AllPIE’s Tenth Year:

Millennium Musings

by Katharine Houk

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The Alliance for Parental Involvement in Education (AllPIE), conceived in 1989 and born in 1990, is approaching its tenth anniversary. Created and run by parents, this non-profit group offers parents support and information about education, especially alternative educational options. It serves many people involved in home education, but also helps people start new educational alternatives such as small schools and learning centers, and it provides information on parent involvement to people working for change in public schools. AllPIE publishes newsletters and booklets; sponsors workshops and conferences; offers phone consultation and support; acts as an informational clearinghouse; maintains a mail-order lending library; and publishes a resources catalog containing helpful books, as well as tapes of sessions from past AllPIE conferences and back issues of AllPIE's newsletters. At this time all this work is done by parent volunteers. It is funded by donations, memberships, publication sales, and income from its workshops and conferences.

As I look back over these past ten years I can see the unique position that AllPIE has held within the education community in the state of New York and within this country. When Seth Rockmuller and I were first inspired to start AllPIE, we were homeschooling parents who were committed to the homeschooling way of life and learning. Yet, because we had dealt with public, private, and alternative schools as parents and as professionals, we knew that starting an organization exlusively for homeschoolers was not the direction we wanted to take. We realized that the world of education is enormously diverse, and that there is tremendous power in the learning that takes place when people, face to face, share their educational experiences, resources, knowledge and beliefs. AllPIE’s overarching vision attempts to embrace all parents concerned about their children’s education.

In many ways this path based on inclusivity has been a difficult and lonely path to take. Often Seth and I felt trapped between a rock and a hard place. In the beginning (and even to this day) there were homeschoolers who distrusted AllPIE because it included parents and children, teachers and officials, who were not committed to homeschooling, but who had chosen or were forging other educational options. On the other side, there were those involved in public and private education who were suspicious of a group that so enthusiastically welcomed homeschoolers, especially in the early days when homeschooling was not as socially acceptable as it is today.

Homeschoolers found (and find) it necessary to create safe spaces, groups for homeschoolers only, and indeed such groups and places continue to be essential. Because we believe this is so, we have worked, whenever the opportunity has arisen and to the extent that our energy (and AllPIE’s charitable organization status, which restricts lobbying) would allow, to help homeschooling groups form, grow and thrive. But AllPIE’s vision has always been wider. We drew inspiration for this inclusivity from John Holt, who was involved in the early 1980’s, not just in supporting homeschoolers, but in finding ways that the basic ideas involved in homeschooling could influence and shape educational philosophy and practices wherever education takes place. Such shaping requires interaction.

In one way, our early intent then was bold and subversive. We put home education right up on AllPIE’s letterhead with public and private schools, because we firmly believe it is a valid and extremely valuable educational alternative. With high hopes and faith in people and the processes of growth and change, we sent news of the fledgling AllPIE organization not just to homeschooling groups, but to the US Department of Education, private and alternative school organizations, and as many places as we could find where people were thinking about and concerned with education. Part of our mission was to make homeschooling more acceptable and better understood; indeed, individuals and groups that reach out in non-threatening ways to explain to the broader educational community what homeschooling is about have helped homeschooling to achieve the acceptance that it has increasingly enjoyed.

AllPIE’s conferences, while largely attended by homeschooling families, always included sessions of interest to families with children in public and private school as well. Of particular interest to me have been the hybrids which have resulted from this inclusivity -- those groups, learning centers, small schools, that have resulted from the cross-fertilization of ideas (and sometimes sparks!) generated by diverse people sharing ideas and bumping together (Literally! We always start conference weekends with a dance because touch and eye contact are important modes of communication). These alternatives represent the beginnings of the grassroots, community-based reform of education.

Another way that AllPIE’s inclusivity and wider focus have created difficulties is that money is scarce, and grantmakers tend to seek one-issue groups with narrowly defined projects and agendas to recieve their funding. Families who are homeschooling are often on tight budgets, and it makes a certain amount of sense that they put their hard-earned dollars toward homeschooling support groups rather than to organizations with wider and more far-reaching goals. So although AllPIE has a database of over 15,000, only a small fraction contribute financially to the running of the organization. Yet, somehow, AllPIE pays its bills, continues to offer resources and support, and holds to its vision.

With high hopes and faith in people and the processes of growth and change, Seth and I look forward to AllPIE’s next ten years. And we invite you to participate with us in this endeavor!
For more information, contact

Katharine Houk, Director
Alliance for Parental Involvement in Education ( AllPIE)
PO Box 59
East Chatham, New York 12060-0059
(518) 392-6900
allpie@taconic.net

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© Copyright 2000. Katharine Houk - All Rights Reserved.
allpie@taconic.net