The National Alliance of Christian Home Education Leadership, abbreviated as NACHEL and ACHEL as well as simply “The Alliance,” is a national nonprofit organization with a mission “to connect, encourage, and equip statewide Christian homeschool organizations in promoting and safeguarding home education to the glory of God.” An explicitly evangelical Christian organization, the Alliance is a multifaceted support group for statewide homeschool organizations that adhere to similar evangelical beliefs and practices. The Alliance has launched multiple projects, including the Homeschool Freedom informational website, the grant-generating Homeschool Community Foundation, the Alliance Recordings website that archives all presentations given by Alliance members at homeschool conferences and conventions, and the Alliance’s Speakers Bureau—a social media platform of sorts where evangelical homeschooling leaders can recommend event speakers to one another.
As homeschool alumni have spoken up over the last decade about their experiences of abuse and neglect in homeschooling communities and organizations, one common theme shared by alumni is that it seemed like all the leaders and event speakers were of one mind. Everything that was taught seemed to be emanating from powerful forces above both the vulnerable homeschooled children and their susceptible parents. As Homeschoolers Anonymous (HA) co-founder Nicholas Ducote wrote in 2013, “The bad parenting that people indict was being advocated on stage before thousands of people. There is a reason why so many homeschooling alumni share stories and experiences.”
Another homeschool alum on HA, the pseudonymous “Noah,” described how “there is a homeschooling machine, whether some people want to admit it or not.” That machine is run by “many men (and women)” and “their ideas are being pedaled at homeschooling conventions all over the country, month after month, year after year.” But it is not just at conventions: “Their books are being promoted in every edition of every homeschooling magazine… Their ideologies are reinforced in state and local support groups, where parents that don’t follow the line get ostracized.”
Noah goes so far as to call this in-group ostracizing of homeschooling parents who do not toe the line as “bullying” and “peer pressure: “It’s really ironic, that homeschoolers hold up their practice as this alternative to the evils of bullying and peer pressure in the public schools. Because there is so much bullying and peer pressure between homeschooling parents, it’s ridiculous. Watching homeschool moms tear each other apart with their words is really scary. They’re brutal to one another.”
Nicholas and Noah’s perspectives are not simply youthful conspiracy theories. And the Alliance is the reason why. For decades, the Alliance has worked diligently to unite evangelical homeschool support groups and organizations from across the United States, creating networks and speaking circuits where people with similar ideologies could find audiences to welcome them and their books and curricula. The Alliance’s slogan—“Behind every homeschooling family is a state organization that makes it possible”—probably sounds great to evangelical homeschoolers, but to anyone else likely gives Orwellian vibes.
A Brief History of the Alliance
The Alliance—which did not respond to my multiple requests for comments—was founded as a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2002. They grew out of national leadership conferences begun in 1988 and held by Teaching Home Magazine, the magazine run by Sue Welch, one of the so-called “four pillars of homeschooling” who was found guilty by unanimous jury in 1998 for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by illegally conspiring against another evangelical homeschool leader, Cheryl Seelhoff. As journalist Kathryn Joyce documented in her 2009 book Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, Welch did not like how Seelhoff was “not disclosing to readers that she was in an interracial marriage” (p. 205).
The Alliance’s original staff included founding chairman Bruce Eagleson as well as Christian Home Educators Association of California co-founder Susan Beatty, Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators executive director David Watkins, and Kenneth R. Patterson. In its heyday, the organization hosted an annual training conference that allowed state homeschool leaders to train and network and had an annual income of around $100,000.
Eagleson, the founding chairman of the Alliance, is an emergency physician who homeschooled his four children for their entire childhood educations. In 2012, Eagleson was cited in his role as Alliance chairman in a Christian Century article about homeschoolers’ love of rightwing presidential candidate Rick Santorum. “The key for a candidate is to excite the imagination of homeschoolers,” Eagleson told the magazine. “And Santorum has taken charge on that.” A self-described “homeschool evangelist,” Eagleson serves as the board chair of another homeschool organization as well—the Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania (CHAP). CHAP, which calls itself “Pennsylvania’s trusted advocate for Christ-centered homeschooling,” hosts conventions for homeschooling parents as well as lobbies legislators for desired changes to Pennsylvania homeschool law. CHAP is one of the many statewide homeschool organization members of the Alliance.
In 2024, the Alliance claimed to represent “more than 45 affiliate organizations throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.” These 45+ organizations, according to the Alliance, serve more than 250,000 homeschooling families. This network of homeschool organizations includes:
- Alaska Private and Home Educators Association
- Arizona Families for Home Education
- Christian Association of Parent Educators New Mexico
- Christian Home Educators Association of California
- Christian Home Educators of Colorado
- Christian Home Educators of Kentucky
- Christian Home Educators of Ohio
- Christian Home Educators of West Virginia
- Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania
- Christian Homeschoolers of Hawaii
- Florida Parent-Educators Association
- Georgia Home Education Association
- Home Educators Association of Virginia
- Homeschool Alabama
- Homeschool Idaho
- Homeschool Iowa
- Homeschool Louisiana
- Homeschool New York
- Homeschool Oklahoma
- Homeschool Wyoming
- Homeschoolers of Maine
- Illinois Christian Home Educators
- Indiana Association of Home Educators
- Kansas Home Educators
- Massachusetts Homeschool Organization of Parent Educators
- Michigan Christian Homeschool Network
- Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators
- Mississippi Home Educators Association
- Missouri Association of Teaching Christian Homes
- Nebraska Christian Home Educators Association
- Nevada Homeschool Network
- North Carolinians for Home Education
- North Dakota Home School Association
- Oregon Christian Home Education Association Network
- South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools
- South Carolina Home Educators Association
- Texas Home School Coalition Association
- The Education Association of Christian Homeschoolers in Connecticut
- Utah Christian Home School Association
The Alliance has also proudly promoted the following homeschool organizations as “our friends” on their website: homeschool researcher and accused child abuser Brian D. Ray’s National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), homeschooling parent and lobbyist Rodger Williams’s Homeschooling Backgrounder website (which attempts to debunk homeschool alumni’s experiences of abuse and neglect), far-right lawyer Michael Farris’s Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), the website for homeschooling parent and “Public School Abuse Archive” creator Garritt Hampton’s documentary film Schoolhouse Rocked, and the Global Home Education Exchange (GHEX)—HSLDA’s international shell organization.
The Alliance’s Projects
As previously mentioned, the Alliance has multiple projects: the Homeschool Freedom informational website, the grant-generating Homeschool Community Foundation, the Alliance Recordings website, as well as a Speakers Bureau. Let us look at each project in turn.
Homeschool Freedom
Homeschool Freedom (HF) is an informational website. According to HF, its purpose is promoting the Alliance’s belief that “homeschooling — personalized, parent-directed, privately-funded and free from regulation — gives children the freedom to flourish academically, emotionally, and socially within the nurturing environment of home and family.” The website does this through three primary tasks: first, connecting media seeking information about homeschooling to experts in the Alliance’s network; second, helping new homeschoolers get help with homeschooling by connecting them with state organizations in their network; and third, by supporting current and prospective affiliate organizations.
The HF website features an interactive map of the United States that highlights Alliance-affiliated organizations. This map enables homeschoolers to simply click on their state and it displays organizations in that state and their contact information. (The website also features affiliate organizations in Canada and Mexico.) Additionally, the website hosts general information for homeschoolers, with pages on starting homeschooling, whether you need to join a homeschool co-op, how to create a school transcript, and a guide for family field trips. Finally, HF hosts a “National Homeschool Day of Prayer” on the first Friday of every November on their Facebook page. This day includes hourly prayer prompts as well as special guest speakers who pray live on Facebook.
Homeschool Community Foundation
The Homeschool Community Foundation (HCF) is a tax-exempt public charity. Established in 2019, HCF funds projects around the world that “increase the cultural impact of homeschooling,” the organization says on their website. They describe themselves as “the homeschool community’s permanent endowment for public good.” HCF’s staff include: David Watkins, Chairman; Raymond Sheen, Donor Relations; Bob Jacobsen, Finance; and Copper Webb, Secretary. They also have a Donor Development Council run by Sam Sorbo, Woody Robertson, Andrew Pudewa, and Walter Mueller.
HCF works with three groups: donors who want to establish charitable funds; nonprofit agencies who seek grants, financial advice, or endowment management; and professional advisors seeking training on maximizing their clients’ charitable giving. Grants given by HCF have been awarded to projects ranging from research on homeschool students by Brian Ray’s National Home Education Research Institute, to a video series for pastors created by Christian Home Educators of West Virginia, to a spelling bee and graduation ceremony hosted by Homeschool Alabama. HCF’s website sets forth guidelines for how projects are accepted, including the warning that a project “is less likely to be funded” if it “denies or seeks to limit the right of parents to direct the education of their children” or “supports policies and programs which undermine the traditional role of parents, children, and families.”
Alliance Recordings
The Alliance Recordings website features recordings of presentations and other speeches given by members of the Alliance’s Speakers Bureau at Alliance-affiliated events. The website is organized by topic, speaker name, as well as conference. Some of the “hot topics” currently listed on the website include “Parenting/Child Training,” “Biblical Instruction,” “Family Discipleship,” and “Fathers.” The “Parenting/Child Training” section includes presentations like “The Ever-Escalating Battle Against Parental Rights” by Michael Farris, “Getting Kids to Work” by Hal and Melanie Young, “Taming Your Child’s Tongue” by Ginger Hubbard, “Yes Mommy: Obedience and Authority in the Homeschool” by Paige Timer, “13 Going on Dirty: Five Things Every Mom Needs to Know About Her Son” by Rebecca Powell, and “Training the Will of a Child: How to Bend the Tree without Breaking the Branch” by Elizabeth Smith.
The “most popular” speakers featured on the website’s front page include: Stay-At-Home Daughter (SAHD) advocate and failed Southern Baptist Convention presidential candidate Voddie Baucham, virulently anti-queer pastor and child marriage advocate Kevin Swanson, disgraced homeschool leader and accused child groomer Rick Boyer, sexual purity author Eric Ludy, betrothal and child marriage advocate Israel Wayne, failed Republican congressional candidate Heidi St. John, as well as Brian Ray.
Speakers Bureau
According to the Bureau’s website, the Bureau “helps place you front and center with homeschool event coordinators who are looking for great message content.” The website is essentially a social network, connecting speakers with “a nationwide network of Christian state homeschooling associations and conference coordinators” and giving speakers “access to the decision-makers.”
The website includes a login portal where speakers can keep their contact and personal information up to date, list their session topics so that conference coordinators can find the best speakers for their events, as well as get exposure to the most active homeschool organizations across the United States—and all at no cost for speakers. To join the Bureau, speakers must be recommended by an Alliance-affiliated state organization.
Targeting Old Earth Creationism
In 2011, a great controversy arose surrounding the largest, for-profit, Christian homeschool conference company, the Great Homeschool Conventions (GHC). GHC, founded in 2006 by evangelical homeschooling parents Brennan and Mary Jo Dean, holds annual conferences in multiple states (California, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas). The company regularly platforms far-right extremists at its conferences, including internet troll Matt Walsh, Troubled Teen Industry lawyer David C. Gibbs III, former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, and Heidi St. John.
The controversy surrounding the Great Homeschool Conventions began in March 2011, when young earth creationist Ken Ham made negative comments at that year’s South Carolina conference about another GHC presenter, old earth creationist Pete Enns. Ham believed Enns’ old earth creationism curricula for homeschooled children was “very dangerous to the spiritual upbringing of kids.” However, since Enns was presenting at the same conference as Ham, Ham was not supposed to disparage him. Ham nonetheless made comments and wrote multiple blog posts that—to GHC—amounted to “the questioning of the salvation, integrity, and the intelligence of other Christians.” As a result, GHC’s board “unanimously decided to disinvite Ken and AIG [Answers in Genesis, Ham’s creationism advocacy organization] from all future conventions.”
In their ban of Ham and AIG, GHC made clear that “our Board is 100% young earth and we largely share AIG’s perspective from a scientific standpoint.” But they found Ham’s approach sinful: “The Board believes that Ken’s public criticism of the convention itself and other speakers at our convention require him to surrender the spiritual privilege of addressing our homeschool audience.”
The banning of Ham—a highly popular speaker at evangelical homeschooling events and conferences—sent shock waves throughout the homeschooling world. Many evangelical homeschoolers are zealous young earth creationists who not only disagree with old earth creationism, but also share Ham and AIG’s conviction that believing old earth creationism is actively “undermining the authority of God’s Word.” As former homeschooling parent and geologist Kevin Nelstead explains, “Many Christian home school conventions and curriculum fairs do not allow exhibitors or speakers who teach any sort of old-earth creationism or theistic evolution” for this very reason.
Homeschoolers were unsurprisingly outraged by Ham’s ban, many of them boycotting GHC vendors and cancelling their conference tickets. We must “defend and protect these homeschooling fathers, mothers, and children from men like Pete Enns,” declared Reformed pastor and homeschool advocate Tim Bayly. Another young earth creationist organization popular with homeschoolers, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), sharply criticized GHC for “dismembering” the homeschooling movement as well as compared Ham to Jesus:
“Removing a nationally-known and highly-respected defender of the Bible like Ken Ham… one who truly supports the efforts of Christian homeschooling… reveals the sad state of today’s homeschool movement.Given the same scenario in the first century, Jesus would have been ‘disinvited’ from speaking at these conventions, and certainly the apostle Paul for naming names, as he did in his epistles. These short-sighted actions by homeschool organizers now run the risk of dividing and dismembering much of what has made Christian homeschooling effective.”
ICR also revealed in a later blog post something important: ICR’s CEO Henry Morris III spoke to the Alliance after the controversy arose. According to ICR Executive Editor Lawrence E. Ford, the Alliance affirmed that they stood behind Ham and young earth creationism. Ford wrote, “The board of the National Alliance of Christian Home Education Leadership recently reaffirmed to ICR that they purpose ‘to keep Christ in Christian home education, to encourage state leaders, and to provide a network of sharing ideas and resources which will aid the state organization to hold firm to biblical principles and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ.’” While this statement does not mention Ham or Enns or creationism, Ford makes the meaning clear by quoting Morris’s response to the statement: “I especially appreciate the National Alliance, many of whose board members I know and respect, for taking the time to share their commitment to Christ-centered conventions.”
ICR reported the Alliance’s commitment to defend Ham and young earth creationism at the end of March 2011. Mere months later, GHC released a statement saying they “hold no animosity towards” Ham and Answers in Genesis and “could have handled this situation in a much better manner.” GHC personally apologized to Ham and issued “a sincere apology” to all homeschoolers “negatively impacted” by the controversy.
Conclusion
The point of this story about homeschoolers targeting Pete Enns and old earth creationism is this: evangelical homeschoolers know how to organize against and ostracize members who do not toe the line. When GHC was flirting with old earth creationism, the Alliance—and thus most of the state homeschool organizations in the United States—came down strongly against that. In other words, they self-policed.
But when homeschooled children experience abuse and neglect, suddenly self-policing is an impossibility. Suddenly it is too difficult to get everyone in line and on the same page when it comes to protecting children. Suddenly all the leaders claim they are “not the police force of the homeschooling movement.”
As I wrote 10 years ago for Homeschoolers Anonymous, in 2015,
“The important question isn’t whether the homeschooling movement can self-police. The important question is whether the homeschooling movement will self-police. The homeschooling movement certainly can do better internally. It has everything in place that could make this happen. It has a national alliance of homeschool leaders, the National Alliance of Christian Home Education Leadership. It has annual national and international leadership conferences where international, national, and state leaders in homeschooling come together and network. It has numerous legal defense associations like HSLDA and the National Center for Life and Liberty (NCLL). It has state organizations in every one of the United States. It has national convention companies like the Great Homeschool Conventions (GHC) and national curriculum creators like Sonlight and ACE and A Beka and Alpha Omega. It appeals generally to one authority when it comes to homeschooling statistics — Brian Ray’s National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI). If the homeschooling movement had the will to tackle head-on the pressing, dire issues facing many homeschooled students and alumni like child abuse, mental illness, and self-injury, we would see a sea change at this very moment. But we don’t.”
In short, homeschoolers’ unwillingness to address abuse and neglect in their communities is not a matter of resources. It is a matter of will. There are plenty of resources—including powerful organizations and networks—that could easily change the landscape of homeschooling overnight. Homeschooling could be on the cutting edge of child protection, pushing forward the important policies and practices and awareness campaigns that are vital to fighting abuse. Instead, homeschoolers have woefully inadequate child protection policies (if they have any at all), fight even the most common-sensical solutions to abuse and neglect, and are proactively trying to dismantle child protection systems—all while making light of child abuse.
Furthermore, while child protection efforts do take resources, it does not cost anything to not actively feature, platform, and promote child abusers. Yet the Alliance continues to feature, platform, and promote accused child abusers and groomers like Brian Ray and Rick Boyer. That is an intentional choice to ignore the testimonies of abused homeschooled children.
These are not signs of a community ready to self-police. These are the signs of a community that desperately needs outside intervention.