Overall, roughly 2.2% of American students are homeschooled. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), "the weighted estimate of the number of students being homeschooled in the United States in the spring of 2003 was 1,096,000." That's a 29% increase from 1999.

Like anything else, homeschooling has its positives and negatives. On the plus side, students aren't exposed to peer pressure and get 1:1 instruction. On the other hand, homeschooled kids miss out on many of the social aspects of school like dances and yummy cafeteria food.

While homeschooled kids have a reputation for being a bit socially awkward, their test scores are typically above average. On 1999's SAT, "homeschoolers scored an average 1,083 (verbal 548, math 535), 67 points above the national average of 1,016." That's gotta make their teachers proud.

For much of history and in many cultures, enlisting professional teachers (whether as tutors or in a formal academic setting) was an option available only to a small elite. Thus, until relatively recently, the vast majority of people were educated by parents (especially during early childhood)^[1] and in the fields or learning a trade.

The earliest compulsory education in the West began in the late 17th century and early 18th century in the German states ofGotha, Calemberg and, particularly, Prussia.^[3] However, even in the 18th century, the vast majority of people in Europe lacked formal schooling, which means they were homeschooled or received no education at all.^[4] The same was also true for colonial America^[5] and for the United States until the 1850s.^[6] Formal schooling in a classroom setting has been the most common means of schooling throughout the world, especially in developed countries, since the early and mid 19th century. Native Americans, who traditionally used homeschooling and apprenticeship, strenuously resisted compulsory education in the United States.^[7]

In 1964, John Caldwell Holt, published a book entitled How Children Fail which criticized traditional schools of the time. The book was based on a theory he had developed as a teacher – that the academic failure of schoolchildren was caused by pressure placed on children by adults. Holt began making appearances on major TV talk shows and writing book reviews forLife magazine.^[8] In his follow-up work, How Children Learn, 1967, he tried to demonstrate the learning process of children and why he believed school short-circuits this process.

In these books, Holt had not suggested any alternative to institutional schooling; he had hoped to initiate a profound rethinking of education to make schools friendlier toward children. As the years passed he became convinced that the way schools were was what society wanted, and that a serious re-examination was not going to happen in his lifetime.