Category Archives: Home Schooling

Bill Lockwood: Homeschoolers, Beware of Government! 4 (1)

by Bill Lockwood

Homeschooled children have consistently and traditionally demonstrated greater academic skills that those educated in government [public] schools. Academic rigor is not only much increased, but social development as well. Little wonder, now that the government school system, controlled by gigantic leviathan bureaucratic nightmares such as the National Education Association (NEA) and its state adjuncts, are pressing to construct “politically correct” children.

During the pandemic, with government schools closed, homeschooling surged from 5.4% of households in April 2020 to 11.1% by September. This has academia worried. Elizabeth Bartholet, professor of Harvard Law School, advocates a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling. Other academics are now weighing in, showing us the direction of our overreaching government.

The Huffington Post (Jan. 15) ran a “scathing rebuke” of the Abeka Publishing and Bob Jones University Press. “Language used in the books overlaps with the rhetoric of Christian nationalism, often with overtones of nativism, militarism, and racism.” Days later, Christy Stroop, a writer for the progressive website Religion Dispatches, sounded her own alarm. People are “radicalized”, she claims, along with “white churches” in the “homeschooling movement.” Ms. Magazine charges “extremist, white supremacist” culture is being fostered in the “homeschooling movement.”

Philip Gorski, a sociology professor at Yale, tweeted this: “Christian homeschooling was—and is—often—if not always—a major vector of White Christian Nationalism.” Back to Bartholet. In an article for the Arizona Law Review, she referred to homeschooling parents’ ideological commitment to “isolating their children from the majority culture and indoctrinating them in views and values that are in serious conflict with that culture.”

Academic writings are beginning to fill up with criticisms of homeschooling as well as sarcastic references to the Bible.

As Christians, the very point of Christianity is to indoctrinate with values that are separate from the hedonistic godless culture in which we live. Bartholet notwithstanding. The only issue is, will America retain any vestige of freedom that we might be able to accomplish that? With nonsense such as “White Supremacism” thrown around—it looks like the powers that be are setting up to remove that freedom.

ALex Newman: LOL! Harvard Push for Homeschool Ban Backfires Amazingly 0 (0)

by Alex Newman

Well that was embarrassing! A push to ban home education by a fringe anti-Christian bigot at Harvard Law School backfired in spectacular fashion in recent days. It got so bad that Harvard Magazine quickly locked down the public comments section after every single comment ridiculed and debunked the article peddling the attack on homeschooling. Oops!

As The Newman Report documented last month, a pair of anti-family tyrants are plotting an anti-homeschooling summit this summer at Harvard. Law Professor James Dwyer of William and Mary College specializes in trying to undermine parental rights, while Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholet is taking a page out of National Socialist Adolf Hitler’s playbook by pushing for a “presumptive ban” on home education.

In a bizarre diatribe by Erin O’Donnell at Harvard Magazine about the supposed “risks” of homeschooling that just went online, Bartholet’s dishonesty and totalitarian fantasies were regurgitated uncritically. Basically, according to the Bartholet, home education “violates children’s right” to a “meaningful education” and “their right to be protected from potential child abuse.”

Of course, in the real world, homeschooled children score far better on every academic indicator — usually around 30 percentile points higher than victims of government schools, on the government’s own standardized academic tests. They are also better socialized, and far less likely to be abused than government-“educated” children.

Next, borrowing totalitarian language from anti-Christian communist John Dewey, Bartholet claims that homeschooling may keep children from “contributing positively to a democratic society.” But again, in the real world, homeschoolers contribute far more to society than the victims of government schools. That is true in business, politics, law, academia, science, and more.

Finally, Bartholet goes on to suggest — falsely — that virtually all homeschool families are conservative Christians, many of whom “question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy.” Seriously. Apparently this is all a threat to “U.S. democracy” (perhaps she should read the Federalist Papers). The nutty professor then suggested that the remedy was to forcibly “expose” all children to “community values,” by which she means her values of the state uber alles.

As soon as the poorly written and even more poorly supported attack was published, a deluge of comments began pouring in. Most of them came from liberal and irreligious commentators who support homeschooling. All nine expressed strong disagreement. By the end of the day, it was clear that the public was blasting holes in the lies peddled by Bartholet and the shoddy “reporting” of Harvard Magazine. And so, the comment section was closed.

“This article is sad in its total inaccuracy,” opined Kim Cheney Wayman, an atheist homeschooler and the first person to comment. Next, Larissa, who said she was a public-school educator, wrote that Harvard Magazine’s piece was “by far, the most vapid and poorly researched article I’ve ever read.” TJ then blasted Bartholet for intolerance and “attacking a minority group.” Cait Blakey wrote: “This article and others like it stun me and show a true lack of understanding of what homeschooling is.” David Shellenberger added: “Government school-prisons are the worst means of education. They should be abolished and a free market achieved.” Go read them yourself.

Obviously Harvard Magazine and Bartholet were not amused with all this democratic free expression of “community values.” The Newman Report left messages left for both seeking comment, and to find out whether the comment section was closed down only to stop more people from exposing the dishonesty. Comments sections on other articles remain open even months after publication. Nobody responded to the inquiries by press time.

No matter. The next day, the relentless exposing of Bartholet’s totalitarian vision continued in other media. “Clearly, O’Donnell and Professor Bartholet desire that the governmental agenda to waste time and money be extended to our right to education — force everyone to the same time wasting, low achieving, inefficient level, and the population is more easily controlled and brainwashed with ideas and agendas directly contradictory to democracy, excellence, truth, and freedom,” wrote Melba Pearson, a Harvard alumni who was homeschooled for her entire education before college.

“I excelled at Harvard because I was homeschooled, and of that I am proud,” added Pearson after going through the massive amounts of data documenting the overwhelming superiority of home education over government schools. “It is deeply disappointing that Harvard is choosing and promoting an intellectual totalitarian path that calls for a ban of the liberties that helped me and countless others succeed, for it is those liberties and ideals that have made America the great nation it is today.”

The absurdity of Harvard’s anti-homeschooling narrative is already making for comedy gold, too. In an April 20 satire piece headlined “Study: Majority of Homeschoolers Arrive at College Woefully Unprepared for Gender Studies,” The Babylon Bee hilariously mocked the academic bigwigs at Harvard and other far-left overpriced colleges targeting home education and parental rights.

THE TAKEAWAY

Harvard just got millions of dollars in additional taxpayer funding through the stimulus bailout scheme passed by Congress. It is grotesque that the economically struggling American people are being forced to subsidize dangerous attacks on their most sacred God-given by unhinged ideologues and totalitarians at these indoctrination centers masquerading as educational institutions. It is time to stop the gravy train and force tyrants like Bartholet et al to do something productive for a living.

TNR: https://freedomproject.com/the-newman-report/1419-lol-harvard-push-for-homeschool-ban-backfires-amazingly


Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook

Mass Shootings Spark Growing Interest in Homeschooling 0 (0)

Mass Shootings Spark Growing Interest in Homeschooling  “homeschooling in response to the evil that now permeates government “education”…  “

by Alex Newman

The perversion, lies, dumbing down, fake history, anti-God pseudo-science, and flagrant immorality promoted in government schools was apparently not enough to get parents to pay attention — but the consequences of that evil are waking people up in huge numbers. Amid an apparent wave of school shootings exploited by the press to attack gun rights, a growing number of parents are now exploring a much more sensible option: withdrawing their children entirely.

In fact, according to multiple news reports, it is clear that interest in homeschooling across America is surging in response to the perceived increase in shootings. On February 15, for example, the Miami Herald wrote an article under the headline: “In the wake of the Douglas High massacre, some parents ponder home schooling.” The article documents surging interest in home education among parents and explains how to legally remove children from school.

Similar headlines are appearing after each shooting. After a recent school shooting in Texas, more media outlets also began reporting on the trend. An ABC affiliate in Alabama, for instance, reported on the phenomenon under the headline: “Parents consider homeschooling kids after deadly school shootings.”

The Foundation for Economic Education picked up on the growing interest, too. And the writer, Kerry McDonald, ridiculed comments by a government-school teacher that leaving public schools is “running from reality.” “But that raises the question: Is compulsory mass schooling ‘reality’?” she asked. Of course not.

A deluge of social media posts make the growing interest in home education clear, as well. “Well, guess I am homeschooling my children,” wrote Juliet, a young mother, on Twitter after the Parkland shooting. “Wasn’t my plan, but I don’t need to wonder every day if my kids will come home from school.”

The next day, another mom posted a similar tweet. “I know I say in my tweets I’m considering homeschooling,” she wrote. “Researched it and I’ve decided it’s not something I’m gonna consider anymore. I’m 100 % DOING this.” Countless similar posts could be found on Twitter and other social media outlets.

Ironically, the Obama administration’s totalitarian-minded Education Secretary Arne Duncan has actually encouraged parents to keep their children home until Congress passes anti-gun legislation. Since that appears unlikely — especially considering the protections for gun-rights enshrined in the Second Amendment — they may be home for quite a while. At least we can hope.

School shootings were actually more common in the 1990s, and have been declining since then, according to research from picked up on the growing interestNortheastern University. But the fact is that, before God, prayer, morality, and common sense were expelled from school fifty years ago, school shootings and teen suicide were almost non-existent. Decreased parental involvement has also been cited as a factor.

But the increased interest in homeschooling in response to the evil that now permeates government “education” — the fruits of which include suicide, mass murder, promiscuity, abortion, and more — should be considered a welcome development. Hopefully the growing interest in homeschooling will turn into a mass exodus from government indoctrination centers in the years ahead.

While the school shootings are a horrific tragedy, they must be understood as the inevitable consequence of the lies and wickedness being pushed on children in government school. The solution is not gun control — after all, guns were far easier to access in the 1950s, and dozens of school children are massacred in knife attacks in Communist China to this day. The kids need protection not from guns or knives, but from the lies and indoctrination pushed at school that motivate people to kill.


Alex Newman is an American journalist and consultant who writes about economics, finance, banking, business, and politics for diverse publications in the United States and abroad. He studied journalism, economics and political science at the University of Florida. 

In addition to his own consulting firm, Alex has worked in market research, marketing, strategy, research, information gathering and consulting for international companies, non-profit organizations and various political campaigns. He is also the co-author of a book exposing some of the problems with today’s public education system.  Alex is also a regular contributor to The New American