In a state as progressive as California, it is surprising to
find the homeschooling movement facing powerful opposition.
But the California Education Department issued a memo this
summer claiming “Parents who homeschool their children are
operating outside the law.”
There are an estimated 700,000 to 1.2 million homeschoolers in
America, and most studies show homeschoolers score higher than
their public school peers in academic tests. Moreover, they have
gone 1-2-3 in recent national spelling bees, and out of all the
applications sent to Stanford for the 2000-2001 academic year, the
acceptance rate for homeschoolers was nearly twice the average
rate.
But the question remains, why is homeschooling under attack?
Delaine Eastin, the superintendent of the CED, sent a letter to
the California Legislature reaffirming her outlandish claim that
homeschooling is illegal, demonstrating a stubborn unwillingness to
yield to common sense.
Eastin’s baseless allegations were answered by another
letter from the Home School Legal Defense Association. The letter
explains that the case law Delaine Eastin and the CED are relying
on is hopelessly out of date, compared to recent precedents, and
moot in the face of a “1998 amendment that expressly
recognizes that parent-operated private schools are
legal.”
The situation has continued to develop through the summer, as
the nation reacts to Eastin’s stance on homeschooling, which
has earned her an F in the reality test.
Like many of the state’s controversies, the explanation
for Eastin’s perplexing actions are probably monetary. The
school district receives roughly $4,500 per student attending
public school, which adds up to more than a quarter billion dollars
in lost revenue due to homeschooling.
What is forgotten in the recent media coverage, though, is the
assault on homeschooling is nothing new. Karen Taylor, president of
the California Homeschool Network, said, “We have no evidence
to indicate homeschoolers are under a new attack. The (CED)
continues to hold firm to their stance that homeschooling is
unauthorized, but they have been doing that for years.”
It’s unlikely the CED is unaware of the evidence
concerning homeschooling success. So perhaps there is a deeper
explanation for its recent resistance to homeschooling than lost
revenue.
The CED has spent much of its time instilling leftist values
into public schools, while California’s test scores plummet.
A Sept. 30 AP story states that, “More than half of the high
school students who took the state’s high school graduation
test this spring failed its math and English sections.”
Meanwhile Superintendent Delaine Eastin and the California
Education Department call for the “integration of
pro-homosexual, transgender and gender variant messages,”
throughout the entire California curricula of math to language
arts.
Whether we agree with this policy or not, isn’t it a bit
early to be praising the virtues of an alternate lifestyle ““
or any lifestyle at all ““ to first and second graders?
The National Educators Association, the teachers union that
works closely with the California Education Department, demands
that teachers toe the party line regarding positions on gun
control, abortion, a nuclear freeze, a world court and a whole
myriad of social and political issues.
Is it possible that the California Education Department is not
concerned about its students learning, but instead wants to
indoctrinate students outside of their control with their own
political beliefs?
The California Education Department needs to stop attacking
homeschooling and hammering narrow political ideologies into
elementary and high school students, and instead worry about
teaching its students.
Holzer is a third-year political science student..