On Christian families who are short on mammon but big on procreation

There is a nice little refutation of Robin West’s blatherings at [URL=http://gaither.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/west-on-the-harms-of-homeschool… Milton Gaither’s[/URL] blog. What is particularly troubling is that [URL=http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/facinfo/tab_faculty.cfm?Status=Fa…] Robin West[/URL] is by appearances a well-educated woman in a position of respect and authority- but her piece is basically an unsupported rant against homeschooling. I wouldn’t accept an essay like this from my own kids- I’d send them back to work and probably ground them from the Wii for thinking they could pass something like that off as a thoroughly researched article.

But- Ms. West responded to Gaither’s critique by saying that her ‘essay’ was a “short pullout of a long project that is very much in progress”. So basically she admits that we shouldn’t take her essay seriously. You can read the original article [URL=http://www.puaf.umd.edu/files.php/ippp/vol29summerfall09.pdf] here[/URL] - in the Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly.

Established in 1976 at the University of Maryland and now part of the School of Public Policy, the Institute for
Philosophy and Public Policy was founded to conduct research into the conceptual and normative questions
underlying public policy formation. This research is conducted cooperatively by philosophers, policy makers and
analysts, and other experts both within and outside of government.
To make its research readily available to a broad audience, the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy publishes
this quarterly journal. Articles are intended to advance philosophically-informed debate on current policy choices;
the views presented are not necessarily those of the Institute or its sponsors.

http://www.nheri.org/Latest/The-Harms-of-Homeschooling-Where-Are-the-Pr…

I’d love to see any responses from her to this article. He raises a number of questions that I’d love to see her address. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for them.

in the comment section at Milton Gaither’s blog that I linked to, and I quoted part of it in my post. I can’t find anything other responses by her as of yet. Hopefully she will get a clue and more thoroughly research topics on which she decides to opine, especially if this essay is the first draft of an extended project regarding homeschooling.

I’m slowly working my way down the comments on the blog you posted, Susan. If you find where she has replied to the NHERI article, could you post them?