The Empire Experts strike back
Another long-open tab I’m finally getting around to clearing, this one a particularly noteworthy specimen.
Teach Your Children Well
What the push to federally “regulate” homeschooling really is.If you follow my writing and podcasting, you know that I am a big proponent of homeschooling. My wife and I homeschool our five kids (at least, the ones who are old enough), and before I recently left California for Texas I was teaching history and literature to teenagers from other families in our homeschooling community.
Read on, and it fast becomes abundantly clear that Cali’s loss is Texas’s gain. Apart from those aforementioned “other families,” California would stridently insist it’s the other way ‘round, safe to say. But…well, y’know, California.
We homeschool for all the obvious reasons: public schools and even many, if not most, private schools are now hopelessly broken, “dark, satanic mills” of woke indoctrination; polls show that homeschooled kids are not only better educated but better socialized than public school kids; we value the freedom, family unity and self-sufficiency; it enables us to keep the kids’ passion for learning alive instead of having it ground out of them by the drudgery and routine of standard education; we can focus not only on intellectual pursuits but also impart life skills that public schools no longer teach; we’re free to include religious and moral instruction; and it enables me and my wife to control the pace at which they are (inevitably) exposed to corrosive cultural influences.
So at every opportunity I urge parents and grandparents to homeschool if at all possible, in order to rescue their children from the grim alternatives. But I’m also aware that homeschooling is a very demanding commitment that only a minority of parents are in a position to undertake, and I fault no parent for being unable to make that commitment.
The surge of interest in homeschooling since the pandemic is a blessedly welcome development for society, but it has brought with it increased suspicion and scrutiny from the current Powers That Be. Leftwing ideologues have been working on capturing the culture, especially education, for over half a century, ever since they abandoned marching in the streets to make the Long March through the institutions. Homeschooling is a deeply serious threat to the Left’s totalitarian lust for power, and that is why Scientific American, the nation’s leading mainstream science magazine, recently added its voice to the call that homeschooling parents be “regulated.”
In a May 14 opinion piece titled, “Children Deserve Uniform Standards in Homeschooling,”, the editors of Scientific American called for federal homeschooling regulations, going so far as to suggest that parents of homeschooled children “undergo a background check.” The magazine reiterated this message in its June 17 “Today in Science” newsletter.
The op-ed cited data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) which stated that nearly 3% of American children — that’s 1.5 million kids — were homeschooled in 2019. That number rose dramatically during and in the wake of the pandemic nightmare, which at least had the positive benefit of giving many parents an eye-opening revelation about the kind of dumbing-down indoctrination and predatory sexualization that their children were being exposed to in the woke public school system. The most recent NCES estimate is that 5.4% of children in grades K-12 were homeschooled in 2020-2021. I have seen estimates as high as 10%, however; it is a difficult figure to pin down, partly because eleven states do not even require parents to inform anyone that they are home schooling.
In any case, the op-ed admits almost grudgingly that many homeschooled children “are well-rounded and well-adjusted children who go on to thrive as adults.” But, Scientific American frets, “others do not receive a meaningful education” – a laughable concern considering what a catastrophic failure education in America is today. Never mind a “meaningful” education – our failed children today can’t even spell the word.
Scientific American doesn’t explicitly mention this, but other accusations often directed at homeschoolers are that the kids are not being fully assimilated into the mainstream culture (as if that were a bad thing), they are getting too much religious education (as if that were a bad thing), and they are being inculcated with – gasp! – traditional values (as if that were a bad thing).
Anyway, the editors argue that the “federal government must develop basic standards for safety and quality of education in home schooling across the country.” They add that homeschooling parents should be required to undergo a background check — the same as K-12 teachers. By the way, to see just how effective a background check is, scroll through the videos at Libs of Tik Tok for the countless examples of openly radical freaks and groomers that somehow managed to get hired to teach our children.
Scientific American editors also complain that parents “are not required to have an education themselves to direct instruction.” In response, I would argue three points: one, that there are plenty of video examples online of barely literate, foul-mouthed teachers who don’t know their dangling participle from their XY chromosome; two, that what “educators” are mostly trained to teach today are Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, and anti-Americanism; and three, no one is more passionately committed to give their children a solid education than parents. Countless fathers and mothers (not “birthing parents”) who homeschool have simply taken the leap and committed to educating themselves and then their children. It’s demanding but it’s working, and that’s a “meaningful education” for the whole family.
Those same countless parents across the nation are wised up to, and fed up with, the politicized public education system and its obsession with drag queens, pride flags, transgender indoctrination, personal pronouns, and Critical Race Theory racism. They are sick of the Left’s mission to drive a wedge between them and their kids in order to transfer children’s trust and allegiance to the State.
OHHH yeah, this note-perfect refutation is for sure and certain a superlative instantiation of the “you absolutely MUST read the whole thing” sub-genre of essays and/or op-eds—not only read it, but bookmark it, recommend it to all your friends, family members, neighbors, co-workers, &c, then sit back, relax, and read it again. Heck, I’d even go so far as to suggest carrying a printed copy with you at all times, by way of equipping yourself to bodily tackle random strangers on the street, sit on their chests or otherwise pin them (tuck several sets of flex-cuffs in your back pockets for use as restraints of last resort), and read it aloud to them as well.
When the forcible reading is complete, help your newly-enlightened chum to his feet; gently brush the dust, dirt, and/or debris from his back and shoulders; apologize profusely for any injury, imposition, or inconvenience he may have suffered; offer cash-money compensation for repair or replacement of any damaged clothing resulting from his impromptu detention; express your deepest gratitude for his kind attention and forbearance; then bid him a cheery adieu as you both continue on your separate ways. Hey, no need for you to be a dick about it, amIright?
My sardonic flights of fancy aside, serious kudos and a reverential doffing of the CF chapeau to yon author for some truly outstanding work on this frank, skillfully composed, up-close-and-personal examination of one of the most momentous issues of this or any age.
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