As for immigrants, I’m referring here to a post I did some time ago about Muslim immigrant homeschooling families who do, according to Neil MacFarquhar, keep their girls home so as to keep them illiterate to prepare them for a life of domestic servitude to their husbands. If you search above for “MacFarquahar” that post will come right up.

(I actually think a great research project would be to look at the acquisition of reading in homeschoolers who take a more developmental approach. I know my oldest son was both reading and math phobic when I removed him from school at 4th grade, because he’d been pushed so hard and had those subjectes presented to him as a sequential parts-to-whole “scope and sequence” when he turned out to be a big picture, big concept, whole language late bloomer. Taking him out of school and telling him he did not have to read did wonders for him. That and Harry Potter. He’s excelling in college now. Anyway, I think educators could learn a lot about this other approache, which challenges presumptions about when literacy must be acquired and forces it down the throats of kids still in a pre-literacy phase of development, who should be drawing, dreaming, hearing and telling stories, learning rhymes to skip rope with, etc.)

As for the gender-related thing, yah, that could be a conflict as you describe. But the truth is, the quiverfull parents I know, all make a full education available to their daughters – albeit with those girls having more gender-based household duties such as helping with younger children and cooking. But they are right there learning advanced math with their brothers. So I dunno. I suppose, just as in the public schools, the fringe of the fringe may be problematic — but we know hard cases make bad law, and, more along the lines of your point, we could begin to get into religious freedom. IRL, I definitely know many homeschooling families with very traditional gender roles built into family life (more that don’t – because I move across inclusive and Christian circles and those that are blended), but there is also some thought that girld need the education to be attractive to their well-educated prospective husbands. I’m sure that doesn’t mean there is not an extreme further than what I have seen…

Partly, the reason is this: I am a teacher. I know quite well the sound of an administrator trying to sell snake oil. I know that although there are, thankfully, many teachers out there who are professional and dedicated, they’re also hamstrung by NCLB concerns into focusing their primary efforts to help the kids who are barely passing. Too many teachers hold essentially negative or at least erroneous beliefs about gifted children, and these too can stand in the way of a child receiving an appropriate education.

When it was very evident to us that the school for which we were zoned essentially had little reason or desire to accommodate beyond handing out an occasional Sudoku puzzle or logic game, the choice was a pretty easy one. We are also very fortunate in being able to make this work. My concerns lie with those parents who are not so fortunate, but who are effectively in the same position we are.

I believe most teachers do their best, but it is indeed challenging to meet set objectives for a schooling system, with large class sizes of very varied interests and talents.

Most of the other homeschooling families I know are the reverse – they are homeschooling because they have children who are having trouble keeping up within the school system, or because their children are bullied.

As we had no previous history of homeschooling ourselves, we had to put in a lot of research to make sure that we were doing the right thing. You can access this information on how to get started in homeschooling at http://www.yourhomeschoolcommunity.com/.

Thank you so much for your articles