Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
Homeschoolers are funny.
Catch us in the right mood and we can be vocal and convincing apologists for our cause. We’ve found something good and we want to share it with the world. Mention to a homeschooler that you’re thinking of taking the leap and prepare for a lengthy monologue on the benefits of home education and the demerits of traditional schooling.
This is how we behave in person, and occasionally online, when we feel protected and at ease, which is most of the time. But catch us when we’re feeling vulnerable and persecuted, and you’ll get the opposite of vocal and convincing. You’ll get reticent and defensive.
Most homeschoolers are certain that, given the power to do so, certain hostile elements of the progressive education establishment—the teachers’ unions and their political allies—would force our kids into the public school system. Merely contemplating this possibility darkens the mood of a homeschooler.
When we’re feeling this way, as we often are these days, the last thing we want to do is draw attention to ourselves. We worry that if word gets out about this good thing we’ve found, someone will find a way to take it from us.
And so it is that I read something like Glenn Harlan Reynolds’s recent op-ed in USA Today with a weird mixture of gratitude and foreboding.
Traditional public schools haven't changed much for decades (and to the extent they have, they've mostly gotten worse). But the rest of the world has changed a lot. The public who eagerly purchased Henry Ford's Model T (available in any color you want, so long as it's black!) now lives in a world where almost everything is infinitely customized and customizable. That makes one-size-fits-all education, run on a Fordist model itself, look like a bad deal.
Indeed. What if I wanted to customize my kid's education in the traditional environment? What if, say, I wanted her to learn math Montessori-style but to do old-fashioned rote memorization for English vocabulary and history? The typical third grade social studies curriculum focuses on geography and community. What if I felt it a better direction for my 8 year-old to learn about Roman civilization?
I think it fair to say that this plan would meet with some resistance on parent-teacher night.
For good or ill, technological advances have revolutionized the way we consume and experience just about everything. Yet education has proved strangely immune to disruptive innovation. We’ve figured out how to bypass the gatekeepers in realms such as politics, entertainment, medicine, the media, and many, many others, but we’re still operating our primary school system on a model that was developed in Prussia in the early 19th century.
As Reynolds notes, folks are removing themselves from the system in ever-greater numbers.
At some point, it's a death-spiral: As kids (often the best students) leave because schools are "notoriously inadequate," the schools become even more notoriously inadequate, and funding—which is computed on a per-pupil basis—dries up. This, of course, encourages more parents to move their kids elsewhere, in a vicious cycle.
And this is where the homeschooler’s default paranoia rears up. My guess is that as this vicious cycle accelerates so too will the efforts of the entrenched interests to outlaw or severely limit alternatives to the traditional public education system. That fight—between a gigantic, well-funded network of state and national teachers’ unions and a poorly organized, unfunded, and dispersed network of American homeschoolers—will be really unfair.
“Who will win out in the end?” Reynolds asks. “Well, how many 19th century business models do you see flourishing, here in the 21st?”
I wish I shared his optimism. Part of me wants this fight. The other part just wants to be left alone.
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Comments:
Nov '10
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
For what it's worth, I'd bet on YOU. Parents will go to super human lengths for their children. If I were a teachers union thug or bureaucrat I'd tread carefully.
Apr '11
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
If you were left alone you would already have won. That is what you will have to fight for. The right to not be bothered.
Nov '10
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
I echo every sentiment you have about homeschooling. One interesting side effect of being a homeschooling parent has been the new awareness of just how libertarian I am when i had always percieved myself as a mainstream rebublican.
"Don't tread on me" has, for me, become more than just a slogan from history.
Feb '11
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
Part of the problem is that the spending is seen as necessary and parents will fight to superhuman lengths to pass any budget the district proposes, even if it is only increasing the amount of spending per teacher in terms of benefits and salary and not per student in terms of increased art classes, music, etc.
In my bloated school district, the budget passed with a greater than 2% tax increase even though NY passed a law against tax increases greater than 2%, but still decided not to fund arts education. So instead of expressing their outrage by organizing opposition to the disgusting budget, demanding $$ for students, not unions, parents got together and raised the necessary funds to give the $$$$ to the school district for these classes.
If I were a union thug or teacher bureaucrat, I'd snicker and laugh at the poor rubes who I got to roll over and throw money at me yet again. For the children!
May '10
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
Matthew, you and Ursula are probably too young to remember HR6. That was a measure that George Miller (D, NEA) tried to have passed through congress that would have required all teachers, including homeschool parents, to have teacher certification (or something like that, it's been some years).
The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) mobilized its members (this was almost pre-Internet BTW) and the Capitol switchboard melted down. And stayed melted down for days. And remained melted down until the legislation was withdrawn (nobody accepted "trust me").
Similar things have occured at the state and local level throughout the years.
The homeschool mom is the direct descendant of the pioneer woman with a baby on one arm, and a rifle on the other. The homeschool dad the descendant of the Minuteman. Over and over the politicians and teacher union thugs have learned the hard way to find someone else to pick on.
That said, my wife and I having started homeschooling in a time and place when homeschoolers were being hauled off in handcuffs (Texas, early 1980s) my advice is to new homeschoolers is: 1. Join HSLDA, 2. Keep good records, 3. Keep a low profile.
Jul '11
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
A few years ago a friend of mine that was the CFO of a big city school system ask me to sit in on a meeting. A major corporation had given the school system $500,000 to invest in student technology training and he want an IT guy perspective on the plans the interest parties (department, union, etc.) were presenting. After the meeting he apologized for wasting my time. Not one thing presented involved purchasing IT equipment or training or even students classes. They just viewed it as a pot of money that they could get teacher raises, bonuses and new positions out of. Only the CFO seemed to think the gift should be used for the purposes it was given, the others thought he was being difficult. It was sad.
Dec '11
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
If I were a homeschooling parent, I'd feel equally ill at ease; look at the way in which 'progressives' have managed to underplay the obvious successes of the charters and stifle their development. The demise of Michelle Rhee's career as D.C. chancellor is one of the most unfortunate examples.
Feb '11
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
I wish I could view your story as anomalous, but I can't... thanks for sharing it.
Jan '12
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
From the viewpoint of the government, homeschooling is just as much about the independent citizen thumbing his nose at the state's efforts to corral and brainwash the next generation, as it is about making accommodation to individual teaching styles.
I am praying that with the advance of the on-line classroom (such as good quality instruction offered at Prager University) will come a tidal wave of interest and participation, whose numbers and force will render the homeschooling movement one of many legitimate alternatives to the 'state' option (as Federal Express, UPS, etc. have done to the Post Office).
Edited on January 17, 2013 at 1:46amRe: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
If it prompts you to write such beautifully wrought posts, Matthew, I'm all in favor of your succumbing to paranoia.
Welcome to Ricochet! And congratulations on having become a father again...for the fourth time.
Aug '12
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
Out of curiosity: Did anyone here read the article on educational pluralism in First Things recently?
Aug '12
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
Here's the link: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/11/the-case-for-educational-pluralism
Dec '12
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
There should be a law that requires all homeschoolers to join the Home School Legal Defense Association. They were there for my wife and me when the Hawaii Department of Education came calling.
Apr '12
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
Mama Toad
I wish I could view your story as anomalous, but I can't... thanks for sharing it.
In high school, our football team's funding outgrew limits. (From memory, they won one game in my six years of high school. It was when the team from Canada couldn't make it because of a blizzard.)
So they started charging every other activity all the same fees as football, and calculated "equipment costs" by adding up the costs of everything and dividing by expected number of kids. So my "sport," which was basically team Jeopardy and hadn't gotten new equipment since at latest the 80s, got charged for new pads, uniforms, field upkeep, and buses.
They also kept a math teacher whose approach to the subject was to copy examples from the back of the book and then tell us it wasn't his job to teach, it was ours to learn. Because he was the coach.
Yeah, I'm thinking homeschooling, even without the local sex scandals.
Feb '11
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
I wouldn't be too concerned about your desire to be left alone, Matthew. It is normal for one's first instinct to make one hunker down when one's children/family are threatened. However, in real life situations, the protective reaction is almost always followed a millisecond later by a stronger instinct to fight back. Personally, I believe in the pre emptive strategy of challenging any criticism of homeschooling with accurate information. No matter how mild and no matter the source, we owe it to our fellow homeschoolers not to surrender the narrative to the opposition, ever. Conservatives are way too polite.
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
Thank you for all these words of support and sympathy. And thanks Peter for the well wishes -- it's great to be here and great to be a father yet again.
Homeschooling has always felt like a one-step-at-a-time type project for the Hennesseys. We're now a little over a year into it (with our oldest daughter, who is 8--our son, who is 4, gets some of it, too), but we've grown much more attached to the whole notion as the months have gone by. It feels like freedom at a time when that feeling is harder and harder to come by.
I can tell you for sure that I'm no Minuteman, and Ursula is no pioneer woman. We just some Generation X'ers making it up as we go along and doing what we think is right by our family. The Constitutional drama that is playing out before our eyes suggests that I am not wrong to worry about the loss of the freedom to homeschool. The threat is latent, but it's real.
Feb '11
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
Simon Templar
There should be a law that requires all homeschoolers to join the Home School Legal Defense Association. They were there for my wife and me when the Hawaii Department of Education came calling. · 16 minutes ago
A law? Really?
Dec '12
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
Mama Toad
Simon Templar
There should be a law that requires all homeschoolers to join the Home School Legal Defense Association. They were there for my wife and me when the Hawaii Department of Education came calling. · 16 minutes ago
A law? Really? · 54 minutes ago
Not really, attempt at irony. Real objective was to reinforce Nick Stuart's advice.
Edited on January 19, 2013 at 5:07amDec '12
Re: Holler or Hide: The Homeschooler's Dilemma
In Illinois, homeschools are considered private schools. Two years ago a now-retired Illinois Senator (Maloney, D-18) proposed a bill that would require homeschoolers to register with the state (the "fear" was that homeschoolers were "falling through the cracks"). The uproar was tremendous. Homeschoolers converged on Springfield, were polite, well-informed, and well-behaved. Maloney tabled the bill and no one has tried since. Then everyone went back into their bunkers. From time to time there are Regional Superintendents (who otherwise basically stamp the back of public school teacher certificates and do little else, even Pat Quinn tried to get rid of them) who try to encourage truant officers to roust homeschoolers, but it seems isolated. I do know a number of people who have had minor difficulties...snide comments from crossing guards, etc.
HSLDA seems to come into a situation and negotiates some sort of deal with the government: "they wanted you to do X, Y,Z, but you only have to do X." Very few here wanted HSLDA to do any negotiating. I'm not a member. I don't want them to help homeschooling in Illinois become like it is in Pennsylvania--draconian regulations.