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Keep home schooling legal
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Posted by admin Thu Mar 27, 2008 14:05:31 PDT
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The right to home-school in California is under serious attack, but there are many reasons not to criminalize the homeschooling movement. Here are just a few.

Historical precedent. American history testifies to the reliability of homeschooling to instill patriotism, civic virtue and practical knowledge among young people. From the pilgrims to the founding fathers to our great-grandparents, home education has produced U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices, inventors, military heroes, etc. More importantly, it has successfully groomed generations of hardworking men and women on whose backs America was built.

Religious conviction. There are homeschooling families, mine included, that believe God has given parents, not public school teachers, the primary task of raising their children. We think this is impossible to do if our kids are under someone else’s instruction most of the day. So I ask: What right has the state to trump our religiously motivated decision to home-school? Whatever happened to the rights of conscientious objectors?

Children’s rights. Liberal activists love to declare one’s right to throw off the chains of tradition to preserve one’s individual liberty. If that is the guiding premise, let’s apply it consistently: Honor the wishes of home schoolers who want to exchange America’s century-old tradition of public schooling for a home education.

Academic results. A National Home Education Research Institute study found that home schoolers outperform public school students by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects on standardized tests. Not only that, home-schooled students whose mothers never finished high school scored 55 percentile points higher than public school students in similar circumstances. It’s hard to argue with home schooling's academic track record.

Political freedom. It is unjust for the state to reach into homes, rip children out of secure environments and force them into government-run schools. Our children are not wards of the state, they are our heritage and our responsibility. If the simple right to train up our kids in our homes is denied, is any freedom truly safe?

Leftist politicians often promote diversity among subcultures, but their tolerance turns to hypocrisy when it comes to homeschooling. Everybody else’s “diversity” can be celebrated, but three intolerant judges in L.A. wish to crush the homeschooling community out of existence. Unwittingly, they are following the model of Nazi Germany, which outlawed homeschooling in 1938 for fear that it was creating subcultures disloyal to the State. Communist Russia had done the same in 1919. Communist China followed in 1959. Are these examples worth imitating in California?

To be clear, America’s home-school movement is loyal to our nation. In fact, homeschooling is the very expression of the American values we hold so dear: hard work, self-discipline, love of knowledge, respect for authority, religious expression and a thousand other virtues that have sadly fallen to the wayside in the public school system. Join me in protecting this prized expression of American liberty.

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Comment From: jkappel

Fabulous article. Your articulation of the issues was wonderful and I completely agree that parents should always have the option to home school. Thanks for taking the time to write about this! Comment From: pegconnelly

Many Kudos. I agree totally. We've already been told what we can and can't do too many times, let's not allow this crazy notion into our lives. Comment From: jguenther

Are home-schooled children demonstrating a lower pass rate for proficiency examinations? Why would this legislation even be introduced?It's interesting to me that some accredited teachers I know have home-schooled their children rather than have them in the public school system. With the growing expectation of the public that all children are taught moral values in public school, it is also telling that we've seen so many demonstrations of violence and poor impulse control lately by students in public schools. Comment From: jvencel

Thanks for the good feedback. The last commentor raised an interesting point about learning (or rather unlearning) moral values in the public school system. In a day when absolute standards are not honored in any area of the public square, when moral licensiousness is elevated among youths and adults alike as an inalienable right, it should come as no surprise that our public school children possess broken moral compasses. Popular culture is to blame in many ways, but in the early years of a child's life, parents are the gatekeepers of culture. It is their responsibility to keep the prevailing false worldviews of culture from infiltrating the home. (I wrote about this dynamci in my book "Culture Makers.") It is for this reason that homeschooling is, to me, the optimal way to protect my children's innocence while building resilient values into their souls. Like a seedling in a greenhouse, we nurture them through the morally formative years until their roots are strong enough to weather the storm winds of popular culture. I would be a negligent parent to do otherwise. I realize every family situation is different, and homeschooling is nearly impossible in single-parent homes, but I suggest that we all strive for the ideal and extend grace for the exceptions.