One of the more significant social and political consequences of the
coronavirus pandemic is the fact that countless American parents of public
school-enrolled children suddenly find themselves faced with the daunting
prospect of having to homeschool those kids for an indefinite period of time. When
normalcy returns, most of those families, who for various reasons are unable or
unwilling to continue homeschooling, will simply fall back into their old
groove and schooling will resume as before. But many parents may find
themselves enlightened and excited about homeschooling’s benefits and how it
actually operates, as opposed to common misconceptions, which are usually
pejorative. This is a possibility that the secular leftist elites in education will
not tolerate.
Decades ago progressive activists realized that revolution was best
brought about not through overt attacks on the Establishment, but through
subversion from within its structures – in particular, the field of education. After
all, children are the future, and thus the surest and most direct way to mold
the future is to mold impressionable young minds who are a captive audience for
progressive, social justice indoctrination. This is why domestic terrorists
like Barack Obama’s ghostwriter Bill Ayres and his (literal) partner-in-crime Bernardine
Dohrn abandoned bombmaking for the Weather Underground and became respected,
credentialed educators working primarily with children (Ayres earned two
master’s degrees in Early Childhood Education and a doctorate in Curriculum and
Instruction; the law professor Dorhn is one of the founders of the
Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law).
The secular left is terrified of losing control of America’s children
to homeschoolers, who tend to be (but are not always) conservative and often
religious. The secular left also resents the notion of parental control; after
all, as former MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry put it bluntly in a network
promo several years ago, “We have to break through our kind of private
idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and
recognize that kids belong to whole communities.” Harris-Perry too was a college educator. In light of developments due
to the pandemic, the left is gearing up to clamp down on any increased interest
in homeschooling.
One example of the left’s offensive against homeschoolers: the Daily Caller reports that in June, Harvard Law School will be
hosting an invite-only “homeschooling
summit” to discuss the “problems of educational deprivation and child
maltreatment that too often occur under the guise of homeschooling, in a legal
environment of minimal or not oversight.” The event, which will host speakers
from education and child welfare policy backgrounds as well as academics,
policy advocates, and legislators, is sponsored by Harvard Law School’s Child Advocacy Program,
in cooperation with the Academy on Violence and Abuse, the American
Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, the Institute for Human Services,
the New York Foundling, the William & Mary Bill of Rights Institute, and
the Zero Abuse Project. Note how many of those organizations focus on child
abuse. That’s because homeschooling parents are often demonized as abusers of
their own children in order to justify government intrusion – oops, I mean “oversight”
– into private homes.
In the article she states that “society loses out” when parents
homeschool their children, and homeschooled children are not instilled with the
“skills needed to participate productively in society as adults through
employment” and will grow up “alienated from society, ignorant of views and
values different from their parents.” This is absolutely false. On the
contrary, Americans are more aware than ever now that it is our disastrous public school system that churns out students ignorant of their
own history and alienated from their parents, their country, their culture, and
their God. Our school system from pre-K through graduate school has shifted
from transferring knowledge and life skills to children, to indoctrinating them
in a social justice agenda while demonizing other viewpoints and even Western
culture itself as rife with intolerance, bigotry, racism, and capitalist
exploitation.
Bartholet claims that “many” (how many is “many”?) homeschoolers “promote
racial segregation and female subservience” and teach their children to – gasp
– “question science.” (When progressives use the phrase “question science,”
what they mean is that no one should question the leftist politicization of science. They see science not as a method of observation and
investigation, but as a belief system that it is blasphemy to “deny,” at least
when its conclusions conform to their agenda. Leftists are perfectly
comfortable denying science – basic biology, for example – when it doesn’t suit
their political needs.)
Bartholet continues her smearing of homeschoolers: “Some homeschooling
parents are extreme religious ideologues who live in near-total isolation and
hold views in serious conflict with those generally deemed central in our
society. For example, some believe that women should be totally subservient to
men and educated in ways that promote such subservience,” her article reads.
Another speaker and co-organizer is Prof. James Dwyer of William and
Mary School of Law, who argued in his 2001 book Religious Schools v. Children’s Rights that “fundamentalist Christian and Catholic schools may be damaging to
children,” through the “excessive restriction of children’s basic liberties,
stifling intellectual development, the instilling of dogmatic and intolerant
attitudes” as well as “excessive guilt and repression.” Girls especially risk a
diminished self-esteem, the book’s summary says. He argues that state policy should
be to focus on what is best for children “from a secular perspective.” Because leftist
elites, and not parents, know what is best for our children.
A third speaker is Robert Kunzman, associate professor at the
Indiana University School of Education and author of Write These Laws on
Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling, who
also argues for a secular perspective
in education and for government “regulation” of homeschooling.
My wife and I are
conservative Christians and we have homeschooled our young children from day
one. We intend to keep doing so all the way through the college level if
necessary. Why? Because as I’ve noted, the leftist-dominated education system from
top to bottom is a toxic mix of incompetence, political indoctrination,
bureaucratic indifference, and increasing lawlessness among the students
themselves as school authorities refuse
to discipline certain demographic groups. We homeschool because studies
show that homeschooled children are better-educated, better-socialized, and
better behaved than their public school peers. We homeschool because it
strengthens bonds within our family and among our community of like-minded
homeschoolers. We homeschool because we want the best for our children and for
our country. We do not, as leftist educators and politicians would have you
believe, chain our children in the basement, beat them for failing to memorize
the Old Testament, and have them salute the Confederate flag. We teach them to
think and read broadly and critically. We teach them that science is an ongoing
process, not a dogma. We teach them life skills. We pass on our Judeo-Christian
values, which built the greatest, freest, and most tolerant civilization in human
history. We teach them to appreciate our culture, our country, and our God. We
are raising free American patriots, and we’re part of a surging number of
American parents doing the same. As the coronavirus pandemic introduces even
more parents to this option, watch the intolerant cultural Marxists of the left
wield all the power and hate they can muster to suppress us.
From FrontPage Mag, 4/16/20
