Molly Olmsted wrote in Slate about the role of Christian conservatives in promoting the home school movement. Their blunt instrument is fear. Public schools, they warn, will expose your children to all sorts of dangers: secular education, non-believers, bad children, teachers grooming your children to be gay or trans, indoctrination into radical ideas, exposure to books about racism. The list goes on and on.
It used to be considered an advantage of public schools that they introduced children to others unlike themselves. It prepares children to live in the world when they have friends who are of a different race, religion, ethnicity, or economic status. But this frightens the home schoolers.
The recent spate of school shootings gives them yet another reason to school their children at home.
She writes:
The morning after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the Federalist published an op-ed with the headline “Tragedies Like the Texas Shooting Make a Somber Case for Homeschooling.”
In the essay, the author immediately dismissed calls for gun control as petty and insincere, offering home-schooling as the true solution to keep children safe. “It is clear now from the long list of school shootings in recent years that families can’t trust government schools, in particular, to bring their children or teachers home safely at the end of the day,” the author wrote.
On first blush, the idea is somewhat understandable or, at least, relatable; it’s natural for parents to look for ways to protect their children. But then the author added, “The same institutions that punish students for ‘misgendering’ people and hide curriculum from parents are simply not equipped to safeguard your children from harm.”
And the “parental rights” political agenda emerged.
Many politically powerful conservatives promote home-schooling as a way to undercut or weaken the influence of public schools, and to shield their children from the liberalism they believe public schools foster. The Federalist was just one of anumber of conservative voices calling for home-schooling in the wake of the Uvalde tragedy. (And there were plenty of news stories about parents who were considering it.)
But the groundwork of the movement was laid by conservative Christians who have been working for years to siphon power from public schools, pushing both home-schooling and parental rights legislation at the state and federal level. It’s just that finally, their ideas are becoming mainstream.
As she shows, the home school movement has been building for decades, and its leaders will use any excuse to attack public schools.
There are many problems with home schooling, starting with the fact that most children will learn no more that their parents. Few parents are equipped to teach history, science, math, literature, and foreign languages. Schools have teachers who are expert in these subjects. Home schooling is a recipe for mass dumbing down. It is also a sure fire way to indoctrinate children into the religious beliefs of their families.
Several years ago, when I first wrote about a particularly noxious home school story, I was bombarded by dozens of comments from outraged home school parents. How dare I, they asked in indignation. They sincerely believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. They are entitled to their opinion. It’s a free country.
So be it. I am not a state legislature or a federal judge. I think they are miseducating their children. That’s my opinion.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Our GED program often gets students who were “home-unschooled”
I would say that the word ‘Christian’ should be dropped. Is this what ‘Christianity’ is turning out to be…violence? hate?
There are few parents that can replicate the type of education that a well resourced public school can provide, particularly on the secondary level. While these parents may believe they are doing what is best for their child, they are also denying them the opportunity to meet other young people and establish friendships with others that are different from them. Public schools that serve the whole student prepare young people to function in a diverse society. The world would be better off if young people could learn to be tolerant and respectful of others. This is simply decency, not critical race theory.
This very misleading post takes shilling for the traditional public school (TPS) establishment way too far. Many parents do indeed home school for religious reasons and because of anger at what they believe (in many cases correctly) is hostility to their family’s moral values. But a growing number of parents choose to home school for secular reasons. Their kids have special needs that aren’t met in TPS, e.g. they need much more individual attention because of learning disabilities or they are academically gifted and can progress at much faster paces than a classroom with 20+ students makes possible. Some parents want their kids to be better educated in their particular cultures. And many homeschooling parents justly fear the poor student behavior that threatens their kids’ physical safety and academic achievement.
When done well, homeschooling is just tutoring rather than teaching to a large number of students who usually have a wide variety of abilities. No doubt some homeschooling parents do poor jobs and their kids’ educations suffer; other homeschooling students do extremely well and are far above the average compared to nearby TPS.
A full understanding of the religion-motivated point made by Ann can be found in an article whose content is much broader than the title indicates, “The New Official Contents of Sex Education in Mexico: Laicism in the Crosshairs,” posted 3-3-2021 at the Scielo site.
This is an outstanding article. I highly, highly recommend it. And thanks, Linda, for pointing me to it.
When I lived in the North, most of parents were very appreciative of how the public schools accommodated the individual differences of students with disabilities. Most school districts take their mission to educate all students seriously. Since moving to Florida, I have noticed the trend you mention. Parents of learning disabled students in public schools in the South and perhaps some northern districts as well have felt that the school district is unable to provide an appropriate education for their child. Some of these educated parents opt for home schooling as a better alternative. One mother, a retired major from the Air Force, had a dyslexic son she home schooled. He received his high school diploma and is currently attending college in a school with an adaptive program for learning disabled students.
Another trend in the South I have noticed that that individual school districts establish their own charter schools for classified students. It seems to me that they are trying to skirt the IDEA law, but I do not know anything about the quality of instruction they provide.
I have never seen evidence that home schooled students are better educated than those who went to public schools.
How many parents are expert teachers of history, science, art, mathematics, and literature? My guess: none.
With Common Core, NGSS and a standardized History curriculum, any parent can home school their child and do it very well to pass the standardized tests. Public education has turned into a data mine due to standardization and testing. “True home schooled” kids are way more curious and critically thinking than public school kids.
Not in my experience, Lisa. Most kids i get from home school– and I teach 9th grade, so I get a lot–are 2-3 grade levels behind where they are supposed to be and are often anxious and afraid of other students or controversy of any kind, whether socially or in academic contexts. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have taught some delightful, socially adjusted, capable, and bright home schooled students, too. But I teach in an area with a lot of homeschooled kids who enter public education at the start of high school. The well adjusted ones are not the norm.
Lisa– “any parent can” teach to the stds to pass the stdzd tests… Obviously there will be many who in fact can’t meet this dubious goal. Even if that’s the low bar of one’s local pubsch, (a)you can’t escape the data-mining; these tests are administered at the school, not at home. (b)then you need to consider the socialization aspect kids will be missing. That’s a personal issue; I wouldn’t agree with govt deciding that’s what your kids need. But practically speaking, unless you’re fortunate enough to live in an area where there are homeschooling families teaming up to share joint activities, parent subject strengths etc, these kids are going to be isolated.
Thank you for your informed observations, TOW. “Fear of controversy”
is a convenient tool that works for authoritarianism. In your experience, do you have a perspective about abuse and homeschooling, emotional, physical?
Until internet search results were manipulated, studies about the amount of abuse in homes where homeschooling occurs were easy to find.
One recent study reported that after authorities became involved in home-linked child abuse, the children who had been enrolled in school, were withdrawn at a high rate. The parents didn’t want the scrutiny that would protect the child.
The ed reform people should take responsibility.
Fascist conservatives, no matter what they think/claim they are, are not Christians and this fear campaign focuses on their nationalist, racist, fascist thinking and has nothing to do with what Jesus Christ taught.
Bill Gates, wealthy libertarian and schools-in-a-box profit taker (philosophical brother to Charles Koch), paid for a study at Georgetown Catholic University in 2020. The study found the religious are more inclined to authoritarianism. In 2022, Georgetown hired Ilya Shapiro of the Koch network for a top position in its law school.
Shapiro’s opinion about women and Black people was the subject of recent headlines.
The homeschool promoters want the U.S. to be a white, Christian nation. They’ve made the assessment and understand that what they champion in schooling costs the nation in future economic growth. They understand the Roe ruling jeopardizes U.S. standing among our western European allies. Whatever the costs are, they are willing to have the nation pay them. The men who promote home schooling add to their objectives, continued dominance over women.
a white, Christian FEAR-led nation: the god of anger and vengeance over the god of love and inclusion
Court ruling!
NOW their tax pyed teachers can pray IN SCHOOL!
The Founders knew better. That’s why they came here.
Kids will be intimidated if they don’t participate.
The guys are praying with the coach. I guess I join in or else.
My AP chemistry teacher prayed before class. I guess I join in or else.
Oops
. Typo..
But it works. PAID BY TAX PRAYERS MONEY
And my regressive reactionary xtian fundie friends all insist that the individual court members decisions have nothing to do with their xtian fundie/Catholic beliefs. You’d think there was a Rethug playbook out there so that they are all on the same talking point at any given time.
They expect us to believe lies- Susan Collins as example.
I learned in my American history text that “America is a nation of immigrants” but I think it was a typo and what it was really supposed to say is “America is a nation of idiots”
Susan Collins is exhibit A in the idiot department.
But that doesn’t mean she is not also a liar, of course.
The Supreme Majority based their decision on the claim that the coach was praying privately, which was demonstrably false (Sotomayor highlighted the fact in her dissent)
“Last year, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that Kennedy’s lawyers had created “a deceitful narrative” about the case, which the six right-wing justices accepted Monday.”
One of the amazing things about the Coach Kennedy case, which has rendered the establishment clause’s separation of church and state basically moot, is that to accomplish this the majority embraced a version of the facts that’s demonstrably false,” said Guardian columnist Moira Donegan.
// End of quotes
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/27/supreme-court-takes-wrecking-ball-separation-church-and-state-prayer-ruling
This Supreme a court majority are nothing short of deceitful and corrupt.
They are willing to do and say anything to get the rulings they desire, including twisting the truth and Constitution into a pretzel.
It’s a grotesque display of highly dishonest behavior that is unbecoming to any judge to say nothing of Supreme Court Justice.
Correct me if I’m wrong about this, but it is my understanding that the mythological system to which the court majority subscribes has a central text called The Ten Commandments, one of which (in both of the versions of this) is “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” so this lying about whether the coach was conducting a private or public prayer is a fairly serious matter, right?
The Ten Commandments just say you can’t lie about your neighbor (Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor”)
They say nothing about lying about other things.
Probably because God knew if his followers (and She) couldn’t lie (particularly about God — claiming She is a He, for example), they would never be able to bring in new followers to the fold
Disassembling the Constitution
The way to disassemble
Is simply to dissemble
It’s easy to destroy
When lying is your ploy
“because God knew if her followers”
I originally wrote it as “her” in my comment and autocorrect changed it to “his”
Too funny.
Parting the Red Sea
Saving all the Earth’s animal species (including T rex?) from a ginormous flood by putting them on an ark for 40 days
Changing a woman to a pillar of salt
Walking on water
Changing water to wine
Resurrecting the dead
Virgin birth
You get the picture
Noah’s Oversight
The creatures filed
Two by two
To populate the ark
Returned to wild
One by one
As T-Rex left his mark
Naked Justass
The robe has been stripped
And Justass laid clean
The Document’s ripped
To shreds by Supreme
Bob and Poet, are you as struck as I am that msm hasn’t reported Coach Joseph Kennedy’s religious sect? If he was LDS, I think msm would tell the people that and I think Kennedy would self-identify. I’ve read that Kennedy is a “practicing Christian.” I am familiar with the phrasing, “practicing Catholic” but, unfamiliar with “practicing protestant.”
SCOTUS was being cute and clever here. They could have said, yes Kennedy was obviously leading students in prayer at a public school public event, and that’s fine with us [i.e., we are hereby overriding previous decisions forbidding school employees from leading students in prayer].
But they didn’t. They went out of their way to note plaintiff modified prior prayerfests in locker room et al to conform with school admin’s concern about coercing students. They simply disagreed with defendant’s argument saying hey even if coach tells kids this is voluntary, and not ‘public’ cuz it’s postgame, it’s still coercive—“Nope, it’s just coach praying as is his wont; people can join in or just go on home. [not]
Actually, it’s called “dishonest and corrupt”, “not cute and clever”
There is nothing cute about it.
And anyone with a brain can see through it, so it’s not particularly clever either.
A ruling based on a deception is surely not legitimate.
Kennedy is practicing for his lead role as Lucifer in Dante’s Inferno
Polls- Homeschoolers traditionally vote GOP.
And the Fear Campaign designed to destroy Democratic Public Schools is built upon a number of school shootings that smell of Manchurian Candidate. Uvalde is the most obvious. But Sandy Hook, Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Oxford High School/MI also fit the bill.
Individuals far removed from the neighborhood crackpots stand to gain and maintain massive fortunes if they can obliterate compassionate, critical-thinking, courageous citizens. They don’t care about homeschooling or Roe or contraception or gender identity or who we choose to love. But we now see quite clearly that their addiction to power & control makes EVERY form of sinister manipulation acceptable.
They are just getting started.
Diane has already noted the end game of this slippery slope. Starting with charters and ending with universal vouchers, the right wants to make education a personal, not a societal responsibility. When everyone gets accustomed to less, the government will no longer subsidize education. Children will get the type of education their parents can afford to finance.. It is the exact opposite of the vision and mission of democratic public education.
See Chile’s education system since the 70s to find out how it works out.
Or Sweden’s now. There are starting to be protests against school privatization in Swed n from both parents and students who feel they have been short-changed in their education. Read an article on this last month. Wish I could remember where
Privatization is a race to the bottom.
Homeschooling is a form of domestic abuse inflicted by churches. I live in a small rural town where the number of fundamental churches added to the conservative Catholic Church reach a total greater than the number of businesses.
At the library and other publicly-funded places, I frequently see a mother with children in tow trying to find a way to kill time during week days. The mother looks bereft, the children look lonely. Meanwhile, the father goes out to work for social interaction, for purpose in his life, for recognition, for reward, etc.
Coach ruling…
The pressure this puts on millions and millions of kids is more fearful to them on a Daily basis than shootings. Statistically 99% of.schools thank goodness will not have a shooting
This pressure is 24/7 for a kid in EVERY CLASSROOM in EVERY SCHOOL classroom and activity.
The colonists came for separation. So much for “Independence Day.” The Founders knew this! Where are the originaists now?
Every school counselor can explain how horrendous this is for kids with one ounce of needing to impress the teacher or fear of going against him (gender intentional there)
I wonder if this SCOTUS would oppose prayer anywhere. In school? In the classroom? What of the kids who don’t chime in?
The kids?
They are ostracized or they will be harassed to join in, not only by other students but by the teachers and coaches.
The Majority decision was based on a false narrative and they knew it.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/27/supreme-court-takes-wrecking-ball-separation-church-and-state-prayer-ruling
The Majority Just-asses had better pray that Hell does not exist because if it does, they already have reserved seats in the blazing inferno section.
And what if this had been a Muslim, Jew Buddhist, or Mormon teacher doing this on the field? I doubt the Court would have found for any of them or any other minority religion.
exactly
And, mainstream media would have identified the sect.
The Coach is a “practicing Christian”, according to media. Does that phrasing reflect the typical cover provided for one specific, powerful sect?
The kid who rejects the prayer theatrics will get less playing time. He’s not a team player.
The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty filed an amicus brief in favor of Coach Joseph Kennedy on behalf of the USCCB. Was that all the justices needed to make their decision?
The same phenomenon happens in the armed services, where there is not demand for the soldiers to go to church but a lot of pressure from other soldiers, in the form of ostracization, if they don’t.
The supreme court ruling that teachers and coaches can lead students in prayer will also help convince protestant parents to keep their kids out of majority Catholic schools or vice versa
One can hope you’re right if you leave out the vice versa, particularly, after they hear the church doctrine incorporated into the U.S. pledge of allegiance at Catholic schools like the one Pat Cipillone (Trump) attended.
On the school prayer decision, and more specifically about that coach: “…thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray, standing on the synagogues and the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.” Matthew 6:5 (KJV)
For 7 years the Coach strong-armed his players into POST game 50 yard line prayer fests. A spectacle. He was offered an off-field prayer location which he refused. The School District went through the steps of Paid leave, suspension and finally a firing.
The right-wingers bankrolled his lawsuit all the way to SCOTUS.
And he won. Makes me sick
And the most disgusting part is that Supreme Court majority knew their ruling was based on a false narrative.
Their rulings should be completely disregarded by the various states because they have no grounding in law, the Constitution or even basic truth.
They are deceitful.
I don’t know the history of Supreme Court corruption, but I wonder if we might be witnessing one of the most corrupt Supreme Court majorities in history.
Poet,
The answer- without a doubt.
Prior courts were racist and sexist but, they didn’t dispense with half of a century of precedents to take back rights that guaranteed the safety and enfranchisement of women and Blacks.
Kathy-
The immunity card- what is Coach Kennedy’s religious sect within Christianity?
Would those “right wing” funders that you mention have religious ties? Similar to abortion and gay issues, are blog commenters attempting to detach the prayer case from a well funded campaign by a specific, powerful religious sect(s)? What should a person speculate the reason to be?
This, and many of the other recent developments, mainly since the Trump era, are all nails in the coffin of democracy & the existence of our country as we know it. We are becoming 2 countries, but unfortunately, we all live amongst one another, so we just can’t separate from the “other side” & live how we feel fit. Until some unifying type of leader emerges to bring everyone together, despite their many differences, we will only degenerate into more & more chaos, hatred & violence. This will only end when we hit bottom and chaos ensues, along with a lot of suffering, misery & deaths. Then whoever remains will have no choice but to rebuild & recreate a livable society. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see a good way out of this.
It’s looking pretty bad.
I take these Supreme Court decisions as a challenge. I now see it as my duty to teach young people about the absurdity of these ancient superstitions, to counteract this setting up of the means of indoctrination.
You know that I am in full support, Bob. You will face strong obstacles.
Conservative religion’s long-standing flagship universities are almost untouchable advocates for a male, white, straight (pretense of) society.
In Indiana, while the other major universities were admitting Black students, it took Note Dame another 4-5 decades to do the same and only after public pressure. Georgetown, in the seat of American power didn’t admit Black people until the 1960’s. Their tradition was prejudice and they didn’t want to change, according to the school’s historian.
“Promoting” homeschooling is not even a thing unless paired with the demand for taxpayer support. The US hasn’t been peppered with single-breadwinner families for decades. Give each family 1/2 the local per-pupil spending allotment for each kid and you have a tidy 2nd income the equivalent of at least a part-time job for the homeschooling parent. It’s just another anti-govt, anti-democratic, anti-public good message. This one’s not a big money-maker for the ed-industry: homeschoolers generally share free resource materials. And there’s no RE angle for the hedge-funders. The “promoters” are purely and simply anti-“gubmint schools.”
Homeschooling is a significantly larger sector than either charters or vouchers. 11.1%! Add that to 7% charter enrollment and 2% vouchers. Now you’re talking a gut-punch to the financial viability of public schools.
Well, as long as religion isn’t part of the mix…the campaign is limited to the anti-guv, pro-autocrat (not, theocracy) and private v. public good crowd. Who knew there was such secular interest and representation among white GOP women?
Josh Duggar’s wife and Norquist standing together!
Hmm… Now I found another current article that puts the homeschooling # at 3% of Kas students… So maybe it’s not as big a deal as I was making it out to be above.
er I mean “K12” (not “Kas”) students!!
One of the tactics used by an abuser is isolating the victim. Homeschooling.
Well observed, Linda. Cult leaders, of course, do this almost universally.