This post reviews Catherine J. Ross, “Fundamentalist Challenges to Core Democratic Values: Exit and Homeschooling.” in William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 18, 991-1014 (2010). [Available Here]
Ross, Professor of Law at George Washington University, here argues several claims:
1. assertions homeschoolers make to constitutional authority for their practice are false
2. the state’s interest in preparing children for life in a pluralist democracy trumps parental liberty interests in controlling children’s educations
3. in custody battles where homeschooling is at issue, the state should prefer formal schooling to homeschooling
4. states should engage in “far more stringent oversight and regulation of homeschooling than exists in any state at present.” (p. 992)
Ross begins with a brief legal history of homeschooling, sort of. It’s actually pretty interesting in that it has a couple of details one doesn’t usually find in such accounts. For example, she notes that several of the early-to-mid 20th century court cases that permitted parents to keep their children home for school did so because of rural contingencies like bad roads, lack of available schools, and so on. She ends her brief survey by noting that recent court decisions have held parents responsible for more than many homeschoolers like to think.
Next Ross demonstrates that religious, especially conservative Christian, families predominate in the homeschooling and private schooling world, and that they frequently view such practices as exit strategies from a society of which they disapprove.
With this groundwork laid, Ross gets down to business. First, she goes to great length to explain that homeschooling parents do not have the right to sequester their children from the influence of ideas their religion doesn’t like. She places special weight on the 1990 Supreme Court decision Employment Division v. Smith, which found that government doesn’t have to prove a “compelling interest” even if a law burdens religious belief. Ross calls this an “emerging narrow view of how little the state must do to make the ultra-religious feel comfortable.” (p.1001) A “hybrid rights” doctrine that developed out of this ruling has been subsequently rejected by several courts: Swanson v. Guthrie (1998) found that parents couldn’t force a public school to let them send their daughter to a few cherry-picked classes and avoid those they found objectionable. Combs v. Homer-Center School District (2004) rejected the claim argued by HSLDA’s Michael Farris in behalf of his Christian plaintiffs that state homeschooling requirements violated their constitutional rights.
Ross cites other cases as well, but the point is that unregulated homeschooling is not a constitutional right and that regulations are not only legal but required to insure the good citizenship of all. Good citizenship, furthermore, is characterized especially by tolerance. But this raises an obvious debater’s point. Is it not intolerant of the state to disallow intolerant homeschoolers from doing their thing? Ross says no:
Respect for difference should not be confused with approval for approaches that would splinter us into countless warring groups. Hence an argument that tolerance for diverse views and values is a foundational principle does not conflict with the notion that the state can and should limit the ability of intolerant homeschoolers
to inculcate hostility to difference in their children—at least during the portion of the day they claim to devote to satisfying the compulsory schooling requirement. (p.1005)
States already impose regulations on private schools requiring them to expose their students to ideas their religions might find objectionable. Ross mentions one very interesting case in Virginia where the state closed down a private Muslim school operated by the Saudi government that used textbooks advocating all sorts of things most Americans would find noxious. If we can do this with private schools, argues Ross, we should do so with homeschooling as well.
To clarify her point, Ross uses an example from 1973. In that year the Florida state court refused to allow parents who believed that race-mixing (desegregation) was unBiblical to pull their children out of public schools and educate them at home. The Supreme Court agreed with the sentiment, holding in Runyan v. McCrary (1976) that parents did not have a constitutional right to send their children to segregated private schools because of their religious objection to integration. Ross concludes her argument here with a quote from Justice Brennan,
The Nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide
exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth out of a multitude of tongues, [rather] than through any kind of authoritative selection.
The next, and briefer, section of Ross’ paper canvasses several recent custody cases where one parent wanted to homeschool and the other did not. Her argument is basically that the Courts are already showing a preference for schools over fundamentalist homeschooling and that we should simply make this preference official. She calls it a “rebuttable presumption that, all other things being equal, where the parents disagree, the state prefers public school to homeschooling because public schools serve the state’s interest in exposure to diverse viewpoints and people.” (p. 1012)
I found this to be a much better attack on homeschooling than that of Robin West that drew so much attention a couple of years ago. It is very similar to arguments made recently by Kimberly Yuracko and Timothy Waddell (who I’ll review next week). While I agree with the spirit of what Ross wants (that all kids be exposed to a wide variety of views), I have two reservations.
First, who gets to decide which views should be tolerated? It’s not too hard to get most Americans to agree that the state can discriminate against Muslims advocating suicide bombing and the imposition of Sharia law. But can it discriminate against people who believe homosexuality is a sin? Can it discriminate against people who believe objections to homosexuality constitute illegal hate speech? This is the classic problem of liberalism. It has no moral content itself–only a series of procedural rules put in place to keep us from killing each other. Absent a set of universal moral norms, how can the state determine what it should tolerate and what it should not?
Secondly, there is the empirical reality check. At one point Ross says “public schools at their best…” The problem is that they are rarely at their tolerant, exposure-to-all-views best. Many homeschoolers would quickly retort to Ross that the public school should work on the plank in its own eye before presuming to remove the speck from homeschoolers’. Many public schools are bastions of all sorts of anti-civic, intolerant views, of student bodies segregated by race and class, and much else. I agree wholeheartedly that it would be wonderful for students to be exposed to a wide variety of beliefs. But how many public schools actually do this? How many require philosophy classes or religion classes? How many teach tolerance beyond the character education platitudes that repeatedly are shown to have limited impact on student habits? And on the other side of the ledger, do we have empirical evidence that homeschooled kids are actually growing up to become intolerant adults?
That last point is most important. In my view what homeschooling research needs more than anything else is careful study of this question. What actually happens to homeschooled kids who grow up in these fundamentalist families? Do they go on to be clones of their parents? Do they soften? Do they grow even more hard-line and intolerant? Before we impose a whole new set of requirements on all homeschoolers we need to know the answer.
I subscribe to the “No Longer Quivering” blog, which is aimed at women trying to get out of the patriarchal/fundamentalist world. It’s one way to get a glimpse of part of the answer to those questions in your last paragraph. I think the lifestyle may be difficult to sustain over generations. It’s also hard to get out, though.
I’d be very interested to see study focused on this question, but the difficulty of getting people to participate is a problem. Many ‘ordinary’ homeschoolers are shy of participating in media coverage or studies because they worry they will be misrepresented; the fundamentalists are much more shy and don’t want to talk to anyone who isn’t from the HSLDA. (Of course you know that better than I do!)
When the education reformers claim that states have an interest in preparing students for a pluralist democracy (should be a constitutional republic), they assume that we all agree with their idea of pluralism. They also assume that the state can be trusted to do this.
After reviewing K-12 public school English and social studies texts, it is quite clear that their idea of pluralism is to minimize, eliminate, or ridicule traditional values. This misleads public school students into thinking that they have a good grasp of what it means to be in a pluralistic society, but in reality they are quite unaware of traditional values at best, and intolerant of them at worst.
Finally, why would parents trust the state do teach pluralism to students? By the definition of “pluralism”, there are multiple political ideas. Which ones are to be taught? Which ones get more time? Is there a bias in how they’re taught? My point is that public school boards will make these decisions based on whoever puts the most pressure on them, instead of which is the best. Folks, you can’t take the politics out of politics. States will indoctrinate students under the guise of teaching pluralism.
The question you pose at the end about whether homeschooling encourages intolerance is one of the questions I find most critical, but which, as you say, there are no answers grounded in fact and research. It also feels like there’s scarce discussion of that within the homeschool community. Like the socialization question, I think it’s one of those things that people are afraid to talk about because there’s not a simple answer – there are good and potentially bad answers for us to think about. But homeschoolers live with such a siege mentality sometimes that anything that might endanger our liberties is taboo to bring up.
I’m glad you’re back blogging. I think we need a critical academic voice like this blog.
The assumption that because a family teaches the values it believes in it also teaches intolerance of those who hold different beliefs is maddening. A value system is a bulwark to rely on when making life’s choices and can include respect for the free will of others.
Glad that you are blogging again.
Quote: “First, she goes to great length to explain that homeschooling parents do not have the right to sequester their children from the influence of ideas their religion doesn’t like.”
I challenge these assertions of Ms Ross!
Apparently, American Education has decided to banish God from the curriculum – Is this not exactly what this woman claims parents do not have the right to do for their own children? Is this not what the “schools” are doing, a similar sort of of sequestration of young minds from the influence of ideas that modern governments are effecting? Do we need now to answer the question on who is the rightful guardian of the child – parent or government?
Religious freedom is a dangerous thing for the influence and power of any governing “group”. It means that those in power might have to pander to the actual “needs” or “wants” of the people – oh what a travesty that would be – imagine a government that would have to SERVE the people! It becomes an expense to have to make laws and provide back up to people like Christians who do not allow their children to have sex before marriage – It would then have to address issues like abortion, and marital rights, and of course, it would have to frown on prostitution, gambling and harmful drugs and substances that might have made them a lot of money! What a bind it would be to administer and effect all the policies and regulations that would need to be sympathetic of a culture of diverse peoples and faiths! Woe to them.
Mothers staying home to teach their children to be strong individuals with backbone, who encourage original thought and fearless action would become an unnecessary burden on the budget of society because it would be interfering with the orderly and neat production of a “worker bee” population that will follow orders without question.
As for intolerance – all of time, the greatest atrocities of intolerance’s have been originated, implemented and even lauded as exemplary at the time, by the ruling powers that “be”…. When last have we seen a minority group that has excluded themselves from society, (to the extent that they carry no power of persuasion in society) cause enough influence to effect a revolution of any kind? Are the Amish considered a dangerous influence on society – a wayward pestilence deemed worthy of intellectual, moral and spiritual genocide?
I put it to this Lady that these sort of articles are a damning example of the fear of the unknown, carried out by the uninformed, naive and ignorant; and I dare say, rather close minded and uneducated, if not down right biased and self righteous, piously minded individuals who are suffering the megalomaniac delusions of their own grandeur – Drunk in the iniquity of their fornication’s.
Quote: “the state prefers public school to homeschooling because public schools serve the state’s interest in exposure to diverse viewpoints and people.”
– Yes, it serves the state’s interest in exposure to the very carefully contrived combination of viewpoints and people that would guide young gullible minds to conclusions that would also serve the “states” interest.
It is very unfair to take the few extreme and obviously fanatical individuals who home school for silly reasons like not wanting their children to mix with children of other races, and lump them in with the vast majority who have valid arguments, for example, against subversive text within the curriculum that undermine the very integrity and foundation of the cultures within the diverse scope of families of many different roots. We all get the suicide bombing thing – I mean really, who in their right mind would encourage children from the 21st century to believe that murder has an honest spiritual motive? And even here, the American Government does not actually have a well clad case of ethical righteousness, since they turn a blind eye to forced child marriages, child pregnancies and the rape of minors, in favour of clamping down on something that might one day turn into actual warfare… so where is the concern for what children experience here… other than what they might learn to do against a frivolous, holier-than-thou bunch of states that is America? This smacks of double-standard politics, which in itself is nothing new I suppose.
I have had to suffer under the grip of a government who dared to presume to think, act and choose for me!!! I was also fortunate enough to have witnessed the revolution and change that was and is post-apartheid South Africa. I am still in the process, as is the rest of my country Kin, of personal growth and development, and I LIKE that I have the freedom to love and live in the way that I choose. I might not agree with everything, and for my self and my children (note – MY children, those beings that were ordained to be of my own flesh and blood, from whatever source to which you might like to accredit it) I choose what makes sense to my mind and my heart – because, guess what…. It is MY life, and I will fight to the death if anyone ever tried to take this away from me.
I was fortunate enough to go to a school that embodied all the positive aspects that I now see in home-schools around me, sans of course, the large fields and array of wonderful teachers contributing their own multi-cultural values and beliefs – because back then they were allowed to talk about these things!
– Just today, my non-Muslim home schooled children and I were discussing the Koran and how it came into existence. We heard how Mohammed was influenced substantially by his first wife, who was also his main influence in religious matters and how she consoled him when life let him down. We grew in understanding about the time period in which the Koran was originated, and a little about the circumstances. We discussed some of the claims made that the Koran is authenticated by the amazing coincidentally correct scientific information it contains, and how it also claims that the earth is flat (as was believed at that time)
– Today we also Discussed the long 27 year sentence of our dear old president Nelson Mandela, and how his frustrations with the ANC led to the formation of the ANCYL and his then presidency of that organization. We laughed at the comparison of his office to that of Julius Malema. We then went to the library and I collected many books on the subject and found some interesting books on the history of South Africa.
– Today in class we also discussed the racist perception that black people have more “energy” than white people, and we came to the conclusion that due to the extreme poverty, these black people are forced to endure physically taxing situations due to desperation, and that their drive can no more be construed as genetically having more energy, than the white people who make such outlandish claims can be called stupid because they are white.
So once we were done looking at religious diversity, political history and racial overtones in our community, (because today is Mandela day) the children did their maths and English (which by the way, are the same texts used in public and private schools in America) before they visited our neighbour who gave them an Afrikaans lesson. We also got some spelling done, and the children took turns to play with my toddler, pack away dishes and tidy their rooms, play with the dog, chop some wood for our fire tonight, practice their piano lessons and get their things ready for our softball practices this week, and prepare for the softball matches this weekend.
The older two also checked their email to communicate with their father, who does not have custody of them, and who hates the idea of homeschooling because it displeases him that the children do not swear, tell dirty jokes, use God’s name in vain, do not fight with each other or him, and because they deign to formulate their own opinions and choose to engage in whatever activities they feel comfortable with, regardless of my or his persuasion. It seems to concern him most that his pre-pubescent offspring are not romantically involved with the opposite sex. I am not sure this is good reason for him to now apply for custody, so that he can banish them to a place of “training” where they have no particular role model and where the teachers themselves cannot teach the children in their own mother tongue – English, because there are so few qualified English teachers left in this country due to the extent of crime (you probably have them in your schools now : )
Over our weekend, we visited an old school friend of mine who works at a large prominent law firm, and we played board games (adults and children alike) and laughed until our sides hurt! My children were their usual selves – bright, funny, intelligent and engaging, and as usual, the compliments of their demeanor and wonderful manners were honest and not in short supply, even though my son’s black eye and bruised cheek from playing softball on Friday left him a little quieter than normal – and I don’t think there were any suspicions that we might have beat him into submission!
Catherine J. Ross’s “Fundamentalist Challenges to Core Democratic Values” is a spitting frenzy in the faces of those of us who have fought for and achieved the freedom of thought and the right to be free moral agents. I would not be so presumptuous as to suggest to anyone that they shall instill in their children whatever fashionable short lived concept and theory is en vogue at any particular time. I am not in agreement with the illogical concept of relativism and frown on any so called open minded / clear thinking adult that entertains an ideology that would disqualify any hope of having a “culturally/socially unpopular” goal towards which to work – like having a close knit family life where Mom stays home and Dad works and children co-exist without difficulty.
I have five children, one who is not mine biologically, and we have had no issues of sibling rivalry, no terrible 2’s or 4’s or teenage rebellions. My children have many friends from all walks of life, and in fact most of them are school going. They have no problems with gross or fine motor co-ordination, and they are reading every kind of book imaginable (that is age appropriate)
Just because the greater part of the world has allowed the Hollywood mentality (which is really really lame in any language) to pervade their cultures, their religions and their personalities; and allowed it to degrade their education systems, their health care approach, their policing policies and their courts; it does not logically follow that that is the picture of Democracy. It is my Democratic right to reject the ridiculous and insensitive and the down right incestuous and abusive nature of the schooling system we currently find ourselves with! As a responsible parent (and by this I am not calling others irresponsible, because I am speaking introspectively here), I consider it my duty to give my children the intellectual room they need in their most indelibly formative years, to grow high and wide, and to discover within themselves the strength and tenacity they will need to cope in the insane world that now is. The typical school does not provide this necessary emotional, mental and intellectual space so crucial for independent development. Once they know that their minds are free and unfettered – no government or person or culture or religion or cult or demonic spirit will be able to lay claim to such a person’s individuality and self respect. My children will not live in a haze of self inflicted guilt, or the misconception that money can compensate for this in any way or form. They will not have hang ups about making decisions or taking action, and they will always protect and offer shelter to the less fortunate, the neglected, the abandoned and those discriminated against.
The wonderful quote from Justice Brennan in Ross’s article blows a massive hole in her extensive generalization of homeschoolers:
“The Nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide
exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth out of a multitude of tongues, [rather] than through any kind of authoritative selection”
This description of robust exchange of ideas and discovering truths, that grow well trained leaders, is very indicative of what goes on in a typical home school environment – the university of life! And the authoritative selection is what schools are generally doing – carefully selecting the content and context of what children are exposed to, so as to enable them to “better serve the state” and they serve it up on a scholarly platter in order to disguise the glorified baby sitting service it is while the “adults” of the world go out to play at careers and building empires of great material wealth whilst leaving emotional wreckage, poverty and war in their wake. It’s always about money if you get to the bottom of it.
It is precisely this great achievement of individualism of personage, regardless of breeding and race and financial stature, of homeschoolers across the word that is the source of all this consternation. It is this sacrifice that mothers of all religions and faiths or non-faiths offer – that engenders fear amongst the Catherine J. Ross’s of this world – fear that they might be faced one day, by a non-pliable, non-apathetic and a totally unmanipulable populace that might demand a higher standard of themselves, and for themselves.
Be afraid, be very afraid : )
” In my view what homeschooling research needs more than anything else is careful study of this question. What actually happens to home-schooled kids who grow up in these fundamentalist families? Do they go on to be clones of their parents? Do they soften? Do they grow even more hard-line and intolerant? Before we impose a whole new set of requirements on all homeschoolers we need to know the answer.”
In essence, I agree with this point of view – it is the most scientific thing to do in light of all the questions and fears, however, who gets to decide what constitutes fundamentalism? As a Christian, I believe the Bible, which is made up of both old and new Testaments. The Bible is very clear about what is considered acceptable and what is an abomination. Also , the Bible does not contradict itself. Because many churches today are “tweaking” Biblical “laws” to comply with the evolution or should I say devolution of society, does that cast me into a fringe cult that would stay the course and not depart from what I, nay, what the Bible tells me to believe is right and wrong?
Has the Bible therefore become something that infringes on the constitutional rights of Democratic countries, by reason of its (the Bible’s) intolerant views in certain instances? And does “Democracy” therefore actually have space for true believers of the Christian faith, or are we now to be labeled as “Fundamentalists”?
I believe that home schooling is not a breeding ground for intolerance, and that public, and more so, private schools in fact are more susceptible to such a problem due to the contrived conditions found there. Just take for example the overriding generalized perception by schooled children and teachers at the schools of how “badly socialized” home schooled children are… yet there is no history or extensive precedence or study to date that has successfully proved this to be true. I concede that there will always be those odd groups of people that just don’ t like to mix with others, and you will find them homeschooling, you will find them sending their children to school, you will find them in the malls and on rural farms and hidden away in bustling cities. This on it’s own does not make a case against any of the social structures that house them, and trying to formulate a movement of mass hysteria against a group of people who are doing the same as everyone else, albeit a little differently, is tantamount to harmful propaganda and hate speech.
I don’t agree with Michael Farris much of the time, but I think that he has some interesting comments to make here: http://www.hslda.org/courtreport/V26N6/V26N601.asp
You make an excellent point here. My kids, who were home with me, then went to school for a few years before homeschooling for the duration, were shocked by the terrible intolerance they found in schools, among staff and students. The first time my kids ever heard the N word uttered was not at home in their “narrow minded homeschooling family” but at school, where the cafeteria tables were divided black and white and Latino. In our homeschooling group, we had families of all ethnic groups and religious beliefs, and celebrated our common academic interests.
Presuming the state is the better arbiter of tolerance and diversity and investing the power in it to prevent me to educate my kids in a truly tolerant way is a dangerous road to go down.
It’s too bad that this kind of thinking – this, um, INTOLERANCE – persists.
University of Texas sociology doctoral candidate Jeremy Uecker.published an article entitled “Alternative Schooling Strategies and the Religious Lives of American Adolescents” in the December 2008 edition of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. This article examined the effect of various educational alternatives on students’ ultimate religious inclinations. These alternatives included public school, independent school (both religious and secular), and home-based education.
Mr. Uecker’s research led him to this conclusion:
“Parents retain strong influence on their adolescents’ religiosity, even after accounting for adolescents’ schooling situation, friends’ religiosity, network closure, and extrafamilial adult mentors. In fact, none of these factors seems to attenuate the role of parents at all. Thus, I find little support that parents are indirectly influencing their adolescents by “channeling” them into religious schooling environments or networks of religious friends and adults. Rather, parents directly influence their adolescents. Social learning, spiritual modeling, and spiritual capital explanations may all explain this direct influence, but this study has not directly tested these theories.”
But here’s what he discovered about home education:
“Surprisingly, I find very little effect of homeschooling on any aspect of adolescents’ religious lives. Despite the fact that a significant minority of these students are homeschooled for explicitly religious reasons (Bielick, Chandler, and Broughman 2001), there appear to be scant religious benefits to this schooling strategy. On one hand, this may speak to the great diversity of motivations for homeschooling. There are a large number of nonreligious (or at least not extremely religious) homeschool parents, and religious benefits should not be expected from that type of homeschooling situation. But even when I tested for interaction effects between homeschooling and parent religiosity, no positive effects of homeschooling were apparent. These findings, together with the findings for Catholic-school and Protestant-school adolescents, highlight the importance of religious community for cultivating and maintaining adolescent religiosity.”
This research essentially puts paid to Professor Ross’s entire argument. Essentially, these are matters of bias and prejudice. As long as people insist upon separating out “homeschoolers” as a group to be observed, researched and monitored like lab rats, we are going to have these issues. I truly believe that we must insist on being treated as full human beings rather than “homeschoolers,” which in the popular imagination seems to equate to separate species, not quite human. Minority groups are so often treated as second-class citizens, and we have certainly experienced our fair share of bias and prejudice, based on ignorance, generalizations and fear. As it becomes les and less acceptable to target groups based upon ethnic or religious identification, society looks for new targets. We are an obvious one, partly because the educational establishment finds us so threatening.
My review of the Uecker article available here: https://gaither.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/uecker-on-homeschooling-and-religious-commitment/
I finally finished my review of Ross’s essay. I had a number of concerns about it and I’ve addressed SOME of them here:
http://gfoh.blogspot.com/2011/08/law-professor-makes-half-baked-attempt.html
I never realized what an issue this was. My views on homeschooling has been very negative due to the fact that next door to me was a family of such. We named them the vampires because they only came out at ten in the evening to play and of course everyone else was going to bed. They would make all sorts of noise without regard for others. They were not friendly and became rude as time went on. Ross had some interesting things to say but in my opinion, Rebekka makes sense when she said that public schooling if primarily for State use. Public schools have re-written the history of this Country for whatever reason. Kids don’t learn to write anymore. Math is done on a calculator and the computer for writing. If these means are destroyed for whatever reason, how would this generation be able to re-build this Country. We have become totally out of balance.