States have different regulations for homeschooling. New York State requires the filing of an IHIP or Individualized Home Instruction Plan. Here are the governing regulation and the official FAQ about IHIPs. We are currently working on the IHIPs for our kids for this coming year. Thankfully one can find lots of examples on that wonderful resource that is the Internet.

One of the things that’s fascinating to me here is how I have never seen anything like this for our children while they were in school even though it is obviously such a hugely desirable idea: make a plan of what you are going to do and make that plan individualized to the child!

Note the following language from the FAQ:

Q: Must the IHIP for a six-year-old indicate that the instruction is on the first grade level?
A: No. As with any age, instruction should be geared to the level appropriate to the student’s needs and previous level of achievement.

So the exact opposite of what would happen in school where the plan for the year is dictated by pretty much nothing other than the child’s age!

Now one of the things that I always hear when I bring something like this up is that individualization like this while highly desirable doesn’t scale. And that’s why we can’t have it in schools. One of the things that I am particularly interested in is figuring out how we can use technology to make individualization scale.

So here is my call for startups – is anyone out there building something that lets people create individualized (home) instruction plans? OK – maybe you have a better word for it, but something to let you track what you are planning to learn and then helps you find resources for it. Now I put the word “home” in parenthesis on purpose because I believe if this is built the right way then it could also be used in schools.