While millions of parents and children across the nation are benefitting from all homeschooling has to offer, elite liberal professors who are scared of parents being able to educate their own offspring.
Harvard professor Elizabeth Bartholet penned an 80-page paper outlining her grievances against homeschooling. She emphasizes the few, rare instances where homeschool parents have abused their children, failed to perform at the same level as public school teachers, and blasted religious affiliations.
“[It is] important that children grow up exposed to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints,” she said.
Bartholet is not the only one eager to dump on a highly successful form of education. Former education commissioner Kevin Huffman accused online schools of providing erratic education, and says homeschooling will set an entire generation of kids back.
“Years of research shows that online schooling is ineffective — and that students suffer significant learning losses when they have a long break from school,” he said.
Of course, they have also complained that homeschooling is becoming increasingly popular with conservative Americans.
The tirades are completely laughable given the fact that a large percentage of homeschool parents aren’t even religious, let alone conservative. There are many reasons that parents opt to pull their kids from public schools, including bullying, a child’s special educational needs, concerns over school shootings, and the list goes on.
Military parents frequently homeschool to provide their children with a consistent education even as they move around the country on a regular basis. Recently released data shows homeschooled children typically score up to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized tests, earn better SAT and ACT scores than their public-school peers, and tend to be more emotionally, socially, and psychologically mature than traditionally schooled children.
These liberal elites are conflating the chaos many parents face in trying to educate their children who can no longer attend public school with the organized, structured schooling set-up many homeschool parents follow. Granted, it’s hard for parents with no prior experience to be suddenly thrust into homeschooling, and virtual schools aren’t a good fit for all students. This doesn’t mean there’s something inherently wrong with educating a child at home. Education has never been a one-size-fits-all experience. Children who thrive in a homeschool environment should be allowed to continue doing so.
Sadly, the facts aren’t getting in the way of far-left academics trying to prevent parents from exercising their basic rights. Professor Bartholet is calling for the United States government to force parents to prove they are capable of educating their own kids. It’s hard to imagine what manner of “test” parents have to pass. However, if it’s designed by the likes of those who are calling for Draconian anti-homeschool legislation, it would undoubtedly force parents to impart a socialist, secular, sub-par education that many homeschoolers are fighting to escape in the first place.
Featured Image by Jimmiehomeschoolmom
