Answering the Same Homeschool Objections . . . Again

I started home educating my oldest son when he was in first grade. Unhappy with the private school he was attending, and a bit concerned about the condition of the public schools in the area, my husband and I decided to try homeschooling.

I was working for a large mortgage bank in the legal department, but I had attended college in order to become a teacher. The idea of teaching my own child sounded like bliss. So we went for it.

In these last 20 years, I have heard the same objections to homeschooling again and again. They have been addressed over and over, in newspapers, magazines, by educational establishments and research projects, but that doesn’t stop people from asking as if they are the first person on earth to imagine them.

Moderndaychris is a blogger, and a junior at Gettysburg College, studying American Studies, Music, and Education, with many exciting opportunities in his future. To that I say, “Congrats, and go for it!”

He is again asking questions, often in the form of accusations, at this post “The Home School vs The Public School.” So I thought I’d answer a few of them.

First, I want to say that I do not view public education and home education as opposites or adversaries. They are both legitimate options for parents. Private education is also in the mix as a valid choice when deciding where their child will receive academic instruction.

I can understand that for many people, having only experienced public education or the traditional classroom, it is difficult to imagine that a parent could provide anything similar in their own home.

Of course, that assumes that I want to provide something similar to public education.

However, the idea that public schools are the only place where students can learn teamwork, converse about modern culture and entertainment, or debate ideas, is incredibly narrow-minded for someone who claims to have a broad view of the world.

Are we supposed to believe that a classroom is the only way to learn about the ‘real world’? How much ‘real world’ experience happens in a classroom? I’ve been in the world for 47 years, and the last time I was in a classroom as a student was in 1989. The rest of my life has been ‘real’, I am almost sure of it. I’ve married, had a couple of careers, four children, read books, traveled a little, and enjoy being involved in our community. I’ve been a volunteer in nursing homes, helped train service dogs for disabled children, and learned sign language in order to communicate with the deaf. My Spanish really stinks, though. But I am really, really sure that this is the real world.

We are also supposed to believe, according to Chris, that only in public schools are we going to meet folks of different ethnicities and cultures. That is certainly news to all of us who have not been in public schools for lo these many years, and yet manage to have many friends, acquaintances, and business associates who are from a variety of backgrounds. Since, as a homeschooler, my kids are not excluded from these regular interactions, as well as forming relationships on their own, I am sure that this news about how their black, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, Christian, and agnostic friends are quite possibly figments of their imaginations will be a great disappointment to them.

Oh, and while every private school in America is also only attended by people of one ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic background, somehow every public school is rich in ethnic, socio-economic, and religious diversity. Apparently even the ones in suburbia and inner cities. Neat-O. And in public schools, kids are introduced to new ideas, allowed to make their own decisions, and never forced to comply with or internalize what the teachers believe. Ever.

Chris asks some specific questions that he believes will get to the heart of the difference between public schools and homeschooling:

Does your child feel comfortable interacting with students the same age? Are they able to work with students they generally don’t feel comfortable around?

Yes. They are around all kinds of people for various reasons at regular intervals. I’m not going to expound on where we go and what we do and how we live our lives.

But wait—Chris says that social situations can be manufactured by the parent to ensure the child’s comfort, thereby robbing him of any social challenges.

[I]f the child is involved in tennis than [sic] the students that child is working with are also interested in tennis, where as [sic] the students in public school all share a diverse interest and you can maintain a friendship whether child A likes tennis or child B doesn’t like tennis.

To which I say, “Huhwha?”

Chris is attempting to point out the flaws in the ‘homeschool system’, because no system is perfect, and apparently he has had some unpleasant experiences with homeschoolers who have claimed to be perfect, or that homeschooling is always flawlessly performed by perfect homeschooling parents and perfect homeschooled children.

Okay—valid point. People aren’t perfect, therefore any system or methodology invented by or utilized by man is highly unlikely to ever reach perfection. Except for coffee makers and curing bacon, without which the world would dissolve into oblivion, as life would no longer be worth living.

Homeschooling, however, is not a system. It is an education method used by individual parents who wish to have the freedom and flexibility that homeschooling allows.

Some families are religious, some are not. Some are two-parent homes, some are not. People of various ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds are homeschoolers. Many military families are able to provide a consistent education experience in spite of moving from base to base at regular intervals. Athletes often opt to home educate so that they can focus on their sport. Musicians and artists also are grateful for the freedom to spend time honing their skills.

Homeschooling isn’t just about parents wanting their kids to receive a top-notch education, although that is often a motivating factor at the outset. Once parents begin the homeschool journey, they realize the abundance of opportunities available for their kids to get a taste of the real world by living in it, volunteering in it, apprenticing in it, and getting a job in it. As opposed to spending day in/day out in the same few rooms on the same campus with 30 kids their own age.

By the way, Chris, have you ever seen a John Hughes movie? Just askin’.

Let’s get to the point: this means that public schools aren’t perfect either. There are awkward and shy and sociopathic kids in public schools. There are learning gaps, and some kids still fall through, no matter how much we try not to leave any child behind. There are teachers who are unbelievably dedicated and awesomely creative, but are hamstrung by NCLB, CCS, and teaching to improve standardized test scores. There are also teachers who are violent, sexual predators. There are kids who don’t want to learn who consistently disrupt the class, thus ensuring that the material is not covered properly. There are buildings in disrepair, and schools that do not have the staff or funds to provide teaching and training in the use of new technologies.

If I were to employ Chris’ debate methods, I’d make a case against public education by pointing out that jails and mental institutions all over America are jam-packed with people who graduated from a public school. But I am not going to pit one straw man against another in a divisive attempt to ‘prove’ that public education can make you criminal or make you crazy.

Chris is right though—no system is perfect. So I traded in the imperfect public school experience for the imperfect homeschool experience. My kids and I can live with that.

Chris ends his blog post with this statement:

In order to better understand the world you must interact with it, become apart of it, and understand it.

I agree, Chris. That’s why we homeschool.

Susan R Bio

Susan is West Virginia born and raised, and now lives in SW Ohio with her loving and supportive husband. She has four energetic and imaginative kids, an elderly-but-feisty mom, and an attack Yorkie. The Rabers have been dedicated homeschoolers since 1994. Their firstborn graduated in 2006 and has gone on to serve in the military and start a life of his own.

Discussion

[GregH] I have noticed that when someone is losing an argument, they want to start nitpicking about terms. That is what I suspect you are doing here. What I am saying is all your discussion about the differences between compulsory attendance and truancy are meaningless in the context of the bigger question which is this: does the government have the right to tell you how to educate your children?

Defining terms properly is not nitpicking, and in this case, is essential to the article that I posted, which shows how ridiculous it is to hear politicians trying to apply truancy laws to homeschoolers. In this case, you are avoiding answering the question by trying to say there is no difference between truancy and compulsory education. I have shown that legally there is a HUGE difference, and you refuse to acknowledge it.

Your question is “does the government have the right to tell you how to educate your children” and my answer is “No”. They can require me to provide them an education, but they do not have the right to tell me how to go about it.

We are currently studying early American history, and are reading, word for word, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Federalist Papers. I assure you that, according to the laws on which this country was founded, the gov’t does not have the right to tell parents how to educate their kids.

The gov’t is not a separate all-seeing, all-knowing entity. It was framed to operate in symbiosis with the will of the people, and for the primary purposes of regulating such necessary things as foreign policy, military defense, and interstate commerce. It was not formed in order to grant rights to its citizens, but to limit gov’t so that it did not infringe on the inherent (as in “endowed by their Creator”) rights of human beings to their life, liberty, and property.

One of the accusations against King George in the DoI was that he did not follow his own country’s laws, and was using his power to intimidate and punish people who did not bow to his will. Sound familiar to anyone?

The Biblical argument would be that parents have a mandate to nurture their children in the admonition of the Lord, and the gov’t has no say in this matter, and shouldn’t. If we start allowing the gov’t to tell us how to teach our kids, you can kiss creationism and standards of morality good-bye.

You also brought into this discussion that children should be protected from ‘wacky’ parents, and then refused to describe what you mean by ‘wacky’. Another avoidance. Don’t bring it up if you don’t want to have to explain what you mean.

Susan…

Ah, now we are getting somewhere. You admit the government has the right to force you to provide your children with an education. Now what does that mean? Who gets to decide what it means?

If it is you that gets to decide what it means to provide an education to your children, the law is meaningless. You could decide an education just means daily nature walks. That by the way is an example of what I would call “wacky.”

The rational conclusion is that if the government is going to have that law, they are the entity that has to define what it means to “provide an education.” That means they have to provide standards.

In the case of Ohio, they have created a standard of 900 hours (it seems). If a parent ignored that standard, they could be accused of either truancy or breaking the law against compulsory education (once again, who really cares which one they call it).

The same goes for standardized tests. Perfect? No. But they do provide a way to determine if parents are “providing their children with an education.”

is that it is against the law for me to not feed my children, but the gov’t doesn’t have the right to tell me what to feed them. That doesn’t make the law to provide food meaningless, it just means that we recognize that children shouldn’t be allowed to starve. Period.

So whether they eat potato chips and fruit roll-ups all day long, or tofu and sprouts and hummus, neither extreme is against the law, wacky or not by anyone’s definition.

I really care “what they call it” since compulsory education laws are what govern homeschoolers at this point, not truancy laws. If you tell your kids they can have salad before dinner and instead they have cake, and they say “But dad, what’s the difference? They are both food”, you will suddenly find that you do believe accuracy in terminology is important.

Susan, honestly, you are making no sense. If the government has the right to tell you you have to feed your children, they have the right and actually obligation to define what “feed” means. And trust me, they do define it.

They might do it based on calories or some standardized measurement. However, I would suspect they actually do it by checking body weight/BMI or other factors that a doctor would report if he/she suspected neglect. Regardless, there has to be a way to measure it or the law is meaningless.

Your refusal to acknowledge that is just amazing.

Truly amazing some of the things said on here in the comments. I have to wonder about the exposure to homeschooling some people have had.

It was said that our students need a good education to be able to compete globally.

Let us consider how well the guvment schools have been doing on that.

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-17th-global-education-ranking-finland-south-korea-claim-top-spots-901538

My youngest brother recently finished a college course. 5 other kids passed the course. The other 30+ failed it. The other 5 kids were also homeschooled.

I homeschool for several reasons: to provide a better education, to avoid the idiotic political correctness indoctrination, to keep my children from learning about sex and abortion in kindergarden, and to avoid them getting shot or bullied.

God gave my children to me to raise, not the day care or guvment reeducation camps.

1 Kings 8:60 - so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.

[GregH]

Susan, honestly, you are making no sense. If the government has the right to tell you you have to feed your children, they have the right and actually obligation to define what “feed” means. And trust me, they do define it.

They might do it based on calories or some standardized measurement. However, I would suspect they actually do it by checking body weight/BMI or other factors that a doctor would report if he/she suspected neglect. Regardless, there has to be a way to measure it or the law is meaningless.

Your refusal to acknowledge that is just amazing.

For starters, are kids mandated to receive regular checkups at a doctor’s office? If I understand your position correctly, you believe that parents should be required to take their children to a doctor for regular checkups, whether they are sick or not, to determine if the child is being properly cared for.

I could be misunderstanding you, please forgive me if I have.

The standard for abuse and neglect is when the caregiver’s acts place the child at substantial risk of physical or mental injury. There is no caloric count or BMI measurement used to determine neglect either. Abuse and neglect are determined on a case-by-case basis, not on some kind of arbitrary standard. Kids can be underweight based on hereditary factors, and they can be covered with bruises due to athletic activity. Caregivers and doctors look at a huge variety of factors and weigh them against their own insights and experience before suggesting that a child is being abused or neglected.

The point here is that while gov’t does mandate against abuse and neglect, the standards are rather broad. CPS guidelines require that parents provide their children with food, but does not detail what kinds of or how much food.

Compulsory education laws simply mandate that children are provided with an education. They do not address outcomes, or public schools themselves would be in violation of their own standards.

Susan, you continue to go down rabbit trails to avoid the obvious: regardless of what the standards are, regardless of how broad they are, and regardless of whether they are case-by-case or one-size-fits-all, there are government standards for what it means to adequately feed children. You are actually proving my point more than anything.

Likewise, it is entirely appropriate for a government to decide what it means to educate a child based on standardized scores, hours, days, etc. A law without standards means nothing.

I am not trying to debate the position you are trying to place me in regarding mandatory visits to doctors. I was giving an example. It appears to me that you are just trying to misdirect the discussion.

Sorry Greg, but discussing this with you is pointless. Requiring parents to care for and educate their kids is one thing, but mandating the form and time and manner in which it should happen is quite another.

You give examples you think are pertinent, but when I give examples, you dismiss them and make disparaging remarks about my character.

Bon voyage.

[GregH]

Chip, a few things…

1) I don’t have any stats as to what % of homeschool parents are wackier or worse than the public schools. That stat is of course impossible to determine because “wacky” is obviously a bit subjective. However, I never said the majority of homeschooling parents were wacky or doing a poor job. But I think an uncomfortably large percentage of them are. We obviously would disagree on the percentage.

2) I don’t know what scripture you think I am not dealing with, but I am not going to deal with this from the perspective of omission. Just because the Bible does not say “the government should protect children from the wacky ideas of their parents about education” does not mean that the Bible forbids the government from being involved. I do not believe that the Bible sanctions any particular kind of government.

The only scripture that has come up in this thread is Rom 13 which is typically used by conservatives to limit the legitimate function of government to protection. I reject that perspective outright. In other words, just because that is the only function mentioned in that passage does not mean that it is the only function of government that God could sanction. A look at the Israel theocracy tells you that God thinks otherwise.

You don’t have any stats, just a personal feeling about this. But you are willing to throw around aspersions and make pronouncements for others.

You say you won’t deal with omissions in scripture, but you argue without any support from scripture. Sounds exactly like arguing from omission. Guess God simply forgot to include your assertions in scripture. What He did include is Romans 13, which you simply “reject” out of hand. GregH has spoken, so I guess that settles it. GregH gets to overrule scripture where God has spoken contrary to GregH’s reality, and GregH create his own reality where God has not spoken. Poor Adam and Eve (and generations of their descendants) who had to try to raise children within the institution of the family without any guidance or supervision from the God-ordained institution of government. If only God had gotten the creation order right and created government first.

Bottom line, the Bible does not say government should take responsibility for raising, and particularly educating, the children within its citizenry, and the Bible does, repeatedly and emphatically, say parents are solely responsible to raise their children.

Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?

Some objections commonly heard about home education are based on the idea that “public schools are the only place where students can learn teamwork, converse about modern culture and entertainment, or debate ideas”.

The blogger whose post I responded to is of this mindset. He simply does not believe that homeschoolers experience ‘the real world’, and when homeschool parents do send their kids into social situations, they ‘stack the deck’ in their favor, possibly by only allowing their children to interact with their clones.

So- what is ‘the real world’, and do we about helping children gain experience in it?

[Chip Van Emmerik]

[GregH]

Chip, a few things…

1) I don’t have any stats as to what % of homeschool parents are wackier or worse than the public schools. That stat is of course impossible to determine because “wacky” is obviously a bit subjective. However, I never said the majority of homeschooling parents were wacky or doing a poor job. But I think an uncomfortably large percentage of them are. We obviously would disagree on the percentage.

2) I don’t know what scripture you think I am not dealing with, but I am not going to deal with this from the perspective of omission. Just because the Bible does not say “the government should protect children from the wacky ideas of their parents about education” does not mean that the Bible forbids the government from being involved. I do not believe that the Bible sanctions any particular kind of government.

The only scripture that has come up in this thread is Rom 13 which is typically used by conservatives to limit the legitimate function of government to protection. I reject that perspective outright. In other words, just because that is the only function mentioned in that passage does not mean that it is the only function of government that God could sanction. A look at the Israel theocracy tells you that God thinks otherwise.

You don’t have any stats, just a personal feeling about this. But you are willing to throw around aspersions and make pronouncements for others.

You say you won’t deal with omissions in scripture, but you argue without any support from scripture. Sounds exactly like arguing from omission. Guess God simply forgot to include your assertions in scripture. What He did include is Romans 13, which you simply “reject” out of hand. GregH has spoken, so I guess that settles it. GregH gets to overrule scripture where God has spoken contrary to GregH’s reality, and GregH create his own reality where God has not spoken. Poor Adam and Eve (and generations of their descendants) who had to try to raise children within the institution of the family without any guidance or supervision from the God-ordained institution of government. If only God had gotten the creation order right and created government first.

Bottom line, the Bible does not say government should take responsibility for raising, and particularly educating, the children within its citizenry, and the Bible does, repeatedly and emphatically, say parents are solely responsible to raise their children.

For Susan, I hate to admit it but I have to agree with you on something! Our argument is pointless.

And Chip, no offense, but you can be as nasty as you want but you still are not making any case. You talk about me making aspirations and then in the next paragraph, assert that I elevate my opinions over God’s. Nice ;)

Your “omission” argument is flawed. The Bible is not a Constitution nor a specific plan for governments. It is highly dubious to assume that because a government role is not spelled out in the Bible, it is inappropriate for government. And that is why I think my position on this is stronger—I am not going to try to say what the Bible does not say while you are apparently quite ready to do so.

JamesK wonders about my perspective. It might be unusual but I doubt it. My children are involved in a few homeschool groups and I see and hear things that make me queasy. I interact with a lot of homeschool students and often will quiz them a bit to see what their days are like. Too often, their days are very little work and a lot of video games. I hired a guy once who was homeschooled and what he told me over the time he was with me made me want to report the family myself. (I didn’t.) I suspect that there will come a time in the future where homeschooling becomes illegal and partly because of this kind of stuff.

I would not send my children to public school in my county but the county next to me has academic standards that are better than the private Christian schools in the area. They are really on the ball and they are not the only ones around the country. We had some interaction with them because of one of my children and I was highly impressed. I still probably would not send my children there however.

So anyway, I obviously see the problems of government being involved in homeschooling or private schools for that matter. But I certainly see the problems with them not and I see no Biblical reason why they shouldn’t be as long as they are not trumping the beliefs of the parents.

And I certainly see no reason to get nasty about this Chip. I certainly did not get nasty with you. Not sure where you are coming from but I think you need to chill a bit.

Brothers and Sister,

Might be time to take a breather and prepare our hearts for worship tomorrow!

Thanks for the article Susan. It takes guts to write something that can be criticized and picked apart. You write very well.

I felt the iron…

Bill

PS- Greg, I do believe the government has no say in private schools either. And I think Compulsory Education Laws and Truancy find no support in the Bible. Again, i’s a jurisdiction issue.

So I appreciate the passion over here…….

It’s funny - one can guess which threads are going to have some energy. Certainly schooling choice is one of those topics - and for good reason. I think one thing we would all agree on is that our children are precious to us and so the education of those children is also important.

The view I take is that all three forms of education - government, church-based and home school are all legitimate forms of education. When one considers the charter of each God-ordained institution, it seems consistent with each to have a commitment to the education of children.

All three have potential weaknesses: public schools are loaded with open anti-God humanism; Christian schools in some cases bread a kind of artificial “Christianity” through “rule-keeping;” Home schools in some cases do not do the job academically and/or socially. (I’m sure there are more potential weaknesses with each choice)

All three have potential strengths: public schools allow Christian kids a place to stand up for Christ and prepares them for what they will most certainly face in the university and/or the work force; Christian schools (like the one my children go to) take very seriously the aim of a Bible-based approach to every subject and an eye towards equipping kids to face a hostile world with a serious Christian and Bible-based world view. Home schools give parents the most direct opportunity to place their own values in the midst of that which their children learn in each subject. (I’m sure there are more potential strengths with each choice)

Just as the choices are different so each child is different. Each parent must choose what he believes is best for each child. At the church I pastor we will not allow this topic to be a point of division.

Straight Ahead!

jt

Dr. Joel Tetreau serves as Senior Pastor, Southeast Valley Bible Church (sevbc.org); Regional Coordinator for IBL West (iblministry.com), Board Member & friend for several different ministries;

That’s great, Bro. Joel, but generally speaking, no one is lobbying to make public and private schools illegal. Homeschooling parents constantly face opposition, often of the kind expressed in the blog post I answered in the OP, with calls for strict regulation at the expense of taxpayers and the homeschool parents.

So if this was apples to apples to apples, I’d say “That’s great”. But homeschool parents have to be vigilant in a way that traditionally schooling parents don’t in order to protect their educational choice. When’s the last time one of your public/private schooling parents was harassed in public by a stranger for their schooling choices? We have to answer asinine objections regularly, explain how our kids do live in the ‘real world’, and garner support to vote down such silliness as ‘truancy laws’ for homeschoolers.

Most of the rhetoric I hear directed at homeschooling parents when discussing these issues in Christian circles is “Sit down, shut up, and let’s all get along.” Well, we’ll see what happens when gov’t steps into the private Christian schools in this nation to tell churches and admin what and when and how to teach because private schools are too insular and isolated and lack diversity, students are taught creationism, and their civil rights are being violated by the dress code. “Hey, this is a private religious school and the gov’t is overstepping their bounds!” Tell me about it. There’s nothing like the shoe on someone else’s foot for developing empathy.

If you don’t want gov’t in your business, you need to stop them at the moat, and not wait until they are climbing over the walls to decide to defend yourself.

Susan,

It’s a good point you make. I don’t share your passion for home schooling - but if I did, that sort of thing would “light my fuse!” My guess is you’ve thought of this - from “our” side of the isle looking at the home schooling option (which we did for two of our sons for one year - wowzers never again!)……it looks as if there are two types of home-schooling families:

1. Normal people - who really want to teach their children - and who want their children to know how to get along with other people in society.

2. Bomb-shelter-amish type people who really want to brain-wash their children - and who want their children to not know how to get along with other people in society.

So I’m all about wanting freedom’s for the first group without encouraging the second group. The trouble is if you try to limit the second group you undermine the first group - so I think we have to continue to allow freedom and encourage responsibility.

(Susan - I know I could say the same thing about Christian schools and Public schools - there are some individual schools that work hard to be responsible and there are some schools that don’t work hard……at all!)

Straight Ahead!

jt

Dr. Joel Tetreau serves as Senior Pastor, Southeast Valley Bible Church (sevbc.org); Regional Coordinator for IBL West (iblministry.com), Board Member & friend for several different ministries;