A Philosophical Argument against Homeschooling, Part 2

This is the second of a two-part review of Randall Curren and J. C. Blokhuis, “The Prima Facie Case Against Homeschooling” in Public Affairs Quarterly, 25, no. 1 (January 2011): 1-19.

In my previous post I argued against the historic backstory Curren and Blokhuis provide as the underpinning of their argument.  Today I will look at the argument itself.  In general they make two basic claims.  First, they claim that all children are entitled to equal public protection of their educational interests, which means that all forms of education, including private schooling and homeschooling, must provide equal educative opportunities.  Second, they claim that the nature of knowledge is such that, especially at the secondary level, parents (or any other citizen) can be presumed to lack competence to teach, and that anybody who wants to teach must overcome this presumption of incompetence by proving their merit.

Curren and Blokhuis elaborate on these claims through a three-part argument.  I will first summarize their argument and then offer some critiques.

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After a Divorce, Who Controls the Education of the Children?

This post reviews Anthony Barone Kolenc, “When ‘I Do’ Becomes ‘You Won’t!’–Preserving the Right to Home School After Divorce” in Ave Maria Law Review 9, no. 2 (2010-2011): 263-302.

Kolenc is a  lawyer in the U.S. Air Force, adjunct faculty member at Saint Leo University, homeschooling father of five, and author of the monthly column “Legally Speaking” in The Old Schoolhouse magazine.  Here he constructs a legal argument aimed at helping divorced homeschooling parents involved in custody disputes.

Kolenc begins with the Kurowski case, which I discussed here and here.  Here’s the summary I wrote a few months ago of the facts of the case:

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Does Homeschooling Undermine the Public Interest in Children?

This post reviews J. C. Blokhuis, “Whose Custody is it Anyway?: ‘Homeschooling’ from a Parens Patriae Perspective,” in Theory and Research in Education, 8, no. 2 (August 2010): 199-222.  [Abstract available here]

Blokhuis, Assistant Professor of Education at Renison University College at the University of Waterloo in Canada, here presents a bracing challenge to the common claim that parents have a Constitutional right to raise their children as they see fit.  He does this by explaining how the common law doctrine parens patriae limits their custodial authority.  He hones in especially on how this doctrine limits homeschooling rights. 

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