WRITE THESE LAWS ON YOUR CHILDREN: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling

There is a review of WRITE THESE LAWS ON YOUR CHILDREN: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling By Robert Kunzman at Home Education Magazine. Mr. Kunzman also has a website called Homeschooling Research and Schlarship.

I found it encouraging to see that he acknowledges that there is no such thing as a typical homeschooler-



Even without comprehensive demographic data, it seems clear from more limited studies and abundant anecdotal accounts that describing the typical homeschooler is about as difficult as describing the typical public school student. Homeschoolers come from all walks of life, and families choose this education option for a variety of reasons—NCES data suggest that “concern about environment of other schools” and “to provide religious or moral instruction” are parents’ most common motivations.



Support and advocacy organizations serve almost every demographic imaginable. A quick check on-line, for instance, lists groups for disabled, Jewish, Latino, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon, single-parent, vegan, Native American, African American, and Muslim homeschoolers (the latter two, among others, claim to be the fastest growing segment of homeschoolers). The growth of online communication seems likely to only increase the available opportunities for networking and support moving forward.



But- Mr. Kunzman believes that education is a ‘public interest’, so homeschoolers should all register with the state and comply with testing and federal standards. He dismisses the idea of applying this to any other aspect of family life, such as health and nutrition. This seems contadictory to me, since there are so many Americans whose healthcare is provided by the gov’t via taxpayers. Why doesn’t it follow that parents should be also required to submit their children for yearly health and well-being checkups and provide documentation of their eating and exercise habits? Is it really worse for a kid to be lacking in academics or believe in young earth creationism but acceptable for them to be obese and in danger of heart disease and juvenile diabetes?

Anyway- I submit this information for your perusal and comments.