This post reviews Tal Levy, “Homeschooling and Racism” in Journal of Black Studies (November 2007): 1-19. (Available fulltext here).
Levy, a political science professor at Marygrove College in Detroit, here offers 13 hypothetical reasons why various states passed homeschool legislation and puts each hypothesis to the test to see if it really explains the expansion of homeschooling.
Levy calls his approach “Diffusion Research,” a methodology that looks at how a reform spreads and tries to ascertain why certain locations adopt the reform early and others late. Here are Levy’s 13 hypothetical reasons why states might have passed homeschool-enabling legislation:
1. The richer the state, the more likely it will pass a homeschool law
2. The less urbanized a state, the more likely to pass a law
3. The less populous a state, the more likely to pass a law
4. More Christian fundamentalists, more likely to pass a law
5. More African Americans, more likely to pass a law
6. More racial integration in schools, more likely to pass a law
7. More Republican the state government, more likely to pass a law
8. Less powerful the National Education Association in a state, more likely to pass a law
9. Less a state spends on public schools, more likely to pass a law
10. Fewer available public school teachers, more likely to pass a law
11. Lower high school graduation rate, more likely to pass a law
12. If a state is located next to a state that has recently passed a homeschool law, it will be more likely to do so.
13. The more states in a region that have a law, the more likely a state is to pass one.
After laying out these hypotheses and explaining why he thought they might explain a state’s adoption of homeschool law, Levy put each to the test using a sophisticated regression analysis. In an appendix he explains where and how he acquired data for each variable. The results of his analysis are pretty interesting. Only 8 of his 13 hypothetical variables were statistically significant, and some of his hypotheses actually got things backwards:
Regarding demographic variables, his hypothesis was correct that less populous states were more likely to pass a law, and he was right as well about areas with more conservative Christians and more racial integration. But the number of blacks and the level of urbanization were not significant factors, nor was per capita income. The take-home message here is that homeschooling laws were more likely to be passed in states with a lot of small town and rural citizens whose schools were experiencing high levels of racial integration. I’ll return to this in a moment.
Levy’s political hypothesis was completely wrong. In fact it was Democrat-controlled state governments that were more likely to pass homeschooling laws. Reading his discussion of this point makes it clear that Levy was surprised by this finding and doesn’t know quite what to make of it. He speculates that maybe southern Democrats were more likely to be pro-religious right homeschooling, or perhaps the Democrats were just being realistic, recognizing that homeschooling wasn’t going away.
Levy’s education quality hypothesis was also wrong. It turns out that the states that spent the most on public schools were actually MORE likely to pass homeschooling laws. NEA membership levels and high school graduation rates were insignificant.
Finally, Levy’s geographic hypothesis was wrong as well. He found that states whose neighbors had recently enacted homeschool laws were actually a bit less likely to pass legislation than states without neighbors who had done so.
What are we to make of all of this? I have a couple of comments. First, while this is a very interesting study, it suffers from some serious design flaws. It is a mistake to assume that a state’s passage of a new homeschool law means that that state has more homeschoolers or is somehow more interested in homeschooling than neighboring states that have not enacted new laws. Each state’s story is unique and is the result of a complex interplay of factors: the language of the original compulsory education statute in that state, state court precedents interpreting that language, individual personalities who emerged as leaders of the homeschooling movement in the state, and much else. To give just one example, California did not pass a new homeschool law in the 1980s or 1990s. Thus it is off of Levy’s radar screen. But anyone who’s been around the homeschooling world for long knows that California has more homeschoolers than any other state and is often at the very forefront of national homeschooling trends and political action. The basic problem here is that despite Levy’s 13 hypotheses, he has not accounted for the most important variable of all–the internal history of particular states. Similarly, it simply will not do to lump all states who drafted new laws together. These laws, as homeschoolers in the various states will testify, vary widely in terms of their regulatory requirements. Furthermore, many of these laws have been revisited and revised over the years.
Secondly, one of the first things students in social science courses learn is that correlation does not equal causality. Throughout this article Levy has a tendency to leap the chasm. His data shows a correlation and he then speculates (sometimes wildly) about why or how this is the case. For example, when he finds, contrary to his original hypothesis, that states neighboring other states that pass laws are themselves a bit less likely to do so, he speculates that this might be due to an “immunization effect” whereby states learn from their neighbors’ mistake and try to avoid repeating it. He offers no evidence that there has ever been this sort of immunization effect–no quotations from state legislators warning their peers to avoid following the example of their neighbor, no newspaper articles dreading the contagion of homeschooling from neighboring states, no claims by advocates of one state to take their campaign to neighbors. As one who has studied the politics of the movement in detail I am highly doubtful that there has ever been an immunization effect.
Having said all of this, the article’s actual findings (if not Levy’s explanations of them) are intriguing, especially the one he foregrounds the most. Levy offers solid evidence that does show a clear correlation between the passage of new homeschool laws and the rate of racial integration in public schools. He notes correctly that racial integration in public schools across the country peaked in the 1980s, “the same decade that 29 of the 38 homeschooling laws were passed.” Correlation, as I just said, does not equal causality, but Levy speculates, “it is possible that as the level of school integration increased, more White parents decided to educate their children at home.”
It is certainly possible, but is it true? Again, Levy’s methodology gives us no evidence one way or the other. In my book on the history of homeschooling
Nevertheless, Levy’s data is noteworthy. To really test it we need extended, in-depth accounts of the passage of state homeschool laws for every state. I was able to tell Georgia’s story in detail thanks to an excellent 1995 dissertation by Casey Patrick Cochran that interviewed dozens of the important players and addressed the racial quesion head on. Would similar in-depth accounts find that racial motives were present in, say, Mississippi or Louisiana, which passed laws in 1982 and 1983 respectively? I don’t know. Given what Cochran found in Georgia, I’m inclined to doubt that the desegregation of public schools played a very significant role in the passage of new homeschool laws. But Levy’s intriguing finding here makes me wish for 49 more state studies of the same caliber as Cochran’s.
Milton,
I have to agree with you about the design flaws in this study. It would have told us much more if Levy had attempted to differentiate between homeschooling laws in terms of the level of restrictiveness.
As I’m sure you know, when homeschooling laws were being passed, some states passed laws that effectively allowed homeschooling under any circumstances. Some passed laws that provided some basic restrictions – parents had to notify a local school district, for example. Some passed laws that had a significant number of restrictions but allowed some freedom as well (Colorado, for example, has a law that requires testing or evaluation every other year beginning with third grade, but requires only that the students reach the 13th percentile, allows for evaluation for students who don’t reach that level, and does not allow school districts to examine any homeschooler’s records without probable cause). And some passed laws that were terribly cumbersome, such as Pennsylvania’s or Missouri’s.
It would be interesting to me to know whether, for example, the homeschooling laws passed in Democrat-dominated states, or those that spent more on public schools, tended to be more restrictive of homeschoolers.
I wonder whether Levy’s design flaws result from an overall lack of knowledge about homeschooling. It seems to me some additional research on his part would have been helpful.
BTW thank you so much for this blog. I am fascinated by the research and thrilled to see a blog dedicated to homeschooling research. Your blog puts the lie to the idea, propounded by many anti-homeschooling folks, that there’s no research on the topic of homeschooling because homeschoolers won’t cooperate. Great work!
Marcymuser,
I think it’s fair to say that Levy isn’t that familiar with homeschooling. A tip off comes in his appendix where he says that he got his data on state law ratification dates from “Jack Klicka” of HSLDA (his real name is Chris Klicka). Given the hypotheses with which he began one gets the sense that Levy started out with a rather negative view of the movement–homeschoolers are a bunch of conservative Christian racists and was originally trying to get some data to back up his views. That he acknowledges over the course of his article that many of his original ideas were wrong does him great credit I think.
I agree that it would be interesting for him to take another look at this and see if the variables you mention correlate with the relative strictness of a state’s law.
Thanks for the positive feedback!
Re marcymuser’s comments:
Missouri has a cumbersome law? Is this perhaps a previous version of the law that was later amended? I’ve lived in Missouri only since 1999, so I didn’t pay attention to the laws here until after that.
Missouri’s current law requires a specific number of hours broken divided between core and non-core subjects; so many hours of instruction to be in the ‘regular’ place of instruction, and a log of instruction. Other that that (which I accomplished overseas as a military family member and without a law), the requirements are inconsequential.
In any case, concerning ‘racism,’ this would not be something connected to ‘homeschooling,’ but rather could only be about the response to homeschooling from the people in state legislatures. Even if racist people were the lobbyists, the laws were not written with any racial restrictions — although I suppose you could say that Yoder excludes black families because (as far as I know, which is far from definitive) there are no black Amish. But that’s a silly slope argument. ;>
Technically, anyone can ‘homeschool,’ (within the definitions of states’ laws) just as anyone can bowl, play croquet or drive cars. Perhaps some people engage in bowling, croquet or car-driving to avoid associating with others … on basketball or tennis courts, or on public transportation … because they think people of other races won’t be attracted to the activity (rather a far-fetched assumption), but that doesn’t associate racism with the activity itself.
I know that you mentioned Donna Nichols-White and The Drinking Gourd in your book, Mr. Gaither. Ms. Nichols-White homeschooled just fine (as far as I could tell from the writings in her catalog), but the concept of African-American families teaching their own children hadn’t yet reached a tipping point when she was homeschooling. Since then, parents’ perceptions, and goals, have shifted.
Even if some people were attracted to homeschooling in the 1970s and 1980s because segregated schools affiliated with churches lost their tax break, which may have increased tuition (and I saw your refutation of this theory in your book), that still could not keep people of whatever race, religion, or philosophical persuation, from teaching their own children at home. They may not have had a like-minded community for support, but, as far as I can tell, they couldn’t be stopped.
Homeschooling-as-racist makes as much sense (to my non-academic mind) as homecooking-as-racist to avoid ethnic restaurants.
It is possible, maybe even probable, that some people had racial avoidance as a reason for homeschooling, but I think it is unsustainable as an argument against homeschooling because homeschooling is can’t be restricted to any group.
Apologies if I’ve missed the point, but the red herringness of doing research to equate homeschooling with racism begs for shouting. ;>
militaryhomeschooling,
I think Levy was trying to get some data so as to make a historical argument that racist motives were a factor in the passage of homeschool laws. Like you, I’m skeptical that that was the case, and you are absolutely correct that once passed homeschooling legislation can be used by anybody, not just white people. Your mentioning of Donna Nichols-White is appropriate, and I might add that home education has a long history among African Americans going back at least to the laws that were passed in slave states in the 1830s criminalizing the teaching of literacy to slaves, driving education for blacks underground. I have a feeling that all of this further illustrates the point made by marcymuser that Levy seems not to know a lot about homeschooling. If he ever comes across this thread I’d recommend that he contact Jennifer James, founder of the National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance, to fill him in.
[…] issue has come up a few times in previous posts I’ve done, most explicitly in my review of an article titled “Homeschooling and Racism.” In that post I go into a bit more […]