{"id":296984,"date":"2020-05-15T13:29:30","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T17:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=296984"},"modified":"2024-01-12T15:44:52","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T20:44:52","slug":"law-school-professor-says-there-may-be-a-dark-side-of-homeschooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2020\/05\/law-school-professor-says-there-may-be-a-dark-side-of-homeschooling\/","title":{"rendered":"A warning on homeschooling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tCampus & Community\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t

\n\t\tA warning on homeschooling\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n
\"Elizabeth

Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Bartholet calls for a radical transformation in homeschooling.<\/p>

Kris Snibbe\/Harvard Staff Photographer<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\t

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\tLiz Mineo\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\tLaw School professor says there is little legal oversight of educational standards or safeguards against abuse\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
\n

Nationally renowned child welfare expert Elizabeth Bartholet<\/a> wants to see a radical transformation in homeschooling. In an article<\/a> in the Arizona Law Review, \u201cHomeschooling: Parent Rights Absolutism vs. Child Rights to Education & Protection,\u201d she argues that the lack of regulation in the homeschooling system poses a threat to children and society. The Gazette sat down with Bartholet, the Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Professor of Law and faculty director of the Child Advocacy Program<\/a> at Harvard Law School<\/a> (HLS), to talk about the problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q&A<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth Bartholet<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

GAZETTE: <\/strong><\/strong>How did homeschooling in the U.S. develop into such a fast-growing phenomenon over the past few decades?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BARTHOLET:<\/strong> <\/strong>Behind the rapid growth of the homeschooling movement is the growth in the conservative evangelical movement. Conservative Christians wanted the chance to bring their children up with their values and belief systems and saw homeschooling as a way to escape from the secular education in public schools. They had fought the battle with public school systems to have their children exempted from exposure to alternative values in the schools and lost. When they started withdrawing their children for homeschooling, this propelled expansion of the homeschooling movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GAZETTE:<\/strong><\/strong> Could you compare the homeschooling phenomenon in the U.S. to other countries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BARTHOLET:<\/strong><\/strong> If we look at what goes on in other countries, the U.S. stands out as the anomaly. When other countries allow homeschooling, they regulate it much more strictly. They demand that parents show they are qualified to teach and that they turn in the curricula they plan to use. Other countries impose home-visit requirements, which are both a protection against child maltreatment and also a check on whether the parents are actually providing the education they say they are. They also mandate that the homeschooling curriculum provides an education equivalent to public education and includes teaching about the fundamental values of our society. Some countries like Germany effectively ban homeschooling altogether. In the U.S. there is essentially no effective regulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GAZETTE: <\/strong><\/strong>Your article says that homeschooling in its current unregulated form represents a danger to both children and society. What evidence do you have to support that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BARTHOLET:<\/strong> <\/strong>One is the danger of child maltreatment, and we have evidence that there is a strong connection between homeschooling and maltreatment, which I describe in my article. Other dangers are that children are simply not learning basic academic skills or learning about the most basic democratic values of our society or getting the kind of exposure to alternative views that enables them to exercise meaningful choice about their future lives. Many homeschooling parents are extreme ideologues, committed to raising their children within their belief systems isolated from any societal influence. Some believe that black people are inferior to white people and others that women should be subject to men and not educated for careers but instead raised to serve their fathers first and then their husbands. The danger is both to these children and to society. The children may not have the chance to choose for themselves whether to exit these ideological communities; society may not have the chance to teach them values important to the larger community, such as tolerance of other people\u2019s views and values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GAZETTE: <\/strong><\/strong>Given the current circumstances, with schools canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, many parents are homeschooling their kids. Does this massive shift to homeschooling pose any risks for children?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“The homeschooling lobby may be even more powerful than the gun lobby today, because at least with the gun lobby we see a lot of pushback. When it comes to homeschooling, the victims are all children so it\u2019s harder to mount a political movement.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

BARTHOLET:<\/strong><\/strong> My article was written and submitted for publication prior to the COVID-19 crisis. When that crisis hit I was totally in support of the orders shutting down schools as obviously schools then presented a serious danger of spreading the virus, and of course I believe that the overwhelming majority of parents are capable of providing at least a minimal education at home without presenting any danger of abuse or neglect. I do think, though, that the present near-universal home education situation is illuminating. The evidence is growing that reports to Child Protective Services (CPS) have plummeted nationwide, because children are removed from the mandated reporters that schools provide. As my article says, school staff constitute the largest group of reporters to CPS. I wrote an op-ed article<\/a> in the Boston Globe in which I note that many experts on child abuse believe that the rates of abuse are much higher now as a result of children being kept at home and the various tensions families are suffering. Evidence is beginning to surface that abuse is in fact escalating in amount and seriousness<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GAZETTE:<\/strong>  <\/strong>Let\u2019s focus on the legal landscape of homeschooling. You said homeschooling exists in a legal void. Who makes sure children are being educated?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BARTHOLET:<\/strong><\/strong> Nobody. There\u2019s a shocking lack of regulation in this area. And that\u2019s a product of the homeschooling lobby, which has fought for several decades now to eliminate any existing restrictive regulation and to oppose any proposed new legislation even in the face of horrific child abuse scandals. For example, in about a dozen states homeschooling parents aren\u2019t even required to register. They can just keep their children at home rather than send them to school. Only about 10 states require that homeschooling parents have any educational qualifications whatsoever. The handful of states that do require qualifications typically demand no more than a high school degree. Some states require that parents submit the curricula they plan to use, but there\u2019s almost no check on what parents actually teach through home visits or meaningful testing requirements. All this despite the fact that we have laws and constitutional provisions in 50 states that guarantee children the right to education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GAZETTE:<\/strong><\/strong> Why has the homeschooling lobby become so strong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BARTHOLET:<\/strong><\/strong> The homeschooling lobby may be even more powerful than the gun lobby today, because at least with the gun lobby we see a lot of pushback. When it comes to homeschooling, the victims are all children so it\u2019s harder to mount a political movement. Initially, homeschooling was a really interesting mix of left and right thinking \u2014 left-progressive views that children\u2019s natural creativity was being ruined in schools and right-wing religious views. Over the past decades, right-wing Christian conservatives became the dominant group in terms of numbers, and they completely took over in terms of political activism. Their power has to do with their ideological fervor, their tactics, and the absence of any significant organized opposition. Many academics and the biggest teachers\u2019 unions in the country have found homeschooling deeply problematic. Homeschooling graduates have formed organizations documenting some of the maltreatment and other problems their members suffered and calling for regulatory reform. But these groups have not constituted an effective political force. The homeschooling lobby believes passionately in its cause, and it uses extremely aggressive tactics in dealing with state legislators. If a state legislator, in response to a child abuse scandal, proposes some modest increase in regulation, the next day they may find 200 homeschooling parents in their office, and the day after that they withdraw the legislation. That has been the pattern for decades. The other reason why the homeschooling lobby has been so successful is that the whole system is stacked in favor of parents\u2019 rights. Our federal Constitution provides parents with powerful constitutional rights to raise their children, but provides children with no countervailing rights to nurturing parenting or to education. This is by contrast to other countries, which recognize child rights as central in their constitutions. The homeschooling lobby wants to make parents\u2019 rights even more powerful, which is why my article\u2019s title talks of \u201cparents\u2019 rights absolutism.\u201d They have taken the position that the United States should not ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child<\/a>, which every other country in the world has ratified. They have proposed an amendment to the federal Constitution to make it even more protective of parents\u2019 rights than it now is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

More like this<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t