WHERE ENEMIES BRING VICTORY AND ALLIES BRING DEFEAT: A CASE STUDY IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Abstract

Homeschool parents have voluntarily withdrawn their children from the public schools believing that they could educate their children better than the system. Their departure, however, has been marked by repeated challenges by advocates of the public school system who believe that they have the children’s best interest at heart. The opposition is part philosophical and part financial. All of it becomes political.

In February 2013, Representative Brannon (R-Spartanburg) introduced a bill that would have undermined the very reason parents choose homeschooling, These parents banded together on Facebook and repelled the threat with a powerful show of force. Within ten days, 2,500 homeschool parents (representing ten to fifteen percent of the South Carolina’s homeschooling households) joined the newly created STOP Proposed Bill H. 3478 Facebook forum. They organized and caused three of the four cosponsors to withdraw their names from the bill. They held a rally and celebrated their victory. Then, factions within the homeschool community turned on each other and nearly lost all of the gains so quickly won.