For all the stress and strain caused by closing schools and shifting education to the dinner table, it may have also opened the eyes of many parents. That is, there is a reason that around 4% of American parents so far have chosen homeschooling, and, even before the pandemic, the numbers continued to rise.
But that doesn’t sit well with a group of secular academics with a progressive agenda.
Elizabeth Bartholet, Harvard’s Wasserstein public interest professor of law and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, wants to ban homeschooling. In a recent article in the Arizona Law Review she “recommends a presumptive ban on homeschooling, with the burden on parents to demonstrate justification for permission to homeschool.”
And Bartholet and her colleagues are hosting a “Homeschooling Summit” at Harvard. The purpose of the “summit” is, in part, to “convene leaders . . . to discuss child rights in connection with homeschooling in the United States. The focus will be on problems of educational deprivation and child maltreatment that too often occur under the guise of homeschooling, in a legal environment of minimal or no oversight.”
Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? What’s this “educational deprivation and child maltreatment” that these academics are so concerned about?
In an interview in the May-June 2020 issue of Harvard Magazine, Bartholet fortified her case for an outright ban on homeschooling and shed some light on her rather shady agenda and that of her colleagues. In short, their objective is to dissolve the rights of parents to raise and educate their children, and, under the guise of “child rights,” to instill all authority over children in the government.
She uses fear to build her case. She cites isolated and extreme examples as if they are the norm. Her agenda is to portray parents who choose to homeschool as right-wing, racist, backward, and un-American.
For instance, she points to the memoir Educated, by Tara Westover, the daughter of Idaho survivalists who never sent their children to school. Although she did learn to read, Westover said that she received no other formal education at home. Instead, she spent her teenage years working in her father’s scrap business, where severe injuries were common, and she endured abuse by an older brother. For Bartholet, Westover’s case is “what can happen under the system in effect in most of the nation” where homeschooling is permitted and not regulated.
Of course, Bartholet never mentions the homeschooled kids who are healthy and nurtured in loving homes, nor that homeschooled kids tend to excel academically, nor that homeschooling is becoming a preference for parents of various backgrounds and perspectives.
Because the real problem with homeschooling, Bartholet believes, is that it is popular with Christian parents.
According to the article, “Surveys of homeschoolers show that a majority of such families (by some estimates, up to 90 percent) are driven by conservative Christian beliefs. . . Bartholet notes that some of these parents are ‘extreme religious ideologues’ who question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy.”
“Such families” are “extreme religious ideologues.” Since Christian parents are the group most likely to homeschool their children, they must be the worst kind of people, wanting their kids to stay ignorant, live in dirt huts, disdain science, and wander through life hopelessly uneducated.
See, despite the fact that any parent can decide to homeschool, Christians are really the target in her “child rights” agenda. Bartholet and her colleagues are mortified that they might lose the chance to secularize the soft minds of the next generation.
Bartholet’s vitriol against Christians and homeschooling simply confirms the main reason parents choose to homeschool. It isn’t educational. It’s ideological. It’s the clash of values between elitist secularists and parental authority that has fueled the growth of homeschooling. And it is not just a problem for parents who are motivated to homeschool. It’s a problem for Christians who are educators.
Thankfully, educators and jurists who might agree with Bartholet are in the minority. At least for now. Most educators, public and private, and most governments that oversee local education, work alongside parents and respect their values.
But the public school system is a government enterprise, so its values do not always easily align with those of Christian parents or churches, and that also makes it tough for Christians who are educators to navigate the fine line between values and law.
The “Summit” and Bartholet’s agenda remind us that we need to be wise and informed about the educational options we have for our children, we need to be realistic about the conflicting values that shape our children’s lives, and we need also to remember that, first and foremost, what believers have in common is their faith in Christ.
- Christian parents should be supportive of Christian educators.
Whether you have chosen homeschooling or not, keep in mind that vast numbers of Christians serve faithfully in public and private schools. Be sure your church is supporting them as they are often confronted with directives that conflict with their values. Pray for them and encourage them. Teaching is a responsibility that Christians should never take lightly (James 3:1).
- Christian educators should be supportive of parents who choose to homeschool or send their kids to private schools.
Parents should be encouraged to do what is best for their children. What Christian educators and parents have in common are their biblical values, and how they apply that in education. Educators should not be offended when parents choose to homeschool.
Even so, parents who decide to homeschool should be willing to undertake the training necessary. Don’t do what you are not equipped to do. Educating your child is challenging and demanding. Prayerfully determine if the best course of action is to homeschool or partner with educators to fulfill the biblical ideal for your child’s education.
- Churches should partner with Christian parents to foster a biblical worldview in their children.
We should all be alarmed by the agenda of Bartholet and her colleagues. We are always just one generation away from losing our children to a secularized culture that disdains biblical values. For that reason, we have to keep our eye on the ball. Teaching the Bible is important. But teaching a biblical worldview is critical (Deut. 6:6-7).
Contrary to secularists’ claim that Christians are anti-education, historically Christians have advocated a strong education that included science, art, literature, philosophy, and history. From a biblical perspective, all truth is God’s truth (John 14:6). In fact, Christians are the ones who invented public education in America.
A biblical worldview teaches kids how to interpret each discipline from a biblical perspective and how to apply biblical values in culture and in life. Rightly applied, education at home, discipleship at church, and formal education all partner together to achieve the same goal: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37).