Last year just as the pandemic hit and homeschooling skyrocketed (doubling across the U.S., according to the United States Census Bureau), we learned that Harvard University sponsored a “Summit on Homeschooling.” It was an invitation-only event, and all of the presenters had a history of being proponents of severe restrictions on homeschooling, with one even supporting a “presumptive ban.”
This event drew severe backlash from across the political and academic spectrum, and the event was canceled. A few weeks ago, a revamped online event replaced the earlier version that had token homeschool representation and the event is being aired weekly for several weeks. The event is called “The Post-Pandemic Future of Homeschooling.”
The first discussion was on “Is it Time to Change Homeschool Laws,” and you would not be surprised to learn that these “experts” supported the regulation of homeschooling across the country with few exceptions.
Some of these speakers seemed concerned about parents sharing their Christian faith and worldview. In fact, it appears that many of these folks were most concerned about parents passing on ideas that they disagreed with, which were coming from a conservative or Christian perspective.
I participated in a review of this first panel discussion with state leaders from Indiana and Connecticut, and you can watch that video here.
One writer penned a recent article entitled “Attacks on Christian Homeschoolers Are No Longer Subtle.” She lists a long list of news stories and articles attacking conservative Christian homeschoolers and curricula suppliers and then says, “None of this should come as a surprise. Although opponents of homeschooling have typically raised understandable concerns—such as whether parents with limited educations are equipped to teach math and reading, or whether some parents keep their children out of school as a pretext to abuse them—their actual animus as expressed in their writings is almost always directed at parents who are too religious for their tastes. That means evangelical and other conservative Christians (who still account for the vast majority of homeschoolers), along with Hasidic Jews who educate their children in their own yeshivas.”
She closes her article with this observation, “The notion that parents, Christian or otherwise, should be forbidden by the government to educate their children in the values that they themselves hold dear—or be forced to ‘expose’ them to values that they might find abhorrent but are definitely in the secular liberal ‘mainstream’ (advocating unrestricted abortion or same-sex marriage, for example)—is totalitarianism at its crudest.”
I couldn’t agree more. Here at THSC, we believe that parents have a God-given right to raise their children as they see fit and that guiding principle drives all of our decisions and policies. We defend families and their right to raise their children in the courts, by intervening on their behalf with state and federal agencies and by working at the Texas Capitol to support pro-family legislation and work against legislation that hurts families.
We believe in Keeping Texas Families Free! As homeschooling grows, so does our opposition. Become a THSC member today to help us make sure homeschooling remains free across Texas.
Last year just as the pandemic hit and homeschooling skyrocketed (doubling across the U.S., according to the United States Census Bureau), we learned that Harvard University sponsored a “Summit on Homeschooling.” It was an invitation-only event, and all of the presenters had a history of being proponents of severe restrictions on homeschooling, with one even supporting a “presumptive ban.”
This event drew severe backlash from across the political and academic spectrum, and the event was canceled. A few weeks ago, a revamped online event replaced the earlier version that had token homeschool representation and the event is being aired weekly for several weeks. The event is called “The Post-Pandemic Future of Homeschooling.”
The first discussion was on “Is it Time to Change Homeschool Laws,” and you would not be surprised to learn that these “experts” supported the regulation of homeschooling across the country with few exceptions.
Some of these speakers seemed concerned about parents sharing their Christian faith and worldview. In fact, it appears that many of these folks were most concerned about parents passing on ideas that they disagreed with, which were coming from a conservative or Christian perspective.
I participated in a review of this first panel discussion with state leaders from Indiana and Connecticut, and you can watch that video here.
One writer penned a recent article entitled “Attacks on Christian Homeschoolers Are No Longer Subtle.” She lists a long list of news stories and articles attacking conservative Christian homeschoolers and curricula suppliers and then says, “None of this should come as a surprise. Although opponents of homeschooling have typically raised understandable concerns—such as whether parents with limited educations are equipped to teach math and reading, or whether some parents keep their children out of school as a pretext to abuse them—their actual animus as expressed in their writings is almost always directed at parents who are too religious for their tastes. That means evangelical and other conservative Christians (who still account for the vast majority of homeschoolers), along with Hasidic Jews who educate their children in their own yeshivas.”
She closes her article with this observation, “The notion that parents, Christian or otherwise, should be forbidden by the government to educate their children in the values that they themselves hold dear—or be forced to ‘expose’ them to values that they might find abhorrent but are definitely in the secular liberal ‘mainstream’ (advocating unrestricted abortion or same-sex marriage, for example)—is totalitarianism at its crudest.”
I couldn’t agree more. Here at THSC, we believe that parents have a God-given right to raise their children as they see fit and that guiding principle drives all of our decisions and policies. We defend families and their right to raise their children in the courts, by intervening on their behalf with state and federal agencies and by working at the Texas Capitol to support pro-family legislation and work against legislation that hurts families.
We believe in Keeping Texas Families Free! As homeschooling grows, so does our opposition. Become a THSC member today to help us make sure homeschooling remains free across Texas.
