We have an essentially unregulated regime in the area of homeschooling,” Bartholet asserts 1.. All 50 states have laws that make education compulsory, and state constitutions ensure a right to education, “but if you look at the legal regime governing homeschooling, there are very few requirements that parents do anything.” 1. Even apparent requirements such as submitting curricula, or providing evidence that teaching and learning are taking place, she says, aren’t necessarily enforced 2.. Only about a dozen states have rules about the level of education needed by parents who homeschool, she adds. “That means, effectively, that people can homeschool who’ve never gone to school themselves, who don’t read or write themselves.” 3. In another handful of states, parents are not required to register their children as homeschooled 4.; they can simply keep their kids at home.
This practice, Bartholet says, can isolate children. 5. She argues that one benefit of sending children to school at age four or five is that teachers are “mandated reporters,” required to alert authorities to evidence of child abuse or neglect. “Teachers and other school personnel constitute the largest percentage of people who report to Child Protective Services,” she explains, whereas not one of the 50 states requires that homeschooling parents be checked for prior reports of child abuse. 6. ...
Most of y'all probably already know this, but for the sake of those who missed it and for DU-onlurkers, my wife and I homeschooled our children, "K-12". We also founded a local support group that is still around and is approaching its 30th anniversary (we haven't been involved in it since 1996). We also volunteered at regional and statewide homeschooling conventions for one of CA's statewide homeschooling organizations. So I'm speaking from experience, unlike (almost certainly) Elizabeth Bartholet, who is just regurgitating teacher's unions
.
1. BS. Whether by name or indirectly (e.g. CA homeschools being private schools), every state has laws pertaining or applying to homeschooling. More on this below.
2. Oopsie!
Bartholet contradicted her claims that homeschooling is "unregulated" and that there are "very few requirements that parents do anything". In real life, states' laws vary. Minimally, they require homeschoolers provide education similar/equivalent to PSs. In CA, private schools (homeschoolers are considered private schools) must have similar days of instruction and cover the same subjects. All private schools in CA file an affidavit with general info about the school, including the number of students. It would not take a great deal of brilliance for state educrats to figure out that a private school with 1-10 students is almost certainly a homeschool. Some states (e.g. NY, IIRC) require parents to submit curriculum info, and must approve their program. Some states require standardized testing, at intervals that vary by state.
Are there parents who keep their children home and do nothing? I assume so, though I never met one in the couple of thousand homeschoolers I encountered. Why a negligent parent would keep their child home rather than farm them out to their local PS eludes me. Tarring hundreds of thousands with the stupidity of a very few is stupidly fallacious.
3. That is moronic hyperbole! Ed schools are more about herd control and current "educational" fads than mastery of the subjects their grads will teach. So IRL, many teachers' mastery of subjects such as Reading, Math, Science, History, etc., is no better, and very possibly worse, than parents who "only" have a high school diploma. At some point older students may come to subjects unfamiliar to their parents, but homeschoolers are very networked. John and Jane Smith may not know advanced Algebra, but Bill and/or Mary Jones in their support group may be engineers of physicists willing to help.
4. Woo hoo! CA doesn't require homeschoolers register as such, but all private schools in CA file an affidavit with general info about the school, including the number of students. It would not take a great deal of brilliance for state educrats to figure out that a private school with 1-10 students is almost certainly a homeschool. More fundamentally, children are not property of the state or local PSs.
5. IRL, homeschoolers are very networked. There are support groups, co-ops, sports leagues, choirs and bands, special classes ... and they also participate in community-wide activities such as churches, scouting, etc., etc., etc.. The
homeschoolers isolate their kids narrative is teacher's unions'
. Here in Silicon Valley, our family had to be selective about outside-of-the-home activities, just to make sure we had sufficient instruction time (that is literal, not hyperbole).
6. Bartholet is lying by omission. Yes, teachers and school people are mandatory reporters. So, e.g., are the doctors and nurses children see. More fundamentally, Bartholet
ASSumes all homeschooling parents (or maybe all parents?) are likely abusers. Because homeschooling parents are human beings, the number of abusers is greater than zero, sadly. OTOH, the number of abusive "professional" teachers is probably much higher than the number of abusive homeschooling parents. Bartholet and teacher's unions need to clean out their own nest - and in the case of the unions,
stop protecting abusive teachers!!! - before nitpicking homeschooling parents about whom they know almost nothing.
