The opposition to homeschooling decries stereotyping and then jumps into it with both feet, utterly failing or refusing to see the amazing diversity that is homeschooling. We do not judge all of public schooling by the failing schools at the bottom, but they would have every homeschool tarred and feathered with the broad brush of insular and ideological/fundamentalist fervor that in no way typifies the entire homeschooling community.

Just as there will be tremendous variance in the educational quality and social experience of public school students hailing from diverse urban settings versus extremely rural ones, and even between students in different neighborhoods and schools within a given city ( cf. NYC specialized science high schools with some of the poorer performing neighborhood schools, for example), there is as much variability in homeschooling.

Why are Bartholet, et al, willing to sacrifice the vast number of homeschools that provide a superior individualized education that embraces diversity for the very few aberrant cases of abuse or ignorance?

Public education woefully fails a very large number of students. Look at the drop out rates and the sad statistics on proficiency in various subject areas. It is patently ridiculous to give institutional schools a free pass to fail, while turning the presumption of innocence on its head and requiring homeschoolers to prove they deserve to be limited exceptions from a presumptive ban. The educational insiders who benefit financially from forcing up attendance numbers in public education are far from the disinterested advocates they would have us all think them.

Homeschooling is about individualizing education for the particular student. Public schools give lip service to differentiation, and then bash those who actually provide it. We have a faculty to student ratio that institutional schools can only dream of.

Stop stereotyping and generalizing on the basis of outdated statistics or the rare anecdote. Religion is no longer the driving motivation of most homeschoolers. Current statistics show that academic quality and safety of the educational environment are the predominant reason people now choose to homeschool.

I am an ivy league educated retired professional who homeschools a highly gifted kid who would be completely underserved in a traditional school setting. I chose to take on the responsibility of catering to his needs. We are part of the NYC homeschool community, which is diverse in every possible meaning of the word, including viewpoints and opinions.

Choice is the key to providing every student with an appropriate academic experience. Homeschooling may not be perfect for every child, but neither is institutional school. Families are free to choose what works best for them, and it will be a sad day if authoritarian busybodies with delusions of superiority take that away.

“Despite participating in numerous homeschool groups and extracurricular activities, I never met a student with religious or political views differing from my own until I arrived at college.”

Do kids who attend Waldorf schools encounter people with conservative viewpoints? What about a public school in Berkeley? The unspoken assumption here is that conservatives would cease to be conservatives if only they were exposed to other viewpoints, and that the government has a compelling interest in making sure they are, lest they remain conservative.

It does not.

“Data showing high performance only represents the experiences of students who took standardized tests and applied to college.”

This is false. Homeschooled children are generally required to take standardized tests throughout their schooling, and outperform their publicly educated peers. Like Bartholet, the author pretends this away.

There is no evidence supporting the trope homeschooled lack for socialization. Again, the evidence belies this, whether or not Harvard chooses to ignore it.

Personal anecdotes (and even this one is light on specifics) aren’t terribly relevant. The previous article misspelled “arithmetic” in its artwork. Am I to therefore conclude Harvard is an institution promoting illiteracy? This is why data are important.

If, in fact, data are just too difficult to collect, that is an argument against government action, not for it.

“For particularly gifted students, homeschooling may be a boon.”

So let parents decide.

Unless it can be proven that homeschooling has MORE problems than traditional schooling, there is no argument. Every “negative” here can be countered by a negative about traditional schooling.
If what’s listed in the article is the worst that you can say about your homeschool experience, then I’d say you didn’t miss out on a whole lot. I went to a small Christian High School that had a prom that was “just how it sounds”. I graduated with less than 100 people; our local homeschool graduation had more graduates than that last year. How did those kids miss out?
Academics always want to talk about the difference in data and anecdotal evidence, but that seems to be all that is presented in the debate against home schooling.

Dear Ms. Powell:

I am a single mom, low-income, secular, raising a lifelong homeschooler. We live in Wyoming, 98% white. We live in a town of 4500 people, isolated in the Big Horn range of the northern Rockies. Yet, my son’s friendships are more diverse than were mine were even though I grew up in a large city in formal education in the highly populated Southeast.

My son’s friendships are both “in real life/local”, and stretch across the globe with online friendships (I am sure you have many such friendships via your own social media interactions).

My homeschooled child’s best friend (in real life) is female with Nigerian roots – and she goes to school. Another good friend is Hispanic, and he goes to school. Yet another close friend has special needs/brain disorder, and he goes to school. They hang out at our house, in the community, and at activities, as well as game together online. In his martial arts program, there have been other non-white students, and students with special needs. We are close with yet another large Hispanic family and have supported each other as our children have grown over years. We are as close as relatives, still, with Muslim friends who moved from being our literal neighbors to another state. Where is our lack of diversity?

Besides all of that – our world is connected. It isn’t isolated like your childhood. The internet brings us to places we might otherwise never go. We have friends (locally, as well as online) who are Christian, Asatru, Atheist, Muslum, and more. My niece is LGBTQ. We are not exclusive.

My homeschooler won 2nd place in regional, and 4th place in the state among – wait for it – not homeschoolers, but government middle schoolers in speech and debate tournaments. Yet, my son has NEVER followed a curriculum. He is a self-directed learner. The world is his curriculum. If he is so isolated, then how on earth did he manage to seamlessly move into the conventional paradigm over a five-week period, and walk away with such awards?

He is a green belt in martial arts and has helped teach the younger students. He has attended after school programs, participated in numerous community activities, and performed in community theatre. Together, my homeschooled son and I established the first local Jr. First Lego League in our town. We traveled twice to state tournaments for robotics. There were many homeschoolers participating in these activities as well as schooled kids.

We’ve taken trips to Chicago and Yellowstone, met up with long distance online friends, and he even took a MOOC on dinosaurs from the University of Alberta when he was five years old and immersed in paleontology (and he performed better than me on the tests).

Did I mention I am a single mom?

Did I mention I am low-income?

Your defenses of Ms. Bartholet are myopic and simply repeat her stereotypes of homeschooling.

I am sorry your parents raised you in a vacuum. But, you do not speak for all or even the majority of homeschoolers. Where is your peer-reviewed research, what are your controls?

What is your foundation for determining what is a normal rite of passage?

After his speech and debate performance, I reluctantly asked my son if he is sure he doesn’t want to go to school. He does not. He enjoys our connection and his freedom to dive down the rabbit holes of his choosing. He knows that schools are the true authoritarian paradigm!

He is an extrovert who rides his bike with schooled friends, hits the popular hangouts and swimming pool, and when his schooled friends are being restricted from life by their parents and institutionalization, he enjoys his online homeschool friends, gaming, and learning about the world through endless sources in media.

My son doesn’t care about the peer-emphasized rites of passage you claim are valuable. He knows in his short life of 12 years, he has already done more, seen more, experienced more, and will have more doors available to him as a result of homeschooling than his peers. His schooled peers will spill out into a void that did not prepare them for the dynamic world beyond the doors where they are not allowed to develop discernment. They can’t even go to the bathroom without asking.

You are wrong about homeschooling. You aced it by overcompensating – all the way to an Ivy League institution. But you still seem indoctrinated, no matter how much you feel you managed to escape your unfortunate childhood prison. I do not mean to be dramatic here, but your experience does not qualify nor quantify predictable outcomes or characteristics for other homeschoolers.

I suggest you heal the child within, forgive your parents, and do some investigation of the myriad developments in self-directed learning. The world has evolved since you entered the Ivy Tower. I wonder if it is you who has never truly experienced the real world.

Sincerely,
Margaret Love Bennett

“But it is far from clear that the average homeschooler fares better academically than they would in conventional schooling.” Ok so they only fare “the same” as conventional schooling but they have one on one experiences that allows them to progress at their own pace rather than the set pace of the curriculum. This aids not only your “particularly gifted students,” but those who need more time to master subject matter. It also keeps them out of the “peer pressure” groups that do so much damage to adolescents while providing an environment free from distractions. I know a number of people who were homeschooled and all of them seem more mature in their decision making. Many of them decided not to follow the crowd and go to college right away preferring to dabble in a number of areas to determine which they liked the best in terms of possible careers. One who wanted to be a doctor became a paramedic but in the end decided medicine wasn’t want he really wanted. Imagine the waste of going to school for four years and then medical school and then finding out this wasn’t what you wanted to do with your life. Another obtained a job with a graphic arts studio and liked it so much he pursued a computer and graphic arts degree through a variety of online and resident courses. He is happily employed as a team leader in graphic arts for a major research laboratory. I also know two PhD’s who would like to work at the same laboratory but are waiting tables at a local restaurant part-time while tutoring high school students during the day. The graphic artist makes $90,000/year while the PhD’s are just making ends meet. Homeschooling paid off for him.

In fact, I know no homeschooled people who are not happy in their chosen professions. As for statistics of going to college and then pursuing graduate degrees, well, that can be highly overrated and should not be used as a yard stick in determining the efficacy of home schooling. The outcome for the individual is what is important and the individual is the object of homeschooling. BTW the would be doctor went to barber school and then opened his own shop. He always has a line of people waiting and has taken on two other barbers. He is happy which is a lot more than can be said for the majority of recent graduate school departees who are looking at a dire job market and tens of thousands in student loan debt.

Bartholet is a little late to the rodeo. A new poll from RealClear Opinion Research has news that she, this author, the teachers’ unions and the public education establishment generally are going to find disturbing;

https://www[dot]federationforchildren[dot]org/national-poll-40-of-families-more-likely-to-homeschool-after-lockdowns-end/

According to that poll, more than 40% of families say they’re now more likely to take up homeschooling or virtual schooling once schools open again. And nearly two-thirds of Americans now say they support school choice that would allow tax money for their children’s education to be spent to send their students to the public or private school of their choice.

Lindsey,

Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholet is advocating for the evil forces of Socialist Solidarity to seize the children as a resource of the state to be trained by the state for the greater glory of the state. You are justifying that goal. Any disapprobation for either of you is well earned.

I don’t share that evil, vile, despicable goal, let’s visit.

The fact that Bartholet has made comments also attacking private schools is a big red flag to me that it isn’t about mandatory reporters getting a look at kids to prevent hypothetical abuse. Private school teachers serve that function.

It’s all about promoting group think and indoctrination. Even those who meet her ridiculous standards for exemption from her proposed presumptive ban are supposed to follow an “approved” curriculum and submit to a certain number of hours in institutional schools.

That ensures exposure to the ideology Bartholet wishes to instill.
It also completely destroys the value of homeschooling in individualizing education to the particular student’s interests, achievement level, and learning style, and ignores the fact that many choose to homeschool to escape substandard curricula and implementation, which result in pathetic proficiency outcomes.

Her totalitarianism is showing despite her faux concern mask.

The thing that makes me frustrated about losing the right to homeschool (which I am worried may happen), is watching my children’s love of learning, creativity, and innovation be trampled by the box you must belong to to succeed in public schools. I have children that I both homeschool and some that are in public school for various reasons, so I can see the difference. It takes years to deschool and regain that natural curiousity. As far as social isolation, my children that were less social to begin with felt more isolated at home and at school. While those who were more inclined to be social were social in both environments as well.

In regards to the research you noted, did you notice that religious homeschoolers actually received higher grades in college than the other groups. They also were more likely to be self-employed (ie Entrepreneurs versus being employed by others). The research also went on to explain that many homeschoolers favor the associates route. My experience has been that they actually will do this during highschool, thus cutting their highschool experience short, but propelling them forward into meaningful work and employment (albeit perhaps less time in college). What this survey fails to actually measure is the meaning and joy that can be found in life beyond money and job status. The research itself acknowledges this. And I would say that most homeschoolers also value finding value and joy in life versus just how much money or education you attain.

What Professor Bartholet wants is the children inside a classroom so that she and her comrades can continue with the leftist indoctrination that has taken over all environments, from elementary school to colleges.

Lots of good points here. The current doctrine of “reducing the achievement gap” is also a reason to homeschool for parents of fast-learning kids. In pursuit of equality at public schools, fast learners are actively discouraged. No parents want that to happen to their children.

>intense groupthink

Hello higher education.