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Regulating Homeschooling
The homeschooling movement is one of the most disturbing developments associated with the rise of the Christian Right. Even though there is an increasing amount of criticism directed at the Christian Right, there have not been many energetic critics taking on the homeschooling movement. This is why it is good to see a recent paper written by Kimberly Yuracko of the Northwestern University School of Law.
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Some excerpts from the introduction of her paper, "ILLIBERAL EDUCATION: CONSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS ON HOMESCHOOLING:"
Homeschooling is no longer a "fringe" phenomenon. Homeschooling
was common in the United States before the Nineteenth Century, but by the early 1980s the practice was illegal in most states. Since then, homeschooling has enjoyed a dramatic rebirth. Today, homeschooling is legal in all states. Estimates of the numbers of children currently being homeschooled range from 1.1 to 2 million. The 1.1 million estimate represents 2.2 percent of the school-age population in the country. [ ]
The modern homeschool movement was originally dominated by liberals and educational progressives. These early pioneers came to homeschooling from a range of leftist causes and organizations: the women's movement, the alternative schools movement, and the La Leche League. Many believed that traditional schools were rigid and intellectually stifling. They were followers of progressive school reformer John Holt, one of the early advocates of "unschooling." [ ]
By the early 1990's, homeschooling had expanded and divided into two distinct movements: one secular and the other conservative Christian. [ ]
These two factions were not, however, of equal size and strength. The Christian homeschooling movement came to dominate its secular counterpart in size, profile and political strength. [ ]
At the heart of the Christian homeschooling movement is the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. HSLDA's commitment to ensuring parents' unfettered right to homeschool flows from two core ideological beliefs. The first is a belief in parental control, indeed ownership, of children. "Parental rights are under siege," HSLDA warns. "The basic fundamental freedom of parents to raise their children hangs in the balance. Have we forgotten whose children they are anyway? They are a God-given responsibility to parents," HSLDA proclaims. Indeed, Michael Farris, an HSLDA founder and its former president, argues that "[t]he right of parents to control the education of their children is so fundamental that it deserves the extraordinary level of protection as an absolute right." The second is a belief in the need for Christian families to separate and shield their children from harmful secular social values. [ ]
Motivated by these beliefs, HSLDA, along with the National Center for Home Educatio (NCHE)--HSLDA's service arm designed to link, inform and organize state homeschool leaders--and the Congressional Action Program (CAP)--HSLDA's lobbying organization--has become a powerful political force. For the last two decades HSLDA has opposed virtually all state oversight and regulation of homeschooling.[ ]
Surprisingly, the social and legal implications of this phenomenon have received almost no scholarly attention. For decades political theorists have worried and argued about what steps a liberal society must take to protect children being raised in illiberal communities. They have focused their attention
on the extent to which a liberal society must permit or condemn such practices as polygamy, clitoridectomy, and child marriage.
Virtually absent from the debate has been any discussion of the extent to which a liberal society should condone or constrain homeschooling, particularly as practiced by religious fundamentalist families explicitly seeking to shield their children from liberal values of sex equality, gender role fluidity and critical rationality. The notable exception among political scientists is Rob Reich. [ ]
Legal academics have been even more silent in the face of homeschooling's dramatic rise. Most articles about homeschooling have focused on the narrow question of whether public schools must permit homeschooled
students to participate in extracurricular activities. Very few have provided any critical evaluation or assessment of current homeschooling laws more generally. None have addressed the significant constitutional questions raised by state abdication of control over homeschooling. This paper seeks to begin to fill this important void. The paper explores the constitutional limits the state action doctrine puts on states' ability to delegate unfettered control over education to homeschooling parents. It argues that states must--not may or should--regulate homeschooling to ensure that parents provide their children with a basic minimum education and check rampant forms of sexism.
(Thanks to Melissa Rogers for the link)
Regulating Homeschooling | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 hidden)
Regulating Homeschooling | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 hidden)
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