Age and published an essay inspiring other scholars to consider the text as a politically charged allegory.

Social scientists hold various beliefs about the role of marriage in our lives

Functionalists believe that marriage fulfills specific needs, while conflict theory highlights inherent power struggles within a couple’s relationship.

Hughes once taught creative writing to junior high and high school students

In 1949, Hughes accepted an eight-week contract at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools to teach creative work, along with seminars on jazz and the “negro theme” in American poetry. He enjoyed his time at the school, but never returned to the classroom, noting that the early mornings and teaching load left little time for his writing.

...and allowed newly arrived European immigrants to maintain their cultures

19th-century public schools often included Protestant spiritual instruction, something that was disturbing for Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, and elsewhere, who found homes in neighborhood “parochial” schools.

Environmental regulation had bipartisan support in the 1970s

During the 1970s, Democrats and Republicans alike backed landmark environmental laws. Congress passed the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts with overwhelming bipartisan majorities—reflecting broad public agreement on protecting the environment.