I guess the title of this post has become a trope. It seems every time we’re told we must do something we don’t like we’re told we have to ‘do it for the children’. Every evil, every invasion of a new idea, seems couched with the idea that they are coming for our children. However, two recent articles show that there are people who want control of your children.
The first article is titled The Risks of Homeschooling from Harvard Magazine. In this article, Elizabeth Bartholet, a public interest law professor and director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, makes several dire claims. She says homeschooled children are denied their rights to a “meaningful education”, to be protected from child abuse, and from contributing to a democratic society. (Full disclosure, I was a homeschooling father.) I could spend a lot of time debunking Ms. Bartholet’s claims, but that is not the focus of this article because the solution she recommends is a presumptive ban on homeschooling.
Homeschooling Bans
Several years ago I was working on a project with an international team. As often happens when spending extended periods of time working with a small team, talk turns towards family. When a member of the team asked what grade of school my daughter was in, I had to explain she was doing work in two different grades because we homeschool. The look on her face was easily explained by the fact that she was from Germany. In Germany, homeschooling is illegal, so the very thought of teaching your own children was as foreign to her as her native language was to me. When I say that homeschooling is illegal in Germany, I don’t mean it is discouraged or not supported. No, the practice is banned. In fact, in 2010 a Germany couple was granted political asylum in the United States due to the persecution they suffered in their home country, including thousands of euros in fines and police arriving at their home to take their children to the government school.
While Ms. Bartholet lists several reasons why homeschooling is dangerous to the children, most are ridiculous yarns without any real evidence and support. It is quite clear from the article that the reason first and foremost in Ms. Bartholet’s mind why homeschooling should be banned is that the children may not be taught what she thinks they should. While she does not detail what is included in the call to insure children get a “meaningful education”, the fact that she believes the government has the right to determine what your children should and should not be taught is quite clear.
“From the beginning of compulsory education in this country, we have thought of the government as having some right to educate children so that they become active, productive participants in the larger society,”
The Risks of Homeschooling – Harvard Magazine
While I have not researched the constitutions of all 50 states, I believe most if not all establish a system of free public schools, not compulsory public schools. I know of no state constitution that makes attendance of government run public schools compulsory. They make education compulsory, yes, but they leave the decision as to where a child is educated to the parents. Why? Because I know of no constitution that gives control over the raising of a child to the government except in extreme situations where the life or health of the chid is at serious risk. What Ms. Bartholet believes turns the very idea of parental rights on its head. According to her, they are not your children, they belong to the government in trust for the society. Therefore the government will determine what they will be taught, how they will be treated, and what the parents will be allowed to do with them.
Right to Literacy
The second article that caught my attention lately involved an opinion out of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case of GARY B., JESSIE K., CRISTOPHER R., ISAIAS R., ESMERALDA V., PAUL M., and JAIME R., minors, v. GRETCHEN WHITMER, et al., Several Detroit students sued several Michigan state officials because they claimed they were denied the right they claim to a basic minimum education. I’ve discussed the question of education being a right before in this blog, but what I want to look at here is the theory behind this case.
I’m sure most, if not all, Americans agree that a good education is important. One of the assumptions in this case, like the one made by Ms. Bartholet, is that the government has the authority to determine educational standards, not the parents. And that if the government run schools are not meeting those standards, the best corrective is to “sue” those who run the schools rather than recognizing the parents’ inherent right to find the best solution for their child.
My wife loves to watch home buying programs. One thing I’ve noticed is how often buying and moving decisions are not made based on the best house for the money, but on what zip code the house is in. Why? Because while making school attendance compulsory, the state mandates that children can only go to the public school that services their address. In effect, the quality of your child’s public school education is based primarily on your zip code. If you want your child to get a better education than the one offered in your local government run school you have to pay twice; once for the taxes for your local school and then again for whatever school where you actually send your children. If you can afford to live in an affluent neighborhood or send your children to a private school, then your child’s options are greater. However, if you live in a lower-income neighborhood and cannot afford private school, your child is doomed by the state to a sub-par education and all the attendant difficulties that brings.
Even living in an affluent neighborhood does not mean your child will get the education you believe they’ll need to help them succeed in life. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, part of the U.S. Dept. of Education) 90% of all students attend public schools. Yet according to the NCES’s Program of International Student Assessment (PISA), United States students rank 13th in reading literacy, 18th in science literacy, and a whopping 37th in mathematics literacy compared to the other 80 countries in the report. This is the same education system, according to studies from the First Amendment Center, that on average between 30-40% cannot name a single freedom protected by the First Amendment, and only one-tenth of one percent can name all five. Unfortunately, we’ve all had the experience of a young person who doesn’t know how to make change unless the cash register tells them what it is or seen the ‘on the street’ interviews of people, including college students and graduates, who can’t tell you who we fought in the Revolutionary War or World War II. They’ve been taught to hate America, knowing everything wrong it has ever done but knowing nothing of the good. They have also been taught that socialism is paradise, yet do not know about the hundreds of millions who have been killed by it. Personal experience has shown me that most high school graduates do not know how to balance a checkbook, understand compound interest, or even understand their role in governing the nation. And this is the education system that these so-called experts say should determine what and how our children learn? These are the people who believe you are unqualified to direct your child’s upbringing.
Conclusion
Let’s face it, too many parents in America have simply handed their children over to the government and expected them to be educated. Most blindly turned over the thing they say they love the most, then turned their backs, expecting the government to raise their children for them. Recent events have shown that many parents view the public schools more as day-care than education.
Should our children be educated? Absolutely! Should the government have a monopoly on the education system? Absolutely not! What started out as an altruistic endeavor to make sure every child has the chance of a basic education has become a trap. Not only are our children not being taught the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics, but many are being indoctrinated with hatred of their own ancestors through a warped and twisted version of ‘history’. They are not taught the basic skills of civics needed to live in a free republic; they are instead taught to bow the knee to an all powerful government. Rather than citizens, our public schools have brought up generations of serfs more than willing to do the will of their masters in government.
If we, as a society, want to offer a free public education system, it should be a voluntary option, something their parents choose. If the public schools cannot compete for students and dollars, if they need the bullies in government to force attendance, then they are failures as an educational system and should reform themselves or close. Forcing students to go to a specific school because of where they live denies thousands, if not millions, of American children the basic education their parents expect. Punishing parents for finding a better alternative is the very definition of tyranny.
Arbitrary or despotic exercise of power; the exercise of power over subjects and others with a rigor not authorized by law or justice, or not requisite for the purposes of government. Hence tyranny is often synonymous with cruelty and oppression.
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
