Creating Educational Justice: Learning from Black Home Educators

A thoughtful, research-based discussion of Black homeschool experiences as models for educational improvement in K-12 public education

In Creating Educational Justice, Cheryl Fields-Smith upholds the decisions of Black parents to homeschool their children as acts of empowerment, resistance, and educational justice. The work spotlights the various motivations of Black families to home educate, bringing attention to key issues facing K-12 public schooling in the United States.

Fields-Smith shares the voices and perspectives of sixty Black home educators from a range of demographic backgrounds. Many of these families moved to homeschooling after students began their formal education in public schools, citing both problems endemic to US public schools (curriculum limitations, teacher shortages, and inadequate resources) and those faced particularly by Black students (marginalization of Black parents' engagement, deficit narratives surrounding Black student ability, discriminatory disciplinary practices, and overrepresentation in special education) as reasons for their switch. Their stories demonstrate the many ways in which Black home education curates learning opportunities that promote positive identity development and racial healing, as well as academic success, in ways that traditional schools often cannot.

Fields-Smith argues that public educators can learn much from Black homeschool parents' decision-making, folk pedagogy, and educational practice. This work offers a wealth of constructive feedback for teachers, school administrators, and policymakers that can inform teacher education practices, school administration approaches, and education reform measures and help build stronger school-family-community partnerships.