Last week’s post generated by far the most activity I’ve ever had on this blog. Most of the comments submitted showcase the remarkable zeal with which homeschoolers rush to defend themselves in the face of perceived attack. The outside observer might find such behavior a bit overdone and melodramatic. To me it helps explain why homeschoolers have been so successful in the political arena. If Dr. West’s relatively obscure article reviewed on my very obscure blog has produced such a reaction, you can imagine what happens when a state legislator, school superintendent, or government official says something that rankles homeschoolers!
Anyway, among the many comments submitted was one that questioned the degree to which I accurately portrayed West’s argument. There were two issues especially where the commentator felt I did not do West’s argument justice. I’d like here to briefly return to them, providing quotations from West’s article, so that readers might determine for themselves whether they think I gave a fair summary.
First, the commentator disagreed with me on a historical point. I said that West believed that legislators and courts caved to homeschooler demands in the 1980s and 90s because they accepted homeschoolers’ Constitutional arguments about a fundamental right to homeschool. I said that that wasn’t true, that the Constitutional claims were far less important than appeals to state statutory language and efforts to change that language when it was not sufficiently friendly to homeschooling. Let’s see what West actually says:
Why were the states so willing to turn the reins over to parents? They acted, at least in part, because of the belief, held by religious parents and proclaimed by their advocates, that a constitutional right required the states to do so. Specifically, the parents and their advocacy groups argued that religious parents had a free exercise right, grounded in the First Amendment, to educate their children as they see fit, in private, at home, in accordance with their religious beliefs, and with no oversight by or even interaction with state authorities. In the face of this adamantly asserted constitutional right, and strapped for cash in any event, the states ceded responsibility for what had previously been a core state function—the education of children—to whatever parents claimed that they preferred to educate their children themselves. (p.8)
And later, after correctly noting that courts have not generally recognized a Constitutional right to homeschool, West says,
It doesn’t follow, however, from judicial recalcitrance that the right does not exist: hundreds of thousands of parents believe it exists and have acted upon it, and most important, whatever the courts might say, state legislators in all fifty states decriminalized the practice in partial reliance upon it, often explicitly making reference to the “parent’s right to homeschool” in the amended legislation or regulations as they did so. (p.8)
I’ll let my readers decide if they think from these quotations that West did or did not say that state legislators changed their laws because of Constitutional arguments. I still think she did.
The second topic my commentator took issue with was a specific argument West makes about a teacher’s love vs. a parent’s. The commentator found this part of West’s essay clear and said it didn’t mean what I said it meant. I thought it was hard to follow and interpreted West to be saying (as I wrote), “kids who attend school are loved for who they are as individuals, not for who they are as offspring… the point seems to be that a teacher’s love is unconditional while the parent’s is contingent on the child being his or her offspring.” Since I found this argument odd I didn’t even bother addressing it when I critiqued her various harms in my original post. Anyway, here is the paragraph in its entirety so that readers can determine for themselves what they think West is saying:
Third, public and private schools provide for many children, I suspect, although I have yet to see studies of this, a safe haven in which they are both regarded and respected independently and individually. Family love is intense, and we need it to survive and thrive. It is also deeply contingent on the existence and nature of the family ties. Children are loved in a family because they are the children of the parents in the family. The “unconditional love” they receive is anything but unconditional: it is conditioned on the fact that they are their parents’ children. School—either public or private—ideally provides a welcome respite. A child is regarded and respected at school not because she is her parent’s child, but because she is a student: she is valued for traits and for a status, in other words, that are independent of her status as the parent’s genetic or adoptive offspring. The ideal teacher cares about the child as an individual, a learner, an actively curious person—she doesn’t care about the child because the child is hers. The child is regarded with respect equally to all the children in the class. In these ways, the school classroom, ideally, and the relations within it, is a model of some core aspects of citizenship. (p.9)
Again, I think my summary really is what she’s saying here.
The commentator also found some of my language used in the summary unnecessarily pejorative. I admit that I was perhaps a bit flippant in my summary of West’s article. This flippancy was due in no small measure to my genuine astonishment at the arguments West was making and the lack of evidence she had for her various claims. I was not impressed. Having said that, I was VERY impressed with the graciousness with which West herself responded in her own comment posted under my review. I’m sure we all know what it feels like to be attacked for something we have written or said, and West has been attacked quite a bit for this article. That she could respond with such generosity truly impresses me. If West continues to research and write about homeschooling I have no doubt that her subsequent work will be enriched by the spirited rejoinders posted here and elsewhere on the internet as well as communicated to her directly. Thanks to all who contributed to this fascinating episode of my humble blog!
For all the kids who feel school is a safe haven from an unhappy home life, how many more see home as a refuge from an unhappy school situation? How many kids feel like “just another brick in the wall” in the classroom (to quote Pink Floyd) or worse? If school is such a wonderful place where every student is respected and valued, then why is the dropout rate a whopping 1 out of every 3?
I posted a reply previously about Ms. West’s discussion of “unconditional love.” I agree that it was a bizarre paragraph and somewhat difficult to follow. I *think* what she is trying to say is that because parents often have intense hopes and dreams for their children, based on their own expectations of what they want their children to be and not on who the child actually is, that the praise and encouragement that a child can find from an outside authority figure can often be extremely important in the child’s individuality and pride in their achievements. If that is indeed her point, I don’t think she said it very well. To say that a teacher’s love is unconditional seems patently absurd to me. While such a role might be important to a child, I don’t think it makes a very good argument against homeschooling, for a whole host of reasons. Most importantly, Ms. West herself admits she has nothing to back up this argument. It’s simply her own opinion.
The entire article just appalled me when I read it. It amazes me to think that people believe that when we have children, they suddenly become the property of the state!
In my video response to Reich’s recent anti-homeschooling blog, I offered to assist him with moving to communist North Korea where, yes, the country controls every aspect of their lives (I live only a few hours south of N. Korea at the moment).
As a liberal feminist secular homeschooler, I have a simple response:
When it comes to abortion, I believe the argument “our body, our choices”.
This extends to anything else in my personal life. I gave birth to my son. The public school system had nothing to do with giving him life or bringing him into this world. What claim do they have to him?
The state certainly did not contribute in any way whatsoever to the conception or birthing of my son (heck, we couldn’t qualify for WIC because our income was too high, so the state has given nothing to my child). He does not belong to the state, or even the country (unlike my husband who, as a member of the U.S. military has sworn to give his life to defend the Constitution and our country, if necessary).
He belongs to himself and, as parents, it is our duty (and joy) to guide him into manhood. We have decided to homeschool him. We have decided that he will learn about French and history, multiplication (when, if he were in public school, he would only be learning basic addition and subtraction), biology, earth science, astronomy, and evolution, literature and poetry and so much more.
Meanwhile, he enjoys spending gorgeous, sunny days outdoors at the playground, playing with other children, and taking Tae Kwon Do. He is lively, sociable, and loving.
Had I placed him in public school, I would not be surprised to see him distraught and moody. Why? Because the school can not cater to the individual (as Ms. West seems to believe). They do not give boys the activity they need, or right-brained, visual-spatial learners the approach necessary to teach certain concepts.
Public schools are one size fits all.
We know that, so I don’t need to go on beating a dead horse.
But I take serious issue with the idea that somehow my son is a ward of the state because I CHOSE to have a child.
Parent is not just a noun, but a verb.
The majority of parents seem to forget that.
What is so distressing about the ones who choose to remember it, and take charge of their child’s (or children’s) education?
I just don’t “get it” when it comes to the anti-homeschooling sentiment.
In Hawaii between 1987 and 1997, juvenile arrests for assault, drug possession, and drug promotion fell during summer, when school was not in session. I got these charts from a statistician in the Office of the Attorney General, State of Hawaii:
Juvenile hospitalizations for human-induced trauma also fell in summer. Beth Clarkson, a Math PhD candidate (and homeschooler) found a similar seasonal variation in juvenile arrests in Wichita, Kansas.
Roland Meighan
Home-based Education Effectiveness Research and Some of its Implications
Educational Review, Vol. 47, No.3, 1995.
“The issue of social skills. One edition of Home School Researcher, Volume 8, Number 3, contains two research reports on the issue of social skills. The first finding of the study by Larry Shyers (1992) was that home-schooled students received significantly lower problem behavior scores than schooled children. His next finding was that home-schooled children are socially well adjusted, but schooled children are not so well adjusted. Shyers concludes that we are asking the wrong question when we ask about the social adjustment of home-schooled children. The real question is why is the social; adjustment of schooled children of such poor quality?”
“The second study, by Thomas Smedley (1992), used different test instruments but comes to the same conclusion, that home-educated children are more mature and better socialized than those attending school.”
Hyman and Penroe,
Journal of School Psychology.
“Several studies of maltreatment by teachers suggest that school children report traumatic symptoms that are similar whether the traumatic event was physical or verbal abuse (Hyman, et.al.,1988; Krugman & Krugman, 1984; Lambert, 1990). Extrapolation from these studies suggests that psychological maltreatment of school children, especially those who are poor, is fairly widespread in the United States….”
Clive Harber
“Schooling as Violence”
Educatioinal Review, p. 9 V. 54, #1.
“Furthermore, according to a report for UNESCO, cited in Esteve (2000), the increasing level of pupil-teacher and pupil-pupil violence in classrooms is directly connected with compulsory schooling. The report argues that institutional violence against pupils who are obliged to attend daily at an educational centre until 16 or 18 years of age increases the frustration of these students to a level where they externalise it.”
I believe articles like Dr. West’s will be appearing more and more to pave the way for the federal gov’t to attempt to curtail or even put an end to homeschooling.
E.G. West
Schooling and Violence
“…We conclude that so far there is no evidence to support the 19th century Utilitarian hypothesis that the use of a secular and public school system will reduce crime. Beyond
this there is some evidence indeed that suggests the reverse causality: crime actually increases with the increase in the size of the public school sector. Such findings will undoubtedly stimulate further work, and clearly more research would be helpful. But if further investigation confirms the findings of Lott, Fremling, and Coleman, we must reach the verdict that the cost of public schooling is much higher than was originally believed. Published figures show that the conventional cost of public schools, on average, are already just over twice those of private schools.11 When we add to this the extra social costs of increased delinquency, the full seriousness of the inefficiency of our public school system is more starkly exposed.”
Obviously, society does have an interest in children becoming educated. However, West’s recommendation for state regulation of homeschooling, which seems to rely on standardized testing as a measure of the homeschool’s success (or lack of success), makes some huge assumptions that are not warranted by evidence.
Assumption 1. Society has a shared definition of what constitutes an “educated” citizen.
I don’t think there is a general consensus that has informed the structure of our public school system, but rather there is a mish-mash of conflicting goals.
Assumption 2. The state has a good idea of the steps to achieving the goal, and the appropriate timeline of these steps.
School curricula are generally OUT of step with the findings of child development, and the practice of moving formal academic work to an inappropriately early age can actually retard the child’s learning.
Assumption 3. Standardized tests accurately measure the child’s progress in meeting the goals.
In actual fact, tests are often plagued by flawed test items, are generally mired at the lowest levels of thinking, such as recall, and don’t accommodate individual developmental differences.
You were quoted extensively in an article yesterday on the NH situation. Getting the level of turnout under the current weather conditions is challenging and the battle is with emails, letters and phone calls to legislators to kill this thing. Rous and Day have been at this for a few years and I think that future strategy will involve going after their seats.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100112/FRONTPAGE/1120301&template=single
I just informally heard that the NH hsing bill was killed which is great news. I hope to see a newspaper article confirming this.
NH HB 368, defeated 324 to 34. Full-court press on legislators indeed. Hopefully similar bills in other states get the same treatment.
Here’s another response to West.
http://bigjournalism.com/llyman/2010/01/12/homeschoolers-trailer-park-denizens-or-modern-heroes/
Did West withdraw her article? I don’t see it in her list of publications now.
Well it’s not listed on her faculty page at Georgetown, but I don’t know if it was there before so have no idea if that’s a change or if she just never had it there. Where had you seen it listed previously?
Her assertions just can’t be supported by evidence, but I guess she *thought* she knew about homeschoolers and didn’t realize that insulting and misrepresenting a vocal population would result in her being called out. I
Could be good for an academic memoir of some kind though.