Dixie Dillon Lane’s “Skipping School: How Homeschooling in America Went Mainstream” suggests that the first homeschoolers weren’t just iconoclasts; they were brave. The earliest homeschooling families were not protected by the law. In fact, they often broke it to educate their children at home, and they experienced overwhelming societal disdain. Yet these families doggedly pursued what they believed to be the best form of education for their kids.
As someone who was homeschooled K-12, I saw the culture I grew up in reflected in Lane’s careful historical sketch. I learned much about the roots and history that gave rise to the current state of American homeschooling and felt a sense of pride in my people.
Lane states her thesis clearly: “American homeschooling in the present day has deep roots in a long-held American belief that parents should hold primary influence over their children’s schooling, an influence that has been slowly lost over the past seventy-five years.” Beginning her survey in the 1950s, Lane documents how Cold War fears of communism led to increased federal control over education even as Americans began to grow wary of the government. The first homeschoolers, Lane says, “foreshadowed a new American paradox: a nation plagued with distrust yet booming with consolidation.”
Early homeschooling was deeply unpopular with the public. Even in the 1980s, Lane points out, a poll found that 75% of Americans thought homeschooling was bad for the country. Homeschooling was either illegal or unclearly legal. So, most families stayed under the radar, forming small communities with like-minded families.
Beginning in the late 1980s, organizations such as HSLDA fought for the rights of homeschoolers. As the law began to turn, homeschoolers gradually came above ground. With legal protection, organizations such as the California Homeschool Network formed to consolidate homeschooling into a movement.
The turn of the century brought increased freedom and options for homeschoolers. Partnerships with local public schools, online classes, co-ops, and university-model schools allowed for even more flexibility. The COVID-19 pandemic thrust many into homeschooling and brought to light for lots of parents the pitfalls of public schools.
Today, the normalcy of homeschooling — thanks to decades of hard legal work, cultural shifts, and the pandemic — means its demographics reflect what America is.
Lane writes that while “a majority of twentieth-century homeschoolers were at least in part religiously motivated,” nowadays “the movement itself is not primarily a religious one.” Religion is still an important factor for most homeschoolers, but it is often not a definitive one. Much more common is the belief that homeschooling will offer a better education than other options.
Although popular culture still sees homeschooling as predominantly white, it is actually quite diverse. A U.S. census survey taken in April and May of 2020 “found that homeschooling parents were nearly evenly split between Caucasians and people of color.”
“Skipping School” works on many levels. It is self-labeled as an account of American homeschooling from within the community itself, letting homeschoolers see their heritage clearly. Lane doesn’t hide the fact that her family homeschools, and her book occasionally myth-busts the worst critiques of homeschooling. These aren’t knocks against the book. It’s not self-serving propaganda. Everyone can glean much from it.
The book is a work of careful historiography, with thorough yet accessible data, personal stories, and cultural context. “Skipping School” reasonably defends the practice, enables the reader to understand the homeschooling mindset, and compellingly recounts a true historical narrative.
The times the book drifts into direct polemic are rare and restrained. They are nonetheless effective. Take, for instance, when Lane discusses the ubiquitous criticism of homeschooling: “Won’t your kids not be socialized enough?” She does the thing few people do: defines her terms. If by socialize, one means engaging in society, homeschoolers demonstrate above-average interaction with activities such as voting, engaging in community service, going to church, and more.
There’s no question that public schools in America are far from an ideal option, but as Lane shows us, homeschoolers are realists. Speaking personally, she writes, “Like so many other homeschoolers today, we are not antischool, even though we have serious objections to our local public options. Indeed, we are pragmatists who do what works for our family.”
As homeschooling moved out into the open, options proliferated. Online academies, a variety of curricula, and charter schools have been popping up everywhere in recent years. Several experienced homeschoolers expressed their reservations to Lane. Such options, they said, risk losing pure homeschooling’s advantages, such as full parental control over curriculum and more flexibility.
There are as many pragmatic approaches to homeschooling as there are homeschooling families. This means an abundance of options and a potential end to the scrappy, DIY, tight-knit communities of pre-2000s homeschooling.
Some homeschoolers would do well to consider Lane’s thesis: Americans have always felt that parents should have a strong say in the education of their children, and homeschooling is the most recent manifestation of this fact. Many homeschooling families I know seem to view homeschooling as the universal norm. I would suggest that conservative Christians should see it more as a prudential necessity.
Ironically, white Protestants were the first to establish mandatory attendance laws, as in an 1852 Massachusetts law. They were thinly veiled attempts to Protestantize Roman Catholic children.
Nineteenth-century educational reformer Horace Mann certainly went too far in his statements. (See: “Our common schools … reach, with more or less directness and intensity, all the children belonging to the State,—children who are soon to be the State.”) The Supreme Court thought these inflexible laws went too far as well.
But a community requiring the education of children goes back to Plato. Martin Luther argued for it as a way to help the laity learn to read the Bible. Yet, as we have seen, absolutizing the community’s interest leads to indoctrination. However, simply saying society has an interest in the quality of the education its citizens receive — an interest that must be weighed against the right of parents to raise their kids how they see fit — is not totalitarian. Thus, communal accountability must be local to ensure the best balance.
The best thing about “Skipping School” is that it will provide something for every reader. No matter your preconceived notions about homeschooling, you will leave with a transformed perspective. This is the highest kind of history: true to the facts and challenging to our biases. Skeptics of the practice may walk away viewing homeschooling as much more reasonable; hardcore conservative Christian homeschoolers may see the history and current situation as less monolithic. While Lane’s book corrects the excesses of anti-homeschooling myths, it will likely also serve to bust some myths homeschoolers believe about themselves too.
Although Lane demonstrates that homeschooling in the 21st century cannot be claimed by a single group, I think it can. It can be claimed by Americans. Homeschooling is as foreign in Europe as ice in tap water. Americans’ deep desire for freedom and suspicion of the state mean our soil is ripe for the practice.
In this way, defending homeschooling unites most of modern America, even if only a small percentage of total children receive this kind of education. In another way, it reinforces our cultural divisions. Public schools used to provide a unifying education for all American children. Now, in a pluralistic society, the trade-off for parents taking exclusive charge of educating their children is that existing fractures continue to grow.
“Skipping School” has the right nuance to tackle such a significant subject. I developed a new appreciation for my forebears, reconsidered some of my critiques of the practice, and came to see this issue with greater clarity.
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Cooper Cobbs (@CobbsCooper) is a 2026 Chesterton media fellow at New Guard Press. A rising junior at Patrick Henry College, he is the incoming student body president and will be the editor-in-chief of PHC’s student newspaper, the Herald, this fall.
This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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