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New Association Will Support Home Schooling

The Home Learning Association will work to foster the national home-schooling community by providing educational, financial, and networking resources to students and their families.

A new association dedicated to supporting home-schoolers and their families at a national level officially launched and began taking members this week.

The Home Learning Association will collaborate with and build on the many existing local, state, and regional home-schooling organizations and will offer resources and networking opportunities for home-schooling families across the country, according to a statement.

We felt it was time for someone to step forward to help connect, empower, and inspire those families, at a national level, so that they can all succeed at home schooling.

“An ever increasing number of parents are pulling their students out of failing public schools,” said HLA Executive Director J. Allen Weston. “That’s largely due to the fundamental flaws of the system and the barriers to quality education, risks, and negative influences that the children face on a daily basis. We felt it was time for someone to step forward to help connect, empower, and inspire those families, at a national level, so that they can all succeed at home schooling.”

Weston cited the coming of the Common Core Standards Initiative, increasing violence in schools, and parents’ limited choices when it comes to their children’s education as some of the reasons why people turn to home schooling. About 2 million U.S. students are home-schooled, according to the National Home Education Research Institute.

Among the new association’s goals are helping families decide if home schooling is right for them, providing safe socializing opportunities for students, providing parents with knowledge and tools to help teach their kids, and helping students find home-school-friendly technical schools, colleges, universities, and employers.

HLA said it will provide an online social network where home-schoolers can connect with one another, a resource library with e-books and videos, and leadership opportunities through a national student council. The group will be open to all types of home-schoolers—including secular, faith-based, and special needs.

The association will also provide families with resources to help finance their home-schooling endeavors, including an opportunity for members who own their own home-based businesses to market their products to other HLA members through a PDF catalog.

(Ingram Publishing/Thinkstock)

Katie Bascuas

By Katie Bascuas

Katie Bascuas is associate editor of Associations Now. MORE

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