From my reviews of parenting books on education, you’ll find that I have a pretty unconventional view when it comes to education. I (perhaps naively) believe it is possible for someone to make it through their school years with their sense of curiosity and love of learning intact. I know this is not a common outcome after years of standard education, but I believe it is a goal worth striving to attain.
For this reason, I’ve researched several different educational philosophies, including Montessori, Waldorf, and Charlotte Mason. My kids attended a Montessori preschool for a few years, before I switched to homeschooling.
I homeschool so that I can fine tune each of my children’s education and incorporate what I love from each of the many styles. I am a fan of child-led learning, giving kids a lot of freedom and choice with regard to the specifics of their education. Also, I think standardized testing can be useful in small doses, but believe the technique is overused and given too much weight in today’s public school system, at least in the US.
Like everyone else, I want my kids to have a high quality education. However, I’m still searching to discover how I would most prefer my children to be “educated.”
Reviews of Parenting Books on Education
Below you will find my recommendations for the best parenting books on education sorted by my preference. Click each title for a more detailed review.
The Best of the Best
Excellent Reads
Worth Your Time
Only If It’s At the Library
Not My Favorite
Click here for more Parenting Book reviews and book lists.
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Michelle has a PhD in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree from the California Institute of Technology. 
Free Range Learning looks excellent – I will look for a copy at our library and probably buy if I can’t find it there.
I agree with you on standardized testing. Teachers should definitely have freedom to develop their own curriculum. I think Common Core allows room for this to some extent, but many teachers are too overwhelmed with the double task of meeting the standards AND creating quality curriculum. They often don’t have time or resources to do both, so curriculum suffers, which is tragic.
If you do read it, I hope you find it as useful and informative as I did. I’d be really interested to know what you think. I should warn you that if you don’t homeschool your kids, the author is extremely persuasive. I’d almost recommend not reading it if you’re 100% set on keeping your kids in school, because I think school is a totally reasonable choice and I’d hate to have people that have made that decision second guessing themselves, especially since I’ve never actually homeschooled. I come from a family of educators, and I completely agree with you that great teachers given the freedom (and trust) to develop their own methods of teaching and curriculum is ideal. However, even though I have such overwhelming and great respect for teachers as a profession, it really was this book that made me decide to homeschool. I start with my 5 year old in the fall and we’ll see how it goes.
I ordered it from Amazon since our library doesn’t have it. I like the idea of homeschooling and was homeschooled until halfway through 2nd grade. DH is very pro public school. Maybe I can get him to read this book.
It sounds like we’re in similar situations then, as my DH has reservations about homeschooling. I couldn’t get him to actually read this book since he doesn’t really have much free time, but I was able to convince him to let me at least give homeschooling a shot by quoting different relevant passages. For example, one of his biggest points of concern was socialization, so I read him her discussion on pages 16-17 and that allayed his fears considerably. Since we’re both engineers, I think it’s really great that she includes studies and statistics. Even if I’m not persuasive on my own, he finds numbers convincing.