The Coronavirus pandemic has most states suffering from lockdowns, financial woes, loss of jobs, and education trials. While online learning has become more popular in higher education, COVID-19 has forced elementary and high school students and their parents into the new world of internet schooling. But some are not happy with the new development, warning about the dire consequences of homeschooling. Prof. Elizabeth Bartholet goes one step further, proposing a “presumptive ban” on the practice because, in her opinion, it promotes white supremacy.
Bartholet -- a professor at Harvard, Wasserstein public interest professor of law, and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program (CAP) -- was featured in a Harvard Magazine article titled “The Risks of Homeschooling.” In the piece, she associated homeschooling with promoting racism, female subservience, sexism, and isolation. Bartholet suggested that the majority of parents involved in the practice are radical Christians, claiming:
“Many homeschool precisely because they want to isolate their children from ideas and values central to public education and to our democracy. Many promote racial segregation and female subservience. Many question science. Many are determined to keep their children from exposure to views that might enable autonomous choice about their future lives.”
The professor based her assumptions on what some might consider obscure or isolated events, such as children working on their parents’ farms or in the family businesses instead of getting a proper education. “That means,” she said, “effectively, that people can homeschool who’ve never gone to school themselves, who don’t read or write themselves.”
According to the article, more and more families are choosing to homeschool rather than send their children to public schools. “Homeschooled kids now account for roughly 3 percent to 4 percent of school-age children in the United States, a number equivalent to those attending charter schools, and larger than the number currently in parochial schools.”
Liberty Nation’s Onar Am wrote: “The online revolution is coming at just the time when people are growing weary of the politicization of the universities and out-of-control student debt that often comes with paying for an increasingly worthless degree. Could online education restore academic diversity and quality in America?”
This upward swing of learning online had been gradually growing before the pandemic. Harvard Magazine cited surveys showing that up to 90% of families choosing to homeschool their children “are driven by conservative Christian beliefs, and seek to remove their children from mainstream culture.” And Bartholet noted, “that some of these parents are ‘extreme religious ideologues’ who question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy.”
The professor believes public schools are miracles, and the children who attend “grow up exposed to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints.”
However, with the left’s progressive agendas in place and growing rapidly, is it any wonder some parents are less than thrilled with the idea of having their kids exposed to a one-sided ideological vacuum?
Liberty Nation’s Jeff Charles covered a story about a new study plan offered in Austin, TX, schools that teaches gender identity and even suggests that students participate in pride parade events. He wrote:
“Not only does the curriculum teach children about various types of sexuality and gender identity, but it also encourages them to stand against ‘injustice’ when it comes to addressing homophobia. Of course, there is nothing wrong with children standing up to legitimate bullies, but it’s not hard to see how the left can define any opinion that contradicts theirs as bullying.”
Parents may choose to teach their children from home to protect them from bullying, ensure they get a more one-on-one teaching/learning experience, prevent them from being indoctrinated into progressive agendas they disagree with, or shelter them from school shootings. There is bound to be a minority who abuse the system, just as with any other program, because that is just human society. But a majority of homeschoolers are likely just trying to make sure their children are safe and being educated appropriately. Suggesting otherwise is little more than an ideological conspiracy theory.
With the growing ideological divide and politicization of education in mind, LN launched its own news and education site for young people, several months before the pandemic. Liberty Nation Generation Z aims to promote liberty and freedom of thought among today’s youth – something they may not encounter in a public school setting. From American history and government to science, politics, and what’s going on in the world, LN GenZ attempts to bring the news to kids today.
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Read more from Kelli Ballard.
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