B&H begins homeschool publishing venture to answer growing need

                                                                                                
by Ken Walker                                                                                  Vol. XV, No. 8, September 2002

With the acquisition of materials previously published by a smaller company and several new books, Broadman & Holman (B&H) Publishers is the first major evangelical publisher to enter the homeschooling market. The trade book division of LifeWay Christian Resources, B&H recently released the Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling: 2002-2003 by Brian Ray, a compilation of statistics and facts on the benefits of home-based education. It will be updated annually.

This summer B&H will release Thinking Like a Christian, a 12-week curriculum package for high school students. Following in September is The Heart of Homeschooling, a trade book aimed at helping parents and others understand this specialized form of education.

"I think it's a significant step," Ray said of the Nashville publisher's decision to produce homeschool materials. "What I've watched over the last 10 years is coming to fruition. Basically, popularity breeds popularity. And, from what I know from the people at B&H, it's also a belief and a value that this is a good thing."

Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates between 1.6 million and 2 million children up to age 18 are currently taught at home. Reflecting its rapid growth, he projects the number to reach 3 million by 2010, an increase of approximately 50 percent.

David Shepherd, senior vice president and publisher of B&H, said that while it is a relatively small niche, homeschoolers represent an expanding audience. He pointed to test marketing done two years ago at four LifeWay Christian Stores. In those stores, homeschooling offerings outsold all other children's materials -- including the popular "Veggie Tales" -- according to Chris Rodgers, vice president of merchandising.

By the end of this year, 33 of its stores will carry homeschooling materials, Rodgers said: "It seemed like a good market for us to get into. We are meeting a need."

"They're a small but consistent market," Shepherd said. "Homeschoolers have proven to be more willing to buy at retail than they used to; they still use catalogues and go to curriculum fairs. But more and more, as Christian book stores offer home-school products the stores act like a year-round curriculum fair."

Earlier this year, Broadman acquired the rights to four books previously released by Oregon-based Loyal Publishing, including:

-- The Home School Father: How You Can Play a Decisive Role in Your Child's Success, by Michael Farris, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

-- The Home School Mother: A Mom Just Like You by Farris' wife, Vickie, the mother of 10 children; and their daughter, Jayme Farris Metzgar.

-- Home Schooling: The Right Choice by Christopher Klicka, senior counsel for HSLDA and author of the upcoming The Heart of Homeschooling.

-- A Sacred Foundation: The Importance of Strength in the Home School Marriage, co-authored by Michael Farris and L. Reed Elam.

The agreement with Loyal included the rights to a dozen future titles, although most haven't been set for release.

This summer's Thinking Like a Christian marks the debut of the publisher's homeschool curriculum. Written by Chuck Edwards and David Noebel of Colorado-based Summit Ministries, it is part of a "Worldviews in Focus" series. The 12-week course includes a textbook, workbook, video and leader's guide on CD.

Shepherd said B&H plans to emphasize curriculum and study materials in the new line. "Most Christian publishers are comfortable with trade publications, but we're going beyond that," Shepherd said. "We're pursuing a few other products and curriculum, and talking to a number of other authors who are well-known in the homeschool community."

Ray's Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling, B&H's first book in the field, serves as a valuable information guide and an encouragement to parents who may be considering teaching their children, Shepherd added.

The author, who lives near Salem, OR., hopes his book will verify the statistical advantage homeschooled students enjoy over their public-school counterparts -- between 15 and 30 points better on standardized tests.

In addition, he hopes the book will convey the foundational philosophy for homeschooling. And, through inclusion of several parental profiles, he wants to demonstrate that no specialized knowledge or advanced degrees are necessary to teach one's children.

"People in Western societies have been convinced that only so-called experts can do anything," said Ray, who was featured in a Time magazine story on the subject last August. "We've almost come to the point where we think we need two years of college to glue together two PCV plastic pipes.

"There's a sense of incompetency that scares a lot of people. Even moms and dads who have home schooled for two or three years sense that, even though their children's achievement scores are above public school averages."

Many parents also fear peer pressure, Ray said. With about 97 percent of parents educating their children in institutional settings, many parents don't want to face questions about making a different choice, he said. However, with the rise of homeschooling the past decade such questions are decreasing, Ray said, and he expects them to be less of a concern during the next five years.

Ironically, while homeschoolers have had the image of being primarily conservative Christians, many pioneers in the 1970s were promoting alternative philosophies, including freeing people from institutional constraints, Ray said.

While he estimates that 70 percent of homeschool parents would identify themselves as born again or Bible-believing Christians, he said there are many other religions also support homeschooling.

Nor are home educators primarily from upper-income brackets, he said. In his area, he said the vast majority of homeschool families he knows live on $25,000 to $35,000 a year. They are the families who drive 1970s-era cars and live frugally in order to teach their children the values they consider important, Ray said.

"It's very challenging," Ray commented. "But I know from research that even some single-parent families homeschool. Sometimes the parent has a nearby grandparent who can watch their children while they're at work." [BP]