Working and Homeschooling.

Homeschooling Works
Free Range Learning
Simple Homeschool Schedule for Work at Home Moms.
Scheduling Tips
Homeschooling When Both Parents Work  (If you don't read anything else about this post, go and read the comments here, in which many parents tell how they make it work.)
Over the 11 years that we have been homeschooling, I have become more and more convinced that it is the best way to go, if you can possibly manage it.  But how, that is the question?  I've always had to work at least part time which has led to some difficulties managing field trips and things with our homeschool group.  Some things we have just had to pass on and sometimes I have taken time off.

The law here in Kentucky says that you need to do 175, 6 hour days or 1050 hours and I think most states are pretty similar.  So if you school year round, that's about 20 hours a week.  Don't forget that reading together, doing art and playing outside count as some of this as well as things like music lessons and some of these can be done at the babysitters.  Also, the parenting team can divide it and each do 10 hours a week or you can add in your babysitter.

So, Mom could get up early and go to work.  Then, Dad could get the kids up and do an hour and a half of something (math and science!)  with them for a while before he gets them ready and takes them to the sitter.  The sitter could do some school related reading with them and some art or worksheets, let them play outside, take them to music lessons and get another hour and a half in, then when mom comes home from work, she can spend an hour and a half with the kids on school (which, in my experience is not that different from school-related homework time).  Another idea is do big chunks of learning on the weekends.  Don't forget to add in home economics (cooking and cleaning the house together.)  :-)

Over the years I have known several working/homeschooling moms and they are making it work.  I personally found it easier than jumping through the hoops the school made us jump through.  You may not, but it might be worth a try.  Our kids were so much happier and easy to get along with once we started homeschooling, that we never wanted to go back.

"I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experience."                                                                                                                                                       —Anne Sullivan