Let me give you a quick example of potential conflict. Mainstream social norms presume the equality of the sexes. Some homeschoolers believe that women are subordinate to men–a few think women should not vote, drive, and so on. Should Americans celebrate this diversity of opinions about women’s status? Should we worry that girls are being discriminated against and try to pass laws on their behalf?

What I’ve been trying to say is that I’m not arguing for one particular answer to such questions in my scholarship. I’m just chronicling the issues and looking to get historic leverage on them.

I’m saying: I fail to see how homeschooling exemplifies conflict between valuing individual freedom, self determination, privacy and diversity and valuing strong community ties, strong families, public standards of decency and civic responsibility.

To the contrary, I find homeschoolers to be one of the few populations where these two things are NOT in conflict. Homeschoolers are busy demonstrating how individual freedom contributes to creating strong community ties. They demonstrate how self-determination CREATES civic responsibility. And so on.

I think this is one of those problems of inherent bias. If we presume support of government schools as what demonstrates civic responsibilty or community orientation, we are blinded. Homeschoolers are regular and hard workers in the political system, in their churches, in community service organizations, and quite simply, with their neighbors. I and many other homeschoolers have the experience of being told “Oh – you’re in EVERYTHING” or “You’re EVERYwhere” in our community.

Homeschoolers’ strong commitment to individual freedom, self-determination, and privacy are among the things that allow us to be community-oriented. No conflict. Except the presumed one — that participation in government schools = a community orientation. We eschew that, and we are seen as in conflict with community and public standards?

No. Maybe we want something better for our communities. And we are working in our own families and our communities to create it.

But you gotta get outta the conditioned bias toward schooling-as-we-know-it to see it.

I could talk about homeschooling all day, every day…it’s a passion that I want to protect. I think I understand your passion about homeschooling history, as it is fascinating.
The concern is the interest in us by people who generally work to keep all children in the public school fold. That’s my concern. The media picks out “homeschool experts”, because they’re professionally available to them.
Having someone like Professor Kunzman -with his agenda-speaking about us, rather than the local homeschool leader is disturbing. We’re busy homeschooling and living our family life with our children, while more and more articles come out about homeschooling. I’d be ok with little attention towards a wholesome lifestyle few people understand. But I know I’m dreamin’.
Thanks for the forum!

I understand your (and many homeschoolers’) frustration with outside researchers trying to colonize your life for our own professional careers. All I can say is that homeschoolers are definitely not unique here. Academics study pretty much everything–it’s just what we do. Maybe what we do isn’t valuable to you, which is fine. But I still like to study things. It’s just fun to learn stuff I didn’t know before and to try to make sense of things that perplex or fascinate me. Homeschooling is one of those things. I’ve gotten pretty positive feedback from homeschoolers who have read my book so far, but it makes perfect sense to me why some homeschoolers wouldn’t want to read a book by an outsider. That’s fine.

However, Rob Reich’s assertion that homeschooling per se deprives children of autonomy is not necessarily correct. In the UK, the term autonomous home education refers to what is known in the USA as unschooling. I do know that he has been taken to task on occasion by home educators who represent the more autonomous (for the child) end of the spectrum. To me, Rob Reich’s assertion about the lack of autonomy for children conflicts with his call for regulation and testing. Under such a regime, families who follow an autonomous model would be more likely to fall foul of the system than families who follow a more curriculum-orientated method, as most religiously motivated home educators do.

A parliament select committee was called to review his review after an outcry from home educators and much reporting in the English and British media (it is only England and Wales that are affected by this review, as Scotland is independent in this regard. Some of the responses to this committee echo the concerns that home educators have with the Badman review:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmchilsch/memo/elehomed/contents.htm

You can be very glad that you’re not in Graham Badman’s position, Milton. If you were, you might even get a blog dedicated to you:
http://grahambadman.blogspot.com/

By the way, I’ll be very interested to read your take on Thomas Spiegler’s chapter. I have his book in German and have first-hand experience in home educating illegally in Germany. I’m busy writing my dissertation for my Masters degree (in German) on how compulsory schooling and its alternatives are constructed in German legal judgements and the media. I hit on this approach after reading Emma Stroobant’s thesis on homeschooling school-resistant children here on your blog, so thank you!

I am happy to sign paperwork each year holding our illustrious education system harmless for its lack of involvement in the education of my children.