Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Mike Farris:
Homeschooling has grown by leaps and bounds in the United States over the past three decades. All 50 states permit homeschooling, most with low to moderate regulations. And it’s now estimated that 2 million American children are being homeschooled. But who’s homeschooling in the rest of the world? This week, we’re doing a flyover survey of international homeschooling.

Our neighbor to the north, Canada, has a healthy homeschool community. Home School Legal Defence Association of Canada estimates that there are as many as 80,000 children are being homeschooled in that nation. Every province has legalized homeschooling, with different degrees of regulation. And studies show that Canadian homeschool graduates are doing quite well.

Heading south, Mexico has a thriving homeschooling group with an annual conference and Spanish publications.

Further on in Central America, we find homeschool advocates in Guatemala who are creating a Spanish-language homeschool curriculum. This curriculum is being used by homeschoolers in Guatemala and other Latin countries.

In most South American countries, homeschooling does not seem to be on the radar—except in Brazil. For the last two decades, Brazil has banned homeschooling altogether. Although a recently proposed constitutional amendment would authorize homeschooling, it would impose all the controls and oversight of the public education system on homeschoolers.

Next time, we’ll continue our survey of homeschooling around the world by heading down under. Won’t you join us? I’m Mike Farris.