Today on Veritas Vox, we welcome a true homeschooling pioneer: Zan Tyler. Zan’s homeschool journey began in 1984 when she was threatened with jail for her choice to home educate. She has spent the past three decades advocating for homeschool freedom, publishing curriculum and resources, and joyfully equipping parents to thrive in their homeschool journey.

If you’ve ever wondered about the real-world struggles that took place so that your family can enjoy the freedom to homeschool, this episode is for you! Zan Tyler’s experiences are a testament to the importance of never taking our freedoms for granted.

If you enjoy this episode, you may also enjoy Zan Tyler’s podcast, which can be found at https://zantyler.com/podcast/

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.

Marlin Detweiler:
Hello and welcome again to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us somebody that's a pioneer. She may not look like a pioneering, but she is. And you're going to find out why. Zan Taylor. Welcome, Zan.

Zan Tyler:
Thank you. Marlin, it's a pleasure to be here.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, it's great to have you here. Before we get into the pioneering efforts that you made in causing homeschooling to be legal, I'd be interested in hearing a little bit about your family, your education, your career.

Zan Tyler:
Well, it's interesting. After high school, I went to Furman University. I was preparing to go to law school, and there were two things I said I would never do in life. One was teaching, the other was have kids.

Yep. And so. But Jesus, Joe and I were saved during the Jesus Revolution, and there was a big revival going on. Even Furman was a very liberal college campus. There was a big revival there, and we were involved in a real intense Bible study. You know, we had prayer meetings at 5:30 in the morning and stayed in front.

Faculty. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it was especially for college kids. And so we. So Joe proposed to me my junior year in college. You know, he pulled the God card on me. I think God wants us to be married. And it was. Yeah. And it's funny, I didn't speak to him for six weeks after because I had my life sort of mapped out, and I had never even considered getting married right after college.

I just, you know, I was my dad was an attorney, but not practicing. He was in sales. And I always thought I could talk dad into practicing law, you know? So I had all these plans, but many of the many of the plans in the mind of man. And I'm so glad we got married and we were really committed to family.

I'd never heard of homeschooling. And so here I am. Instead of spending three years in law school. I had two sons in those three years.

Marlin Detweiler:
So good for you. So is that the extent of your family? The two sons?

Zan Tyler:
We have two daughters. One is in heaven with Jesus, and then we have another daughter who was then seven years younger than my seven and nine years younger than my boys. Yeah.

Marlin Detweiler:
Okay. So a career of law was brought short by a man who pulled the God card.

Zan Tyler:
Yeah. That’s right! And proud of it.

Marlin Detweiler:
You have maintained a very active speaking schedule in recent years, and it's generally related to the area that you really were a pioneer in, and that is helping homeschooling to become legal. I want to alert people to the speaking schedule so that they can look up on your website and see where you're going to be so they can come and meet you and hear you.

But I also want to alert them that you have a podcast that they may want to become familiar with, simply called, as you told me, the Zan Taylor Podcast.

Zan Tyler:
But actually, I don't mean to correct you, but it's Tyler. And so if they look up Taylor, they won't find it.

Marlin Detweiler:
I don’t mind being corrected like that when I'm wrong about something so fundamental. I typed it that way, and nothing else corrected it. That is my mistake. I'm sorry. Thank you for that correction, Zan Tyler.

But the thing that captured my imagination, which is why I wanted to talk to, was to hear your story back in 1984 and the surrounds of what you went through to homeschool. I remember my first exposure to the homeschooling world was with people that we knew in Orlando, who were homeschooling in 1981, and quite honestly, we thought it was weird. My wife came from an education background.

We didn't know how it would work, we didn't know what it would take. And there were people that and she was quite good at it, as best I can tell. Being quite far removed from it at this point, the observation of it. But it was in the early 80s, like you were dealing with. We're dealing with a very different world, weren't we?

Zan Tyler:
Absolutely. And I never set out to homeschool. And so, as I told you, I mean, I ran away from education in, in college, the education field. And so here I am with two boys. My oldest was in kindergarten, very bright and gregarious, but not reading, which is fine. I understand now how normal it is for boys or for anybody to be delayed in reading.

And nobody cares when you're 30, when you started reading, but I had friends who said, Zan, you should just hold Ty back a year. Start him in first grade a year late. Give his brain hemispheres a chance to catch up with each other. Anyway, they had all the education that I didn't have and so I did have to test it.

It was really interested. I had in tested by two PhDs. One was a female who said he needs to be held back. He needs to be put on Ritalin. He's a motormouth. He's, you know, he's ADHD. He's too active. He'll just. And then I had him tested by a friend of ours who was male. And he said, why would you ever hold Ty back?

He's a man's man at age six. He's got a vocabulary as wide as the ocean, and he's so engaging. And so I thought, oh, he's going to have female teachers all through elementary school who are going to see him like the woman saw him.

Marlin Detweiler:
Interesting observation!

Zan Tyler:
You know, as a distraction and not as this great curious kid. So anyhow, we were so I went to the school district. I presented them with the test scores and I, you know, the test results, and we just need to hold them back. Oh, that's fine, Miss Tyler. We had actually lived in Boston and moved back here, and I wanted my kids to be in the same school district I had grown up in.

Marlin Detweiler:
Being South Carolina?

Zan Tyler:
Yes. South Carolina. Yes. Not a Bostonian accent.

And so then everything was set about the end of June. They tell me, because of this Education Finance Act, which now I know was pretty bogus, that I couldn't hold Ty back. I couldn't put him in their kindergarten. They moved in to first grade. I said, I'm not putting him in first grade. He's not ready for it.

Well, private, all the private schools I checked in are full at that time, and I had a friend I used to meet with for Bible study. Once a week. She and her husband were getting their masters or PhDs. I can't remember at Columbia Bible College and were getting ready to leave for Kenya, but she was a few years older than I was and she said Zan, Nat’s three my boys were older, she said.

I taught in public schools. I'm going to homeschool Nat. And I thought when she said that word, they lived in this village at Columbia Bible College, which is now Columbia International University of Mobile Homes. And it's like that scene from Star Wars where, you know, all the protagonists are in the trash compactor and the walls are closing in on, you know, and I thought that's how I felt when I heard the word homeschool for the first time.

I thought, there is no way. And I can remember I said, okay, thanks, Susan. She gave me a book by Doctor Raymond Moore, Homegrown Kids, and I thought all the way home, I'm sure my kids back in the back seat in their car seats are thinking I'm crazy because I am telling the Lord out loud, vociferously why I will never homeschool.

This is 1984. I mean, the irony of that year is not lost on me with the novel. But anyway, I got home and as a courtesy to my friend, I read that book. I thought, this is so fascinating. Could education really be like this? Because, I mean, I've done well in school and I was a slave to grades, you know, and performance I thought, could education be like this?

But then I thought, this is 1984. I mean, we didn't know anybody in the world. Marlin, who homeschooled, not one person, you know, a had started on the West Coast in 1983, but they weren't a presence. I mean, they weren't a presence on the East Coast and no, no organizations. I mean, no LexisNexis. You couldn't get on the internet then and say, how do I homeschool?

And so I just thought, I mean, I really felt the Lord compelling me to homeschool. And I just remember telling him, I can't do this. You know, it's hard enough being a stay at home mom in this era. I am not homeschooling. And so, you know, it's one of those times I can't explain it. I used to walk early in the mornings for about an hour when Joe was in town, before he would go to work, and I could just hear this when I told God no, I heard like I heard this door slam in heaven.

And it was like God saying, oh yes, you will. So I ran home. You know, that's when I went to the school district and anyhow, when I called a friend of mine because this had been my school district and I was a very active student in this particular high school. And now my principal is the associate superintendent of education.

And I just said, Doctor Hudgins, I just need you to write me a note to hold Ty back. They used to do that all the time. And he said, well, I can't do that. Zan and I said, well, I guess I'll have to homeschool. And he said, okay. The school district's gotten lenient with that, which meant one person in the history of the district had been approved and she had been a certified teacher.

Marlin Detweiler:
You needed the district's permission?

Zan Tyler:
Yes. Not approval. Permission.

And so I called the school board, the school district, and I said, can you tell me how to homeschool? And they said, no, Miss Tyler, we can't. I called the state board in the state Department of Education. They would not tell me what the law was or how to homeschool. And so I had to hire an attorney to find the law.

And I will tell you, it took me two weeks to find an attorney who had ever heard of homeschooling, who would talk to me about helping me find the substantial equivalence law. So I get the law, I wrote. I laugh and say it was sort of a master's thesis because they wanted so much information. 36 weeks syllabus, letters of recommendation, fire plans, lighting, I mean it.

And so, I mean, I was intentionally intense on doing it right. And the school board turned me down. So I called my attorney back. I said they gave me no reason. They said they're not approving my program. He said, Zan, you just have to apply to the state Board of Education. Now. I said, what will they do? He said, oh, they're going to rubber stamp the school district.

And I said, what will I do? Then? He said, you'll end up in family court. And I'm telling the Lord, this is why I said no to you with homeschooling!

And so in the middle of all that, I had this thought. The state superintendent then was Charlie Williams, and he had when he was getting his PhD in education, he had observed my mother's classroom and so I knew him because in the fourth grade, every day after class, I after school, I'd go in and talk to him for a few minutes while mom was getting her stuff together to leave.

And so I thought, I'm just going to call him. So I called Doctor Williams. I said, Doctor Williams, this is Sybil Peters' daughter. I'm Zan Tyler now. And I said, I've got a problem and I need your help. He said, can you come right now? I'll clear my calendar. I said, yes, sir. So I went down there. I told him, you know, everything that had happened.

The school board said, yes, they I mean, the district said I could hold him back then they were private schools were filled. Then the school board turned me down. I mean, I just went through this whole thing and I just thought he would say, then you're clearly a mom who loves your child. Let's see what we can do to fix this problem.

Instead, he said to me, if you continue down this homeschool path, I'll have you put in jail for truancy. And you know, I can close my eyes and still see that moment.

Marlin Detweiler:
I bet you can feel the emotion of it.

Zan Tyler:
I can feel the emotion of it. And I think that's what continues to propel me is because, you know, one day you have your freedom, the next day you don't. That old Joni Mitchell song, you, you know, you put up, you take Paradise and put up a parking lot and, and you don't know what you've got til it's gone.

So I just, I had not told my parents we were homeschooling and they were. Dad was very involved in everything South Carolina. And I thought, well, if I go to jail is not going to say P on homeschool moms and Tyler's go to jail. The newspapers are going to say, John Peter's daughter goes to jail.

You know, I need to go home and tell them, by the way, I'm homeschooling and Charlie Williams said, you know, I'll probably go to jail next week and after. So that was awful. So, you know, I went and I told my parents, and by this time I held it together with Doctor Williams. He looked at me, he said that and I said, you know, it was like this Patrick Henry moment, give me liberty or give me death.

And I don't mean that melodramatic, but the whole moment was melodramatic. And I just remember looking at him and saying, well, then you'll have to put me in jail. And I got up and left. And so, you know, it was funny when I talked to my dad, he was a lawyer, like I said, just not practicing at the time.

I said, dad, here are all my legal briefs. Mom, here's my research. I love homeschool research because then I had this little pamphlet that didn't say much of anything. She was an educator, and I said, I'm homeschooling time. They're going to put me in jail. What's interesting, my dad was just so mad at the way I had been treated.

And so he was speaking that night. He was chairman of the board of Baptist Hospital in South Carolina, and it was pro bono work. But he was speaking that night with Senator Thurman's daughter, Nancy Thurman, at a hospital function. And I had been my senior year in high school. I was governor of Girl State, which, you know, used to be a thing back in the day, and it was a pretty big deal.

And so I had done a lot of speaking politically even at this point in my life because of that exposure. And I had worked for the senator and he said, Nancy, Zan's in trouble. What is the senator going to do? So at first they said they were going to overnight a letter. He they looked into the legality of my program.

But two days later, Senator Thurmond flew down from Washington and met with Charlie Williams personally and said, Zan Tyler's program is legal and you need to stop this foolishness and approve it.

Marlin Detweiler:
Wow.

Zan Tyler:
And so I started getting calls from the State Department. Oh, Miss Tyler, you know. Come on down here. Let's make sure everything is ready for your hearing. On Tuesday, the chairman of the subcommittee called me and said, Zan, I think you went to Furman with my son and, you know, come to the hearing. It's going to be great. We would just like to meet you.

But then there's the other part of me. I'm so relieved. Right. And so that was so we had that one year reprieve and it was not a happy year. I mean, we had family members, church members, people in our neighborhood who wouldn't speak to us because we were homeschooling. We had we lived in this, I mean, it. This is 1984.

Marlin Detweiler:
Let me go down the side road for a minute.

Marlin Detweiler:
What is your belief for why the hostility existed outside the education world?

Zan Tyler:
I you know, I think it threatens people. I don't know why. I mean, I got a call. I had one friend at the state Department of Education and she said, you know, Zan they are going to make you the whipping girl because they feel like if they can stop you, they can shut down homeschooling. It was funny. They sensed a threat coming from homeschooling.

Even then, I never understood it. I mean, I was one mother who was trying to do the best thing for my child. I wasn't trying to start a movement. I just wanted to hold him back a year. My neighbors, it was, you know, maybe it was just so bizarre. It was just so different. No, you know, nobody did that.

I you know, maybe they thought it was real religious fanaticism. I don't know. I talked.

Marlin Detweiler:
Religious fanaticism in the context of a single family is routinely accepted. There is I my sense is that the education lobby and the NSA and no…

Zan Tyler:
NEA.

Marlin Detweiler:
NEA, thank you. NSA is okay in this one.

Marlin Detweiler:
Is so jealous of what they have been able to control, and they know what's at risk. And now they're feeling it.

Zan Tyler:
Yes. That's right, that's right. I mean, there was some article out of Texas I’m not sure about these numbers, but I think they said 75,000 students have withdrawn from the public school system this year. And next year will be like 120,000. I mean, this threatens schools and pension funds and everything else. But, you know, but this is 2026, this I was 1984.

Marlin Detweiler:
And what I was getting at was I get it for why the NEA might react that way. If your next door neighbor is a board member in a local chapter, if there is such a thing, I get that. I get why they would be upset. I get why they might not talk to you. I get why they might have their they might not clean up their dog on your property.

I get that. But what I don't get, and this is an exact experience that I had, is when I'm playing golf with a dentist friend of mine who says, I just don't understand parents who homeschool their kids. They're not qualified as teachers. It's terrible.

Zan Tyler:
Yes, the socialization, the lack of education will ruin the country. What they don't see is it's the exact opposite.

Marlin Detweiler:
It is amazing how much the opposite the socialization argument truly is. The best socialized kids are kids who routinely deal with more than their own age group.

Zan Tyler:
Or men, and then all the people they're dealing with when they homeschool. I mean, my boys grew up at the legislature with me. Lizzie grew up with cameras in the living room, and, I mean, and actually so here's an interesting story. So my son John, I mean, really they grew up at the state House with me. Mike Ferris was one of our closest friends.

Marlin Detweiler:

So the HSLDA has gotten involved in your case?

Zan Tyler:
In 1987, a little bit, 1988, we had a bad it was a good homeschool law in one way for us because it allowed it. It was very restrictive. In 1988, the law we got past somebody in South Carolina law.

And we have a great law now. But in 1988, that law passed and it was severely amended on the floor, the third reading, which rarely happens. And so it was a bad bill. And somebody said, you need to call Mike Ferris. And I did. And so we, I mean, they came in, they filed lawsuits. We had class action suits. It was a real mess here.

I was threatened with jail in 84. We got a good homeschooling law passed in 1992. So for those first 7 or 8 years I homeschooled, we were either in court or the legislature.

Marlin Detweiler:
HSLDA did some really remarkable work in every state they needed to get all 50 states into a relatively stable place. Some states are easier and better than others. I get that we deal with it all the time, and I'm sure you do too.

Are there any watershed moments that really made you see that? The blood, sweat, and tears you'd poured into this at a legislative level, and that a broader than your family level, where there's some watershed moments that you reflect back on, say, those were really turning points.

Zan Tyler:
Yes. A bad turning point was 1990. We thought it was funny because David Beasley, who later became governor of South Carolina and was a homeschool dad and a good friend of ours, we had gotten just to know him through the legislative process. We were young together when we started. I was lobbying, and he was a very young legislator.

And so in 1990, we thought we could pass a Technical Amendments Act. This I don't want to get into all the weeds with this. That would make homeschooling eat much easier in South Carolina. Well, it didn't work because they said they just had to many other emotional issues like abortion and everything else to deal with. And they couldn't get a homeschool law passed.

So that was a real, that was an awful moment for me. And an attorney friend sent me this memo and said, Zan, I think you can start according to South Carolina law. I think you can start an accrediting association in South Carolina for home schools, like CESA is for private schools. And so it was funny. I called Mike late that night.

I was just so depressed. Homeschooling in South Carolina was like Narnia. It was always winter and never Christmas. And I called Mike late at night. I said, here's something that may work, because by this time we have lawsuit after lawsuit filed because of his 1988 bad law. And he said, okay, call me in the morning. And so Joe and I started an organization, a mouthful, South Carolina Association of Independent Homeschools.

We call it scales. And it was to get home schooling out of the purview of the public school system all together. And we would become that private accrediting organization. So when the State Department came out in 1985 and wanted to promulgate regulations that said a teaching parent had to have a college degree and couldn't use anything but state approved text, which means you can't use any Christian curriculum.

So those were our two watershed issues, and the only way we could figure out how to overcome both of those hurdles for homeschooling parents was to start this organization. Some people called it civil disobedience. I had a great attorney in my, you know, in my life through Mike. And so the private school people, I met with them across the state, I said, I'm using this law because it says CESA some similar organization.

I said, I'm using this same law. I don't mean to draw you, drag you through the mud. So I made all these courtesy calls around the state, talking to people, telling them in advance what I was going to do. They all said the same thing, saying, keep up with your test scores. Homeschoolers do well. You'll probably end up in court in two years. Make sure you have the documentation. Document everything.

So three months later, 11 of our families were served truancy subpoenas. I mean, like with flashlights at night, my deputy sheriffs, a couple of them. And so it just went from bad to worse. And we finally at one point we had a legislator say, so we're still fighting in the legislature. We're fighting in court. We're losing everywhere.

I'm running this organization, he said, saying, just call the attorney general's office or he said, I'll call it. It has to be a legislator and get them to give a ruling on scales, because if they give a ruling on scales, we'd already lost a round of lawsuits. And it's positive your problems are over. And so I'll never forget the morning we're having school and I get a call from the State Department, my one friend there of education, and she said, Zan, you need to be sitting down because you got a ruling on SCAIH that was negative.

And so the superintendent has sent out a fax to all 92 or however many school districts there were saying, everybody who's going through SCAIH is illegal. And she said, you were at the top of that list. We had about 120 families then. So, you know, we were back in court. We're in court, we're in the legislature.

We're fighting on all these different fronts. You know, just hoping that the battering ram is going to go through at some point. And I'll never forget when all the attorneys, Mike, the staff at HSLDA calls me. It was either it must have been November if it was after oral arguments at the state Supreme Court, because we had a class action suit that had gone to our state Supreme Court, and they're all yelling and cheering and they're saying, Zan we won, we won, and they're screaming.

And I still get choked up about it because that was the sound of freedom.

I had been called by the attorney General's office and the attorney for the state Department of Education. They said, okay. Zan we're tired of fighting you. We're going to help you with the legislative plan. So to make a long story short, in 1992. Even it was a battle, even though it wasn't supposed to be. The General Assembly named our organization they in state law and gave us the same power as local school boards in approving and monitoring homeschool programs.

First time, Mike said it was the first time in the country a General Assembly had ever done anything like that, and it was really the advancement of self-government. And so it was quite a journey.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, that's really a pinnacle accomplishment. But we only have a few minutes left. And I got to ask you something because I know from you in our conversation prior to recording that this is an issue. Here we are. HSLDA has shrunk back because it's been victorious in all 50 states. You have been a pioneer in that regard, especially for South Carolina.

But I know it's broader than that. But now we somewhat take for granted that freedom. And I think what was you that said before we started recording Freedom Isn't Free? And I would add to that, it might require a subscription of not being free. In other words, we pay for it regularly.

Where are we today? What are our risks today?

Zan Tyler:
You know, it's interesting because we're seeing lawsuits. We're seeing legislation, especially being filed, that hearkens back to the 80s and early 90s. And it doesn't scare me in the sense of, I don't know, it's very alarming. Connecticut just passed a law. Always been a free state, liberal state, but free state. And now they have to get permission from their school districts or give notice to homeschool.

They've never had to do that before. And if you're a new homeschooling parent, you have to be approved or cleared by their DCF, which is Department of Child Services. I don't exactly know what the initials stand for before you can homeschool. And so is this whole trend now of child abuse. And parents are considered guilty until proven innocent.

We have a whole, oh, what's the word I'm looking for? All of our Western jurisprudence points to the fact that the child is not the mere creature of the state, and there was even one. I mean, I carry Supreme Court decisions in my purse in person. I mean, we should all.

But it's just a state, this notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases, because some parents abusing neglect children is repugnant to American tradition. And so, you know, so we have all of these things in our corner, but all of these state legislators coming out and wanting to, really pre-certify parents to, you know, to “prevent child abuse.”

It's really a bogus argument. I just think it's one further way to try to kill the efficacy and the life of homeschooling.

Marlin Detweiler:
And ultimately our ability to be a free people, to worship as we wish and to live and to raise our children, to love Christ and to live with liberty in the context of the gospel.

Zan, thank you for the fight that you put on for all of us. There are so many people that will hear this. They may not have heard your name before today, but they won't forget it.

Zan Tyler:
Thank you so much, Marlin. Thank you for all you've done as well.

Marlin Detweiler:
Thanks. You know, we did the easy part. We don't have those kinds of fights. We have our own fights, but they're not like that. I have never been threatened with jail by a friend.

Zan Tyler:
Yes, so I know we need to wrap it up, but we are seeing signs of hope. My son went into law because of everything he went through, and three years ago, he was called by the new state superintendent of education. And as a homeschooling dad who had never been in classroom or his kids, I asked to be chief legal counsel for the state Department of Education.

And we're seeing we've got friends in government now, and we just but you've got the shepherd freedom. I'm sorry. You know, we start talking about freedom. I think about all the things the Lord has done, but we can't take any of it for granted.

Marlin Detweiler:
We are in a much better place than we were in the early 80s and before. But it is not a static place, and it requires vigilance, defense, and godly wisdom to be applied every day.

Thank you for that. Good word to and folks, thank you for joining us on this episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of Classical Christian Education.

We hope to see you next time.

Zan, thank you.

Zan Tyler:
Thank you.