Johns Hopkins Homeschool Connections

In this episode, Dr. Jonathan Plucker and Annie Connolly-Sporing delve into the challenges facing gifted education, highlighting the fragmented policies and unreliable data that cause many gifted students to be overlooked. They discuss the promising role of homeschooling for advanced learners, emphasize the value of peer connections, and explore how innovative resources like the National Research Center on Advanced Education are paving the way for the future of advanced learning.

In this conversation, Dr. Timberly Baker discusses her research on rural home education, particularly focusing on the experiences of Black families in the American Southern Black Belt. She highlights the unique challenges faced by rural home educators, including limited resources, the impact of local school districts, and the intersection of race and educational policy. Dr. Baker also connects her work to broader issues such as the school-to-prison pipeline and calls for more inclusive research in the field of home education.

In this episode, Nina Buchanan, a professor emeritus from the University of Hawaii and a prominent figure in the field of school choice research shares wisdom from her many years in the field. She discusses the challenges she faced when her own gifted child struggled in the traditional school system, which led her to explore homeschooling and other educational alternatives. Nina emphasizes the importance of rigorous research in the homeschool field and shares insights from her local homeschool community on the big island of Hawaii.

In this episode of Homeschool Connections, Angela Watson, the director of the Homeschool Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University discusses the purpose of the lab, the evolution of homeschooling research, and the current dynamics of the homeschool population in the U.S. Angela shares insights on the diverse practices of homeschooling today, the interaction between policy and practice, and exciting projects the lab is working on.