Home Schooling: The Right Choice!

Home Schooling: The Right Choice! begins where it must—with an indictment of the American public school system and its anti-Christian academics, morality and philosophy. The subtitle isn't "aright choice," it's "the right choice" and longtime home school champion Chris Klicka marshals all the available evidence to prove it. Christian parents can't hope to train Christian kids while keeping them in government schools, he argues, and shows why it is the responsibility of every parent to provide an education and instruction for their children.

But he doesn't stop with doom and gloom. After demonstrating the inherent cancer of pubic education, he defends the biblical principles behind home schooling, defuses a lot of common arguments against it (my kids won't get enough socialization, I don't know how to teach, etc.), and offers a history of home schooling in America followed by a (somewhat overwhelming) list of famous home schooled Americans. The next two chapters offer seven practical steps for beginners and helpful information about home schoolers and college.

Then it's kind of back to the scary stuff, as Klicka shows how government agencies and humanistic organizations have fought against the perceived threat of home schooling. Again, though, he doesn't leave readers in the doldrums, offering advice for a variety of situations including legal battles (Klicka was a longtime employee of the Home School Legal Defense Association) and what to do if a social worker shows up at your door. He wraps up with a call to preserving our liberties as Americans and holding to the freedoms inherent in our country's written Constitution.

An appendix provides a number of handouts by the author to be copied and given to critics, or to friends and family wavering in their decision to leave the public schools and educate at home. In essence these are reductions of some of the key chapters in the book, but without the formidable references and sustained arguments contained in the text itself. While they are excellent jumping-off places, they aren't sufficient by themselves, though they would make a good introduction for those who remain unconvinced but intend to read the whole book.

As close as anybody gets to being a rock star in the home school community (noted for its continued rejection of the values contained in rock music), Chris Klicka offers a readable, highly researched and almost perfectly organized defense of home education. All of his arguments are rooted in Christian faith, though many also stand by themselves as simple common sense. And don't think this is just for home school parents—Home Schooling: The Right Choice! is also for home school students, and for anyone interested in education according to God's standards. Highly recommended.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.