This year is HSLDA’s 40th anniversary.
At times like this, it is good to take stock.
The good news is that homeschooling today
is freer in America than it has ever been. Legal
barriers continue to roll back, as they did in
Ohio and Vermont earlier this year.
Homeschooling is also more socially acceptable than it has ever been as more homeschooled kids grow into responsible adults
and take their place in society. We’re witnessing second- and third-generation homeschool
graduates begin homeschooling.
Consider that 40 years ago homeschooling
was either illegal in some states, incorrectly
prosecuted as illegal in many others, and
strongly disfavored in the rest.
Forty years of combined effort from local
homeschool groups and HSLDA has brought
us to this day. It has been an honor for me to
play a small part in working to secure and protect homeschool freedom, and to make homeschooling possible for millions of families.
That the boundaries of freedom have expanded, with fewer and fewer states still embracing
antiquated laws, is to be celebrated.
But pendulums swing. First one way and
then the other.
There are no guarantees that freedom, once
secured, is safe forever. And we know how
important it is that we are not caught standing off guard. It is critical for us to anticipate
and prepare for whatever may come our way
during the next 40 years.
While I do not wish to cry “wolf” at every
turn, I also do not want to be caught unawares.
If you believe, as I know you do, that homeschooling matters and that it is worth fighting
for, you know that we will not go gentle into
that good night.
In 2018, I gave a speech at an HSLDA
conference, entitled “The Civic Virtue of
Private Home Education.” I am reminded of
that title today as it relates to the historical
origins of homeschooling, and the growth of
homeschooling—not just in the number of
children being educated, but also the growth
of our collective role in society—and what that
could mean for how we look at our work in the
future.
My thesis is that homeschooling has grown
from a successful social movement to an
enduring institution. An enduring institution
that can help shape our culture; an enduring
institution that can help form the character of our children, our families, and our
communities.
Third wave
But first, I want to flash back to 2010 and
an article written by our founder, Mike Farris,
that he called “The Third Wave of Homeschool
Persecution.” He described the three waves as
attempts to “curtail or crush the homeschooling
movement, specifically the Christian
homeschooling movement.”
The first wave argued
that homeschooling
could not provide
proper academic
instruction. The
second involved
that all-too-familiar
question, “What
about socialization?” Even back in
2010, those arguments
against homeschooling
had lost a lot of traction.
But the “Third Wave” of Mike’s title involved
“an argument that is essentially true … homeschooling parents are effectively transmitting
values to their children that the elitists believe
are dangerous to the well-being of both these
very children and society as a whole.”
In “Third Wave,” Mike cited several law
review articles that decried the liberty of parents to raise and educate children and pass on
deeply held values and beliefs, the very reason
that many of us decided to homeschool in the
first place.
While nothing much happened to put the
recommendations in those law review articles
into place, fast forward 10 years to 2020 and
we see that the academic thirst for rolling back
homeschool liberties has not been slaked.
In March of 2020, a prominent Harvard law
professor named Elizabeth Bartholet published
a law review article arguing that homeschooling is such a bad practice in America, carried
out by such a bunch of backwards clods, that it
should be presumptively banned. Not just regulated more rigorously, but banned altogether.
I suspect that she believed that her premise
and her policy recommendation would be met
with high praise—so much so that she planned
a summit at Harvard to advance the policy.
But two things happened that demonstrated
that Bartholet’s claims weren’t so. First, homeschooled students at Harvard, alumni, parents,
and dozens of academics who study education
and homeschooling immediately decried not
only the premise but also the poor quality of
the work in Professor Bartholet’s article.
And, as I wrote at the time:
“According to my fancy word-search tool,
Professor Bartholet mentioned Home School
Legal Defense Association 113 times in her
80-page article. And she made a pretty good
case that HSLDA is an especially effective
advocacy organization. To be fair,
she casts our effectiveness in
darker terms than we would.
If her portrayal of HSLDA
had been a political ad, we
would appear in a grainy
black-and-white photo,
and, as ominous bad guy
music plays, the sinister voiceover would say,
‘HSLDA—brutal, extremely
aggressive, extraordinarily
powerful, unreasonable religious
ideologues.’”
Because Professor B. had been so kind as to
cite the work of HSLDA 113 times in her article, which one critic called an “80-page screed,”
we returned the favor by publishing a series
of essays, which we later printed in the form
of a book called Homeschool Freedom: How it
Works and Why it Matters.
In what must be one of the best, or, depending on your perspective, worst examples of
bad timing, The Harvard Crimson magazine
publicized the good professor’s law review
article just as public schools all across the land
closed en masse because of COVID-19.
In keeping with the times, the Crimson article went viral. For all the wrong reasons, if you
were Professor Bartholet. Because suddenly,
the whole world was homeschooling.
And nobody talked about banning it.
While we can put the COVID-19/Bartholet
skirmish in the win column, our ideological
opponents have not left the field. And they
aren’t likely to, as long as families choose to
homeschool for reasons that are contrary to
the values of large swathes of the prevailing
culture.
Fourth wave
In what might perhaps be a fourth wave of
homeschool scrutiny post-COVID-19, we are
beginning to see more negative portrayals
of homeschooling—particularly Christian
homeschooling—in well-written and highly
produced popular publications.
Earlier this year, The Washington Post
published, front page above the fold, a deeply reported story about a young couple who
described being harmed by their Christian
homeschooled upbringing. They had left the
faith and were publicly critical of their parents.
As the second article in the series, the Post
also published a deeply reported profile of our
founder, Michael Farris, and the role he has
played in advancing parental rights over his
long career. We knew it was coming. We knew
it wouldn’t be a puff-piece by Farris admirers.
But when it landed in our inboxes, it wasn’t a
complete hit-piece either.
Still, the level of attention and the resources
devoted by one of the nation’s highest-circulation newspapers gives us pause. It causes me
to ask, “What are these guys up to?”
The third article came out. Again, high quality, but then this: “‘Parents who are not motivated by religious freedom might be more open
to regulation,’ said Anne Holton, professor of education policy at George Mason University.
‘The parents who are in it for other reasons
may be less resistant.’”
And Amazon Prime famously streamed
the docuseries, Shiny Happy People: Duggar
Family Secrets, in June. The scandal
involving the Duggar family and
Bill Gothard was almost a
decade old, yet the series had
the biggest debut of any
documentary series ever
produced by Amazon
Studios.
Then on October
8, 2023, Last Week
Tonight with John
Oliver focused on
homeschooling and
HSLDA’s role in removing barriers. Although it
did mention some of the
positives of homeschooling,
the episode spent a considerable amount of time focusing on
abuse and neglect.
The third wave that Michael Farris
wrote about in 2010 involved clunky, barely
readable law review articles that didn’t sink
very far into the hearts or minds of the culture.
And in 2020, Professor Bartholet’s clumsy
continuation and attempted justification for
banning homeschooling got a lot more publicity than those previous attempts, but was fairly
laughed off the stage. It was embarrassing.
But this fourth wave, while similar, is vastly
more effective. It is more relatable and accessible, and it comes from the heights of popular
culture. These fourth wave productions are presented compellingly for an audience that may
not know any homeschoolers. These new efforts
more subtly advance the narrative by implying
that because some homeschooled children
experience abuse or neglect, homeschooling
itself is intrinsically harmful and dangerous.
This new fourth wave scrutiny from the lofty
heights of the popular culture compels us to
become better at telling the complex stories of
homeschooling; to be more mature in how we
tell our stories.
The homeschooling community has grown
and expanded over the past 40 years and
includes people from all walks of life, backgrounds, and belief systems. Our audience has
grown, but our message will never change…
And what is this message? That homeschool freedom is good, but not just for
its own sake.
With great freedom comes great responsibility. As parents, we must remember that God gives us children so that we can shepherd and nurture them. They
are not products of our little homeschooling factories. They are themselves.
And yet homeschooling remains one of the most powerful ways to help prepare
children to take their place as productive members of society. In this way, homeschooling serves as a civic virtue.
As I wrote previously for the Court Report:
HSLDA believes that the homeschool dad singing the ABC song to his
4-year-old son; the mom leading the weekly co-op; the volunteer organizing speakers for the state homeschool convention; and a merry band
of dedicated homeschool advocates in Purcellville, Virginia, personally
assisting families of all backgrounds every day, are all playing a part in
creating a vibrant society and an environment of freedom that promotes
human flourishing.
To that end, it remains our mission to make homeschooling possible for every
parent willing to take up the great challenge and the great responsibility of
faithfully teaching their children.
