There are so many issues in public education today. Funding is an issue, testing is an issue, violence is an issue, bullying is an issue, “No Child Left Behind” is an issue, class size is an issue, special education is an issue – and I’m sure there are a number of other issues that just don’t come to mind right now, but will come to mind after I post this blog entry. With all of these issues, why would any one be upset about a parent’s choice to home school his or her child?
Apparently, an appellate judge in California, has decided that homeschooling is now an issue. Yesterday’s Time Magazine ran an article entitled “Criminalizing Homeschoolers”
which discussed the apppellate judge’s ruling that there was no constitutional right to home schooling and that only parents with teaching credentials would be permitted to homeschool in California. Those parents who are now homeschooling their kids who aren’t licensed teachers are now in violation of California law. The backlash from the Christian community was swift, but it is not just the Christian community should be upset about this. Every parent should be upset about this!
I don’t know if there is a way to put this delicately, so I’ll just say it outright. Where do judges – and school districts, for that matter – get off telling parents how to educate their children?
Public schools are in place and paid for by the taxpayers as a service. For a lot of kids and families, public schools work great. In 15 years as a public middle school and high school teacher, I’ve seen many public school success stories of happy, healthy kids who strive for success in academics and sports and achieve. But. . . I’ve also witnessed many public school failures. Kids who for one reason or another do not blossom and find their place in the public school setting, and who fail. That doesn’t mean that public school teachers and administrators don’t care or that they are incompetent or that they didn’t try hard enough, it just means that as hard as they try, teachers and administrators cannot make every decision and respond to every need for every child. Parents need to do that – and if a parent decides, for whatever reason, that home schooling will provide a richer and more suitable education for his or her child, then that should be the parent’s choice.
Not every parent wants to home school their kids. I’ve talked to a number of parents, frustrated with the public school system, without the means to pay for private school, who would never consider home schooling. Why? Because parents who choose to homeschool their kids take on a heavy burden. Parents who are home schooling are networking with each other, discussing curriculum and texts, having their kids tested privately to make sure their kids are on grade level, arranging meaningful fields trips and activities, and preparing their kids for SATs. Every homeschool parent that I know works very hard to make sure their kids are receiving a top notch education. For some parents, homeschooling is temporary, a means of helping a student through a difficult time in preparation for a return to public school. For others, home schooling is a permanent arrangement with students progressing through grades on their way to college.
Home school students are winning spelling bees, mock trial competitions, and awards in music. They are also getting accepted to Ivy League schools – AND let’s not forget, are getting coveted acting jobs in Hollywood. For a lot of families homeschooling works, so why should those families be denied the chance for success?
Home schooling is not for everyone, but neither is public school or private school. If parents want to put in the time and energy to provide an alternative education for their children, I don’t understand why that is an issue? And I certainly don’t understand why that would be a crime?
I have mixed feelings about this issue…the students I know who were homeschooled were home due to medical issues, therefore this may be a different argument. One who I had in my classroom returned after being homeschooled for a year, and that individual was clearly behind the rest of the students. But is that a reflection of homeschooling in general, her experience, or her disability? I’ve also had to maintain lesson plans for several students who were homeschooled, and often times much of the depth of the lessons–which developed through interactive discussion–had potential to be lost.
As I said, these situations are different from a parent who may just as well supplement a child’s education. But in these instances, I believe those particular students would have benefited further from being in the classroom.