O'DonnellWeb Monthly Archives

January 03, 2005

2005 - A bad year for homeschooling?

This article at the new American Homeschooling Association blog states that homeschoolers won the battle but lost the war, that we jumped the shark, so to speak.

I disagree.

Where homeschoolers knew our children could be better educated at home, we are now expected – not just to prove it – but to ‘out test’ the public schools.

Expected by who? I don't know any homeschoolers that lie awake at night worrying about how their kids compare on the CAT-9 to the schoolies. If that is a problem, it is a problem with the homeschoolers involved.

She then worries about charter schools lack of accountability to the taxpayer, and virtual schools that the MSM confuses with real homeschooling. Neither of these is evidence of anything important. Charter schools are mostly irrelevant, why do we care? Yes, the charter school advocates can be allies in the less regulation battle, but ultimately they are big institution folks who just think they can run the big institution better than the government. HS'ers believe big institutions are a lost cause for primary education, regardless of who is running them.

Virtual public schools are a PR issue. If they accept government funds and/or are subject to the same regulations as the schoolies, then they are schoolies. We just need to keep hammering that point home.

Families enroll their children, are accountable to the school district, participate in district programs, use secular curriculum approved by the district and prove their children are learning through achievement testing. These families are nothing more than adjunct public schools, yet they tell themselves they are homeschoolers. They endanger the freedom of those who do not want to be part of these programs and foreshadow the day when all parents who want to educate their children at home will have to be enrolled in the public school. They are the proverbial ‘frog in a pot of water’.

I've written on the fake and trendy homeschoolers before. Like the author clearly states, the differences are not minor. If their numbers get big enough I can see how they could be a threat. But their numbers won't get that large. Too many Americans are conditioned to drop the kids off at the local government education center, they all aren't going to run to homeschool, real or pretend. Surveys continue to show that parents are happy with their public school, it's all the other schools that need to shape up. Sloth and pride are our friends in this situation. A sizable number of parents will have to admit they have failed their children by putting them in a bad educational environment, and then resolve and follow through on taking personal responsibility to fix the situation.

Does anybody here really think that's going to happen?

In state after state, homeschoolers have settled for being monitored in exchange for not being truant, trading one yoke for another

This is simply not true. It'd be nice if every state were Texas, but that isn't going to happen. Every time threatening legislation is introduced the homeschool community springs to action and beats it down. I can't think of a single significant legislative setback in recent years. We may have failed to advance the level of freedom, but I'm not aware of any trend towards reduced freedom, no matter how much the folks at the Akron Daily Journal may want it to happen.

Even states were homeschoolers are free to make their own family decisions often see annual attempts by their legislators to impose restrictions on them.

This is how a Representative Republic works. The teachers union is very powerful, they will always have agents in government to do their bidding. It matters not how often they try, as long as they continue to fail.

In this past year, the press has turned on homeschoolers. The annual ‘life-styles page’ articles about nice homeschooling families has turned into an unprecedented, front page attack calling for homeschoolers to be monitored to prevent child abuse, kidnapping and a laundry list of horrors the press now seems to believe are prevalent in our community. Is this the backlash against homeschoolers touting success and independence?

The vast majority of homeschool articles in 2004 were positive, or mediocre attempts at being neutral. (Somebody with more time available is welcome to go count articles at H&OES.) The Akron piece was a smear job, but how much have you heard about it since it was published? The traffic on their web boards was actually rather pitiful, and much of it was from the usual suspects in the homeschool community. In the long run, that series will have no impact beyond Ohio, and I'd be surprised if Ohio enacts any change in law this year.

I believe homeschooling is no longer evolving, that it has come full circle. It will not be very long before parents who want to educate their children themselves will either have to enroll their children in a public program or face the same kind of prejudice and legal threats that early homeschoolers faced when removing their children from the public schools.

This kind of fear mongering is stupid. 50 state governments are all going to act independently in the next couple of years to restrict homeschool freedom? Do I get a tin foil hat with that prediction?

80% of the population (and about 80% of state legislators) don't give a damn about homeschoolers. They don't care what we do or how we live our lives. We care, and people whose political power is based on the government education monopoly care, and that's about it.

The 80/20 rule is in our favor, and I'll take those odds any day. Of course we have to remain vigilant about protecting our freedoms, but that is hardly news. Thomas Jefferson warned us 200+ years ago that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

So stay vigilant, but relax. 99% of homeschoolers have never had a run in with the local officials. It's not that bad. Really.