Posted on 04/22/2020 12:12:48 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Should homeschooling be banned? Harvard Magazine and one of Harvard’s law professors, Elizabeth Bartholet, think so. This is despite the fact that Harvard University admits an appreciable number of homeschooled students to both its undergraduate and graduate programs every year.
Readers are urged to conclude that there is an educational crisis at hand. Perhaps there is a crisis, but not in the homeschooling community but rather at Harvard.
Let’s deal briefly with the elementary matter of spelling and proofreading. Harvard originally spelled “arithmetic” incorrectly in its illustration of a home-prison depicting an unhappy homeschooled child. It was rendered “arithmatic.” Ahem.
Bartholet argues that homeschooling denies children a meaningful education. In so doing, Bartholet fails to demonstrate any familiarity with valid social science research. The literature demonstrates that homeschooling works very well academically—including in some ways that many would find surprising.
In public schools, family income is a strong predictor of a child’s academic success. In homeschooling, children from lower-income levels not only outscore their public school socio-economic counterparts, but they also score comparably to homeschool students from higher income levels.
The professor then argues that children are not protected from child abuse since they are not in public schools with mandatory reporters. She illustrates this concern by referring to a book written by one girl who claimed to have been raised by Idaho homeschool survivalists.
There would be a temptation to match her singular anecdote with anecdotes arising from the rare situations where public school teachers abuse children. But again, one would expect a Harvard professor to understand the logical problem raised by over-generalizing from isolated examples.
Like the vast majority of parents who choose other forms of education, the overwhelming number of homeschool families are led by good parents who are also good neighbors.
Harvard should also be embarrassed—truly embarrassed—by its professor’s absolutely unsupported assertion that homeschool students will not be able to contribute positively to our democratic processes.
I personally know two homeschool students who are Harvard Law grads and clerked for the U.S. Supreme Court. Another Harvard alum is the current solicitor general of West Virginia. I taught constitutional law to all three at Patrick Henry College. And two more of my PHC students, who were also homeschooled, clerked for the Supreme Court after graduating from the University of Virginia Law School.
Moreover, dozens of homeschooled students in my personal sphere of friends have been elected to state and local offices. One of my favorites is a North Dakota legislator whose family I defended when they were criminally prosecuted for homeschooling him.
Thousands of homeschooled students actively participate in the electoral process every cycle through a program called Generation Joshua.
Studies show that homeschooled students participate in political activity at a higher level than the norm. They are motivated by seeing their own families being directly impacted by the political process.
Perhaps the most troubling thing found in this article is a clear display of bigotry by Professor Bartholet.
She argues that a chief evil at hand arises from the fact that as many as 90 percent of homeschooled children live with conservative Christian parents “who seek to remove their children from mainstream culture.” Such people are “extreme religious ideologues” who “question science and promote female subservience, and white supremacy.”
Any form of bigotry coming from one of its professors should cause Harvard trustees to be concerned. Religious bigotry may be fashionable in some circles, but Harvard expresses commitments to the contrary.
Since Bartholet loves anecdotal evidence, let me answer her charges with my own anecdotes. But let me first explain why my stories are appropriate. Harvard’s article derides an organization I founded: the Home School Legal Defense Association. Through her smears of the movement, she implies that HSLDA is associated with her imagined ills. So, let’s see.
As to her claim of female subservience, three of the four Supreme Court law clerks I personally taught are women. A conservative Christian college producing so many talented women lawyers is not what she has apparently imagined.
And I am the proud grandfather of an African American newborn baby. My daughter-in-law is Nigerian, and my grandson is a dual citizen.
Bartholet conjures up an imaginary profile of conservative Christian homeschoolers—yet, the life of HSLDA’s founder demonstrates how little she knows about a movement she seeks to denounce.
When the pandemic is behind us, I would be happy to come to Cambridge and take Professor Bartholet to dinner. She might be surprised if she actually took the time to finally meet one of the people she misunderstands so much.
Michael P. Farris is the president, CEO, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom (@AllianceDefends) and the founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association.
Good point. Why don’t all of you hard working scientists divorce yourselves from the rest of the college? They are giving you a bad name.
My husband and I co-wrote this letter:
The story headlined '"I just can't do this', Harried parents forgo home school” certainly does paint a dismal, almost desperate picture. However calling the jerry-rigged system foisted on students and parents “home school” is comical to those of us who did or are doing actual home schooling.
As we have reason to believe, we and most homeschooling families put great emphasis in on flexible, responsive teaching. We try to pace things so that each day's tasks are not so hard as to be frustrating, nor so easy as to be boring. Our goal is not so much acceleration, but enrichment.
Truly, what was described by the "I can't do this" parent was grueling, not schooling. Being controlled by video programs which impose remote-control straitjacketing: yikes, that's a formula for frustration and failure every single day.
Bottom line, successful home schooling is not a matter of doing the institutional model in a different location.
They are finding out how dismal much of the public school "curriculum" is and how poor the material they use is.
Many of the insane "teaching methods" the teachers have been taught are becoming apparent too.
All of that is why we homeschooled.
Using the public school crap is NOT homeschooling.
It is public schooling at home.
Hopefully parents will figure this out.
Harvard, an overrated University. I’d rather hire someone from Hillsdale than someone from Harvard. Ivy League, more like Poison Ivy League...
Public schools (and even some private schools) are child abuse...I love homeschooling.
“I’m old enough to remember when Harvard had successfully concealed the fact that they were a joke.”
Perfect! Harvard is an average school with a big endowment, and way too many connections to government.
By meaningful education, I assume she means churning out more brainless leftists, like the colleges?
Teacher admits he helped write Common Core to end white privilege
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ8Nr3_2724
The state of New York recently passed a law requiring prospective school teachers to take a literacy test to get their license, but repealed it the following year because 36 percent of whites, 54 percent of Hispanics and 59 percent of blacks failed on the first try.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/nyregion/ny-regents-teacher-exams-alst.html
80% of NY City HS grads can’t read at grade level
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/03/80_of_ny_city_hs_grads_cant_read_at_grade_level.html
....Why don’t all of you hard working scientists divorce yourselves from the rest of the college?...
Because we benefit from at least some of the other parts of the University!!!! (It’s too bad, however, that conservative members of the University are kept from openly criticizing the lunacy of our leftist and globalist colleagues, especially in the upper reaches of the Harvard administration!!!!)
That also applies to why the stimulus money should go to the University as a whole. Students, faculty, and staff throughout the University are hurting from the shutdown, and it’s very difficult for even those working on the pandemic to keep going. Then there are also all the other worthy areas of research that have been shut down altogether—cancer, dementia, diabetes, genetic diseases, etc. It will be hard to start up much of this research again!!
Well, Harvard won’t take the stimulus money after all.
That is amazing! Your children will turn out great!!
Have three grandsons that were home schooled, 1 works HR in California. Married a well to do girl, another owns a sports training in Dallas and the middle one is an orthopedic surgeon in Texas.
PROUD ‘papa’ I am, I am! LOL! They didn’t take after me, my Lady had all the smarts!!!
Agree with the abuse sentiment. Now days it is mostly ‘indoctrination’, there are a few that still teach but few and far between. Sad!!!
You will be far ahead of your peers.
[Just don’t tell them though!] LOL!
Good luck(!!!) and keep on the right track and mainly learn to think things out.
All this from an eighty-five y.o. greatgrandfather! :^)
DeplorableAmerican1776 (aka my dad) and my mom said that they aren’t the smartest in their families. Dad grandfather was a nuclear engineer (Dad read the books he had on chemistry and I do too now. Dad’s mom was an accountant, Mom’s dad is a computer programmer and mom’s mom is a Interior Decorator...Dad said he is just a business owner (his brother owns a marina, his sister works for MetLife.) Mom brother is a doctor,mom’s other brother is a engineer and her sister is a programmer.
Your comments gave me a big smile. Thank you, proud papa!
I see you carefully evaluated and selected the right family tree...
Mrs. Don-o,
Thanks very much! Love smiles!!!!
And laughter!
Take care........pilgrim
WOW!!
You do have some ‘smarts’ in your background.
One of the smartest men I ever knew did not have a high school diploma, but he knew more than most college graduates. It is what is inside and think you have ‘it’!!
That is a great heritage. Something for you to live up to.
Seeing you are here and reading some of your posts, you are ‘head and shoulders’ above the normal run of the mill ‘young’ns’ It is a privilege to converse with you!!! Anytime!
Thanks and take care........pilgrim
The Left never stops, and this is them opening up another front in the ongoing cultural war against Christians and traditional Americans. The first step is to challenge a previously unexceptional part of American life and culture as “extreme,” “racist,” or “out of the mainstream.” (The mainstream, of course, is always defined by the Left.) Once the challenge has been laid down, another normal part of America is suddenly “controversial.” The next step is to define those who support the suddenly “controversial” practice as evil - they themselves must be extreme, racist, and out of the mainstream. But very few are willing to bear the stigma of being defined that way, and thus another piece of America is wiped out by the Left.
Mr. Farris deserves a lot of credit for founding the Home School Legal Defense Association. They do more than just play defense on the leftists’ latest chosen battlefield, but also try to advance the liberty of home schoolers.
One more thing - Mr. Farris should probably give up on the idea of having dinner with Elizabeth Bartholet in an attempt to convince her of anything regarding home schooling. She’s not interested in facts, she’s interested in moving the “Overton window” to eliminate home schooling.
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