Timeline
The homeschool movement, 1837 to 2026.
75 milestones across legal precedent, movement founding, publisher launches, method codification, ESA funding, and international developments. The entries run from Pierce v. Society of Sisters to the Wyoming Steamboat ESA Supreme Court reversal of May 14, 2026.
1830s
- 1837Legal
Horace Mann appointed Massachusetts Secretary of Education
Horace Mann becomes the first Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education and launches the common-school movement that frames public, tax-funded schooling as the normative path for American children. The movement establishes the institutional and ideological backdrop against which all subsequent compulsory-school laws and home-education exceptions are written.
1850s
- 1852Legal
Massachusetts passes first compulsory-education law
Massachusetts enacts the first compulsory-school-attendance statute in the United States, requiring children aged 8 to 14 to attend school for at least twelve weeks per year. Other states follow over the next sixty-six years; Mississippi becomes the last to pass a compulsory-attendance law in 1918.
1880s
- 1886Method
Charlotte Mason publishes Home Education
English educator Charlotte Mason publishes Home Education, the first of what will become her six-volume series articulating a developmental philosophy built on living books, narration, short lessons, and the dignity of the child as a person. The work seeds the Parents' Educational Union movement.
1920s
- 1922Legal
Pierce v. Society of Sisters
The Supreme Court rules in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that an Oregon statute requiring all children to attend public schools is unconstitutional, holding that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in directing the education of their children.
- 1923Method
Mason publishes A Philosophy of Education
Charlotte Mason publishes A Philosophy of Education, the sixth and final volume of her series.
- 1923Legal
Meyer v. Nebraska
The Supreme Court strikes down a Nebraska statute that had criminalized the teaching of German to young children, holding that the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment includes the right to acquire useful knowledge and the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.
- 1925Legal
Scopes Trial
Tennessee teacher John T. Scopes is convicted of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act, in a trial that crystallizes the early-twentieth-century conflict between religious and modernist visions of American schooling. The trial does not directly involve home education, but it shapes the cultural environment from which the late-twentieth-century Christian home-school movement later emerges.
1950s
- 1957Publisher
The Writing Road to Reading published
Romalda Spalding publishes The Writing Road to Reading, codifying the Spalding Method of integrated phonics, spelling, and writing instruction.
1960s
- 1964Movement
John Holt publishes How Children Fail
Teacher and education reformer John Holt publishes How Children Fail, an observational critique of conventional classroom dynamics that argues children learn defensively and inauthentically under institutional pressure.
- 1967Movement
Holt publishes How Children Learn
Holt's companion volume How Children Learn argues that children are intrinsically motivated investigators and that adult-directed instruction often disrupts the learning the child would otherwise undertake.
1970s
- 1970Movement
Raymond and Dorothy Moore found their research institute
Raymond and Dorothy Moore begin compiling developmental research arguing that formal schooling before ages eight to twelve is correlated with negative cognitive and emotional outcomes. Their work is later called the Moore Formula and reaches a national evangelical audience through Focus on the Family broadcasts in the 1980s.
- 1972Legal
Wisconsin v. Yoder
The Supreme Court rules in Wisconsin v. Yoder that the state cannot compel Amish parents to send their children to school beyond the eighth grade, holding that the Free Exercise Clause protects religiously motivated education choices against generally applicable school-attendance laws.
- 1975Movement
Better Late Than Early published
Raymond and Dorothy Moore publish Better Late Than Early, synthesizing their developmental research and arguing that delayed formal academics produce better long-term outcomes. The book remains in print through Moore Foundation channels.
- 1979Publisher
Abeka Book Publications enters the home-school market
Pensacola Christian College's curriculum arm, then publishing under the A Beka Book imprint for Christian schools, begins offering its full K-12 catalog directly to home-educating families.
1980s
- 1981Movement
Logos School founded in Moscow, Idaho
Douglas Wilson and a circle of Christ Church members in Moscow, Idaho, found Logos School as a private classical and Christian K-12 school.
- 1983Movement
HSLDA founded by Michael Farris and Michael Smith
Attorneys Michael Farris and Michael Smith found the Home School Legal Defense Association in Virginia to provide membership-based legal representation to families facing state truancy and compulsory-attendance enforcement.
- 1985Movement
NHERI founded by Brian D. Ray
Brian D. Ray founds the National Home Education Research Institute in Salem, Oregon, as a research organization dedicated to studying home-education demographics, academic outcomes, and social characteristics.
- 1988Legal
Pennsylvania enacts Act 169 homeschool law
Pennsylvania passes Act 169 of 1988, instituting a home-education statute requiring an annual notarized affidavit, a written objectives portfolio, and an end-of-year evaluation by a state-approved evaluator.
- 1989Publisher
Sonlight Curriculum begins
John and Sarita Holzmann, finding no complete, ready-to-use homeschool program, begin the work that becomes Sonlight Curriculum. Sonlight describes its approach as literature-based learning built on stories and conversation, an alternative to replicating public-school methods at home.
- 1980sPublisher
Alpha Omega Publications launches LIFEPAC
Alpha Omega Publications, founded in Tempe, Arizona, publishes the LIFEPAC self-paced workbook curriculum. The company is later acquired by Glynlyon and continues publishing LIFEPAC, Horizons, and Monarch online programs into the 2020s.
- 1980sPublisher
BJU Press resources begin reaching homeschool communities
BJU Press says its resources started reaching homeschool communities in the 1980s, according to its own history page.
1990s
- 1991Method
Wilson publishes Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning
Douglas Wilson publishes Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, extending Dorothy Sayers's 1947 Oxford essay The Lost Tools of Learning into a programmatic call for an American classical-Christian school movement.
- 1993Publisher
Memoria Press founded by Cheryl Lowe
Cheryl Lowe, a Latin teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, founds Memoria Press to publish Latina Christiana and a classical Latin-centered curriculum.
- 1994Movement
Association of Classical Christian Schools founded
A group of school heads and pastors associated with Logos School and Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning incorporate the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS) to accredit and network classical Christian K-12 schools. ACCS membership grows from a handful of schools at founding to more than three hundred member schools by the mid-2020s.
- 1996Publisher
Veritas Press begins with history flashcards
Veritas Press, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, dates its journey to 1996 and its first history flashcards, according to its own history page.
- 1999Method
The Well-Trained Mind published
Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise publish The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, articulating a developmental reading of the trivium as three childhood stages of grammar (roughly ages six to ten), logic (ten to fourteen), and rhetoric (fourteen to eighteen).
- 1999Method
Ambleside Online founded
Karen Glass, Leslie Noelani Laurio, Donna-Jean Breckenridge, Lynn Bruce, Wendi Capehart, and Anne White assemble Ambleside Online as a free, volunteer-run online curriculum reconstructing Charlotte Mason's PNEU programs from primary sources.
- 1997Publisher
Classical Conversations founded
Leigh Bortins founds Classical Conversations in West End, North Carolina, as a community-based once-a-week tutorial model. Classical Conversations is organized around state and regional Foundations, Essentials, and Challenge program communities.
- 1990Publisher
Saxon Math acquired and expanded for homeschool
John Saxon's incremental-spiral mathematics curriculum, first published for institutional schools in the 1980s, is adapted for the home-education market through Saxon Publishers. Saxon Math is later acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and continues to publish under that imprint.
- 1993Publisher
Beautiful Feet Books founded
Rea Berg founds Beautiful Feet Books, publishing literature-based history study guides built around Genevieve Foster and Holling C. Holling living-book classics.
- 1990sLegal
All 50 US states recognize home education as legal
By 1993, all fifty US states and the District of Columbia formally recognize home education as a legal alternative to public-school enrollment, completing a decade-long state-by-state legalization process driven by HSLDA-supported litigation and lobbying. Statutory regimes vary widely, from notification-only to portfolio-and-evaluator requirements, but the categorical legality of home education is settled nationally.
- 1997Publisher
Tapestry of Grace founded
Marcia Somerville begins developing Tapestry of Grace as a classical, Christian, unit-study humanities curriculum integrating history, literature, geography, fine arts, church history, and worldview across a four-year cycle and four learning levels.
- 1999Publisher
Ray and Charlene Notgrass begin developing homeschool curriculum
The Notgrass History About page dates the start of its curriculum work to 1999, when Ray and Charlene Notgrass began combining their homeschool experience with a love of history to develop Bible-based, easy-to-use homeschool curriculum.
2000s
- 2000Movement
Highlands Latin School founded
Cheryl Lowe and a circle of Memoria Press-aligned families found Highlands Latin School in Louisville, Kentucky, as a classical Christian K-12 school using Memoria Press curriculum end-to-end.
- 2003International
Singapore Compulsory Education Act with home-education exemption
Singapore enacts the Compulsory Education Act 2003, requiring children of compulsory school age to attend a national primary school but permitting a home-education exemption granted by the Ministry of Education on a case-by-case basis. The exemption requires an approved curriculum plan and an annual assessment.
- 2005Publisher
Khan Academy founded
Salman Khan begins posting math tutoring videos and incorporates Khan Academy as a nonprofit in 2008.
- 2007Movement
Cathy Duffy publishes 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum
Curriculum reviewer Cathy Duffy publishes 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum, distilling two decades of comparative reviews into a single reference framework organized by learning style and educational philosophy.
- 2007Movement
Voddie Baucham publishes Family Driven Faith
Pastor Voddie Baucham publishes Family Driven Faith, advancing a theological argument for parent-led discipleship and household-based education within the Reformed evangelical tradition.
- 2003Publisher
Math-U-See expands to national homeschool distribution
Steve Demme's Math-U-See, originally developed in the late 1990s, expands national homeschool distribution through Demme Learning during the early 2000s. The program is manipulative-based and mastery-sequenced.
- 2002Publisher
Heart of Dakota Publishing founded
Carrie Austin founds Heart of Dakota Publishing, producing literature-based, Charlotte Mason-influenced unit-study programs for Christian homeschool families. The catalog grows into a complete K-12 sequence.
- 2009Publisher
IEW Structure and Style program codified
Andrew Pudewa's Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) consolidates its Structure and Style writing methodology, drawn from the work of James B. Webster.
- 2003Publisher
Saxon Publishers acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt acquires Saxon Publishers.
2010s
- 2010Movement
NHERI estimates 2.04 million US homeschool students
The National Home Education Research Institute estimates that approximately 2.04 million students were home-educated in the United States during the 2009-2010 academic year, roughly four percent of the K-12 population.
- 2011Funding / ESA
Arizona launches first state ESA program
Arizona becomes the first state to launch an Empowerment Scholarship Account program, originally restricted to students with disabilities and depositing state per-pupil funds into a parent-controlled education account redeemable for tuition, curriculum, tutoring, and therapy. The program is later expanded in 2022 to universal eligibility for all Arizona K-12 students.
- 2011Publisher
Acton Academy founded
Jeff and Laura Sandefer found Acton Academy in Austin, Texas, as a microschool combining Socratic discussion, mastery-based digital learning, and quest-based projects.
- 2011Publisher
Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool launched
Lee Giles begins publishing the Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool curriculum as a free Christian K-12 program delivered entirely through her family blog.
- 2013Publisher
Outschool founded
Amir Nathoo, Mikhail Seregine, and Nick Grandy found Outschool as a marketplace of live online classes taught by independent teachers for K-12 learners.
- 2014International
Romeike family granted indefinite stay in the United States
The US Department of Homeland Security grants the Romeike family indefinite deferred-action status, allowing them to remain in the United States after fleeing Germany's Schulpflicht compulsory school-attendance regime.
- 2014Movement
ScholeSisters podcast network launched
Mystie Winckler, Brandy Vencel, Pam Barnhill, and Abby Wahl launch Scholé Sisters, a podcast and community organized around restful classical home-education for mothers.
- 2015Publisher
The Good and the Beautiful founded
Jenny Phillips founds The Good and the Beautiful, publishing language-arts, math, science, and history curricula sold directly to families. The publisher self-identifies as non-denominational Christian; the publisher's category in this directory is LDS.
- 2017Movement
Sarah Mackenzie launches the Read-Aloud Revival podcast
Sarah Mackenzie launches the Read-Aloud Revival podcast and membership community, organized around family read-aloud practice and a Catholic-Charlotte Mason adjacent literary sensibility.
- 2018International
Brazil STF rules home education not constitutionally protected
The Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) rules on September 12, 2018, in RE 888.815 that home education is not unconstitutional but is not a constitutionally protected right absent enabling federal legislation. Subsequent attempts to pass enabling federal legislation have repeatedly stalled in the National Congress.
- 2018Movement
Pam Barnhill publishes Better Together
Pam Barnhill publishes Better Together: Strengthen Your Family, Simplify Your Homeschool, and Savor the Subjects That Matter Most, codifying the morning-time multi-age circle practice.
- 2012Publisher
Beast Academy launched by Art of Problem Solving
Art of Problem Solving launches the Beast Academy elementary mathematics curriculum to extend its competition-pipeline pedagogy down to grades two through five.
- 2014Publisher
BookShark online as Sonlight's sister company
By April 2014, BookShark offers a literature-based homeschool program with full-grade packages from kindergarten, presented as coming from the leaders who built the Sonlight system, and names Sonlight as its sister company.
2020s
- 2020Movement
COVID-19 pandemic; US homeschool population doubles
The COVID-19 pandemic closes American schools in March 2020. US Census Household Pulse data for fall 2020 report that the share of households home-educating doubled from 5.4 percent in spring 2020 to 11.1 percent in fall 2020, with NHERI estimating roughly 3.7 million students home-educated by 2020-2021.
- 2021International
France LOI 2021-1109 restricts IEF to prior-authorization regime
France enacts LOI n° 2021-1109 of August 24, 2021 confortant le respect des principes de la République, replacing the prior simple-declaration regime for instruction en famille (IEF) with a prior-authorization regime in which families must apply for permission from the rectorat each year.
- 2022Funding / ESA
Arizona expands ESA to universal eligibility
Arizona enacts HB 2853, expanding the Empowerment Scholarship Account program to universal eligibility for all Arizona K-12 students regardless of prior school attendance or disability status. The award amount is set at approximately ninety percent of the state per-pupil base funding, approximately $7,000 per student at launch.
- 2022Funding / ESA
Iowa Students First Scholarship and West Virginia Hope Scholarship launch
Iowa enacts the Students First Act creating the Students First Scholarship account program, and West Virginia launches the Hope Scholarship after a state-supreme-court challenge. Both programs deposit state per-pupil funds into parent-controlled accounts redeemable for private-school tuition, curriculum, tutoring, and related expenses.
- 2023Funding / ESA
Florida FES universal expansion
Florida enacts HB 1 in March 2023, expanding the Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES) program to universal eligibility for all Florida K-12 students through the FES-EO and FES-UA tracks. The FES-UA track explicitly enrolls home-educating families.
- 2023Funding / ESA
Utah Fits All Scholarship enacted
Utah enacts HB 215, creating the Utah Fits All Scholarship as a universal-eligibility ESA program administered by the Utah State Board of Education. The program deposits approximately $8,000 per student into parent-controlled accounts and is later subject to state-supreme-court litigation in 2025-2026.
- 2023Funding / ESA
Indiana and Ohio expand voucher and ESA eligibility
Indiana enacts HEA 1001 expanding the Choice Scholarship voucher to near-universal eligibility and Ohio enacts HB 33 expanding the EdChoice voucher to universal eligibility. Both states join the wave of 2022-2023 state-level expansions that move private-school and home-education public funding from disability- and income-restricted to universal-eligibility models.
- 2024International
South Africa Basic Education Laws Amendment Act signed
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signs the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Act 32 of 2024 on September 13, 2024, creating new statutory requirements for the registration and monitoring of home education by provincial heads of department. The Act is challenged by home-education advocacy groups before the Constitutional Court.
- 2024Funding / ESA
Texas SB 2 ESA enacted
Texas enacts SB 2 in the 89th Regular Session, creating a state-funded education savings account program of approximately $10,000 per accredited private-school student and a smaller stipend for home-educated students.
- 2024Method
Against Worldview published by Lexham Press
Simon P. Kennedy publishes Against Worldview: Reimagining Christian Formation through Lexham Press in December 2024, arguing that the dominant 'worldview' framework in evangelical Christian education has displaced an older patristic and Augustinian formation tradition.
- 2024Publisher
Sonlight begins Cores-to-Levels rebrand
Sonlight Curriculum begins a multi-year rebrand of its program structure from the historical 'Cores' nomenclature to a 'Levels' system, intended to clarify the relationship between literature-based programs and target grade ranges. The rollout proceeds in stages through the 2024-2026 catalog cycles.
- 2025International
Brazil Cichelero ruling imposes fine
A Brazilian state court rules in September 2025 against the Cichelero family for home-educating without enabling federal legislation, imposing a fine of R$100,000 and a daily penalty of R$1,000 until the children are enrolled in school.
- 2025International
India NEP 2020 strengthens NIOS pathway
Implementation of India's National Education Policy 2020 continues through 2025, strengthening the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) as an accredited pathway for Indian home-educators to obtain certified secondary-school and senior-secondary credentials.
- 2026Movement
April: Every Homeschool launches at everyhomeschool.com
Every Homeschool launches as an independent, reader-supported portal cataloging American home-education curriculum publishers on a single comparative rubric. The launch catalog at publication covers 443 curricula across every worldview, method, and grade range, with state-by-state ESA program tracking and pillar guides on classical, Charlotte Mason, and method-neutral first-year planning.
- 2026Movement
May: How to Start Homeschooling in 2026 booklet published
Every Homeschool publishes How to Start Homeschooling in 2026, a method-neutral field-guide booklet covering entry points from kindergarten through high school, ten methodological approaches, seven worldview formation tracks, eleven international regions, and five worked first-year budgets. The booklet adopts the formation-and-wisdom framing developed in Simon P. Kennedy's Against Worldview (Lexham Press, 2024) as its editorial lens on Christian curriculum traditions.
- 2026Funding / ESA
May 14: Wyoming Supreme Court reverses Steamboat ESA injunction
The Wyoming Supreme Court issues a decision on May 14, 2026, reversing a lower-court injunction that had paused implementation of the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act, the state's Education Savings Account program enacted in 2024. The reversal clears the program to resume processing applications for the 2026-2027 academic year.
- 2020Movement
Pandemic acceleration; Black homeschool households quintuple
US Census Household Pulse data for fall 2020 report that the share of Black households home-educating rose from 3.3 percent in spring 2020 to 16.1 percent in fall 2020, a roughly fivefold increase.
- 2023Movement
Washington Post home-education investigation
The Washington Post publishes a multi-part investigative series in fall 2023 reporting that home education is the fastest-growing form of K-12 schooling in the United States and estimating between 1.9 million and 2.7 million home-educated children nationally. The series renews national press attention to home-education regulation, demographic composition, and outcomes.
- 2024Funding / ESA
Carson v. Makin aftermath; state ESA programs proliferate
Following the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Carson v. Makin holding that states may not exclude religious schools from generally available tuition-assistance programs, the 2023-2024 legislative cycles produce universal-eligibility ESA enactments in Iowa, Utah, Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. By the end of 2024, more than ten states operate universal or near-universal ESA programs explicitly open to home-educating families.
- 2020Publisher
Synthesis Tutor and Synthesis School launched
Synthesis launches as an online enrichment program drawing on the SpaceX in-house Ad Astra School model, offering Socratic-discussion-and-simulation classes for school-age children. The program later adds Synthesis Tutor, an adaptive AI math tutor.
A correction or addition?
The timeline updates as history moves.
Send corrections, additions, or alternate citations to editor@everyhomeschool.com. The timeline is a living document. New entries are added quarterly to track ESA-program launches, major court rulings, and international developments.