[audiotrack title="HOW SHOULD WE REGULATE HOMESCHOOLING?" songwriter="1A Radio Show" mp3="https://wpgblog.s3.amazonaws.com/2020/audio/0102201AHomeschool.mp3" ]
Homeschooling in the News
National Public Radio show 1A started the 2020 new year with a show dedicated to homeschooling and the debate on regulation.
From 1A website:
People choose to homeschool their children for a variety of reasons. Maybe they want their child to focus on a certain part of the curriculum. Maybe their child has special needs. Maybe their child has a hard time learning in a classroom environment.
But whatever the reason, there are still guidelines for how a child can be homeschooled. But who gets to decide what those regulations are? And how are they enforced?
Show Guests:
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- Jerusha Lofland 1A listener
- Brian Ray President, National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI)
- Samantha Field Policy advocate, Coalition for Responsible Home Education
Visit 1A Show Page
We want to hear your thoughts!
Leave a comment below on your thoughts about homeschool regulation and the way homeschooling was represented in the news.
Lindsay
I am thankful for those who have fought for our liberty and freedom in America. As someone who was raised in public school, I can honestly say it was a “mixed bag,” much like homeschooling was for the interviewee. I also felt a measure of indoctrination and a lack of safety in some instances at school. I can see, however, that I did have recourse outside my home.
Nikki W
I haven’t been able to listen to much of it, it started buffering and never stopped. I heard her say she was abused. Does she think public schooled kids are not abused? I would say there is more abuse in with public schooled kids because there are more of them. There is also abuse in the school not just from other kids but from faculty. It seems as though every week I hear about another teacher having a sexual relationship with a student. Yesterday, I read about a superintendent who abused a 7 year old girl. Abuse is everywhere. We also need to think about how old she is… I am 47 and I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s. My parents spanked me with a belt often, smacked me often and provided no real guidance in life. I went to private and public.This may be considered abuse now, but it wasn’t back then. Most of us have evolved as a society , we don’t want to spank our kids, especially not with a belt! Think about who her parents might have been influenced by, maybe the Pearls? They encourage hitting for any disobedience and so does Paul Tripp. My mother in law gave me a parenting book written by him and I read it and chucked it across the room I was so disgusted. One thing I do know about the government, give them an inch and they will take a mile. Putting national regulations on homeschooling could be disastrous. They could tell us what curriculum we need to use, tell us we need to take a bunch of standardized tests, basically take away the freedom we have as homeschoolers.
Sharona peterson
I’m 50. I have two kids still at home, we homeschool. When I was in school I was paddled… with a wood bird for skipping class.
Our two older kids went to catholic and public schools… both those schools have numerous accounts of teachers having sex with kids. One teacher, in my daughter’s high school, was pregnant with her students child…. she was married and had two kids already. These places are not safe and my younger kids will never go to those type of brick and mortar schools.
We will move to avoid regulations till they graduate. Our job as parents is to keep our kids safe.
Jeralynne Bobinski
The real interest should be in reversing all of those questions and more toward public schooling.
Angela
Who has authority to regulate homeschooling? Should the government regulate dietary needs of children in the home also? Bad nutrition would have a more detrimental effect than poor education. The children are their parent’s responsibility and not wards of the state. Bad public policy comes from trying to legislate and control for isolated incidences. (I listened to the entire program live.)
I’m familiar with Dr. Ray’s organization. The claim of lack of racial diversity in Dr. Ray’s data without evidence should have been challenged. The other guest did not address the diversity in their own data. Much of the program dealt with people trying to process their childhood and their parent’s decisions. This is a POOR basis to form national or state policy. The discussion had two guests sympathetic to the same side and one guest who had a contradictory view. Regardless of the emotional appeal of personal experiences and strong opinions, public policy should be based substantiated data, peer review published studies and not violate the authority of the parents. Having an “adult” to look in on the children is not a safe guard to prevent abuse. Otherwise, there would be NO abuse in public schools. Why constrain homeschools (type of private schooling) to the levels of public schools. The public schools in many places are not doing well. Why should similar assessment methods be employed on homeschools? No! Let homeschooling families be subject to their state laws and innovate ways to meet the needs of their own children without the government’s “help”.
C.S.
Hi Rebecca,
I listened to the recording of the 1A show on Friday evening. Honestly, I think it was very troubling and biased. Many of us who homeschool are very dedicated to our children’s growth: in academics and in character. We choose to live on less money so that we can pour our lives and energy into our children in order to give them opportunity. This is not limited to choice of political perspective or religion. The picture that Jerusha and Samantha painted of homeschooling, especially of those of us who are conservative and Christian, seemed very distorted from the hard working families that I know. Thankfully, our children do not have to be limited by the mom’s knowledge. Many of us get help in teaching quality math and science, as well as the language arts. My children do not at all “teach themselves;” instead, they learn with a gradual release of responsibility so that they can grow to be independent learners -but still facilitated, guided, and in some subjects still directly taught by a parent in the high school years. The perspective on the 1A program that these women gave of homeschooling was not at all up to date. Years ago, it was hard to find help in teaching high school math. But now – Kahn Academy, youtube, local tutors, coop classes, DVD lessons, and online classes are very common. Many of our children take dual credit courses in high school and earn quality SAT scores. And yes, many of us DO see the value of standardized testing. As homeschool students, our children have the blessing of a caring parent putting together an educational plan for them. Many children thrive with a well thought out Individualized Educational Plan. Many of us are former school-teachers, too. The quality curriculae available today to help families in this journey is very different from that with Jerusha and Samantha describe. It saddens me that this program on homeschooling did not include interviews with people that are actually succeeding with homeschooling, rather that those who ended up with a less than quality education. The people who hear this program will be influenced in their thinking and possibly in their voting. I thought Brian Ray handled himself very wisely and had a good attitude on the program. In my opinion, the research he shared was much more in line with the families that I know than what the other women described.
Rebecca, The Well Planned Gal
Hi CS,
I agree with you. It was biased, from the start. My goal in posting and informing homeschoolers about this show is to keep us aware of how homeschooling is being presented in the national media.
As I listened, I could relate to Jerusha and Samantha, I was raised in that type of abuse. I wasn’t allowed a high school education because I was a girl. I wasn’t allowed to even think of going to college. I was being prepared for baking, babies, and bare feet. Beyond the academic abuse, there was a great deal of physical, emotional, and mental abuse. All of this led me to many of the same positions these gals had, until I had my first child.
I homeschooled all five of mine, and because I was aware of how homeschooling could be used for wrong reasons, I was very diligent in making sure my kids, girls and boys, had every opportunity. My kids are mostly all adults: married, in college, or in the military. I look back, and homeschooling was the BEST thing I could have done for them. I’m so thankful I had the option.
I understand the negative Jerusha and Samantha were talking about, but I often feel they are stuck in the 70s and 80s. Back in those days, most families were like mine, some extreme and some not so extreme (at least the families I met at homeschool conferences and meetings).
Today, and in the last 10 years, I’ve attended conventions in nearly every state in the U.S. There are still a handful of families who utilize homeschooling to hide abuse, extreme and detrimental religious ideology, and sometimes just plain laziness. But they are few and far between. Most homeschool families I meet prioritize their children above themselves, sacrifice their time, finances, and personal passions to make sure their children have the best start to life. They are raising children who are emotionally healthy, academically excel, and have learned the most important lesson in life, as Jesus taught, which is to love God and love others as yourself.
I hope Jerusha and Samantha take time to get out and meet today’s homeschool families. It seems they are stuck in their own story.