Is Homeschooling Going Mainstream?

I was invited to a conference in late September at Harvard’s Kennedy School Program on Education Policy and Governance: Emerging School Models: Moving from Alternative to Mainstream

A video recording of the event can be viewed [here].1

The lineup of panelists was interesting—homeschool coops, hybrid homeschools, microschools, charter schools, virtual schools—and some of the major businesses and researchers in the charter school world. Thursday night’s keynote address was delivered by Governor Kevin Stitt (Oklahoma) and the next morning’s opening remarks by Manny Diaz, Jr., of the Florida Board of Education.

I was struck by the enthusiasm for school choice at the event and the conviction of many of the panelists. I appreciate that all homeschoolers benefit by having more places for their children to socialize and learn, and it’s good to be with people who are serious about creating school options that are local and personalized.

But as it went on I realized that most of the presenters and organizers wanted more people to participate in the “education market” instead of devising new ways to help children learn outside the conventional education paradigm. Self-directed learning was mentioned, but more as a technique to get children to learn what the school wants. For instance, one person lauded his company’s AI that could take any student’s interest and use it to teach them the required lesson. If the student is having trouble with math but loves Star Trek, the AI would present math problems to them using Star Trek stories.

The larger issues that prevent children from doing well in our schools are not being directly addressed by educators who just want to make the existing system work more efficiently. Parental rights to question school practices were openly supported but youth rights to do so were never mentioned. The benefits of less control of children and more natural learning methods were not addressed meaningfully. A caring family, having friends and a positive social life, work that pays enough to support a family, medical support that doesn’t bankrupt people, all form the basis for secure children and successful learning. Without addressing these larger issues education will continue to be trapped in its moribund state.

If you think children can succeed in school just by “trying harder” or improving educational technology consider the schools run by the US Defense Department.

With about 66,000 students—more than the public school enrollment in Boston or Seattle—the Pentagon’s schools for children of military members and civilian employees quietly achieve results most educators can only dream of.

… While the achievement of U.S. students overall has stagnated over the last decade, the military’s schools have made gains on the national test since 2013. And even as the country’s lowest-performing students—in the bottom 25th percentile—have slipped further behind, the Defense Department’s lowest-performing students have improved in fourth-grade math and eighth-grade reading.

But there are key differences.

For starters, families have access to housing and health care through the military, and at least one parent has a job. “Having as many of those basic needs met does help set the scene for learning to occur,” said Jessica Thorne, the principal at E.A. White Elementary, a school of about 350 students. (NY Times, 10/10/23)

Many decide to homeschool, including families in the US military, because they want to reclaim time for themselves and their children to learn and grow based on their interests, beliefs, and schedules. They want to make their homes into sources of productive activity instead of just crash pads from work and school. Sajay Samuel describes this demographic in the journal Conspiratio (Number 3, Fall 2022): “[People] who wish to beautify their own lives by being less dependent, in thought and deed, on the market and the state.” In short, they want to exercise their rights as citizens to live as they see fit.

The main reason for establishing compulsory schooling in the United States, according to the Massachusetts compulsory school law, the first in the nation, is to create good citizens. Citizenship requires responsibilities, values, and actions that nurture local and national well-being. But that never came up at this event.

In Freedom and Beyond, John Holt writes, “Another consequence of defining education as schooling is that as we put more and more of our educational resources into schools, we have less and left over for those institutions that are truly open and educative and in which more and more people might learn for themselves.” Indeed, school choice funds can’t be used to support family memberships and activities, such as 4H, YMCA, libraries, museums and other civic organizations that benefit children’s learning.

It became clear that this event was more than just about celebrating a variety of school options after Gov. Stitt’s keynote. He said that when he used the word “parents” he meant only a man and woman and “family” referred to parents who fit that formulation. Single-parent and nontraditional families are left out.

Turning schools into efficient businesses was another theme Gov. Stitt leaned into. He deserves credit for giving Oklahoma public school teachers a raise, but at the same time he undermined the separation of church and state by publicly funding a Catholic school. Governor Stitt also included comments about his good fortune to have the governor’s office, state house, and senate controlled by Republicans. That fueled talk among the next day’s panelists about the red state trifecta that was spreading across the nation—9 states with similar school choice programs were mentioned. Manny Diaz, Jr., of the Florida Board of Education, noted how holding a trifecta was the only way that Florida could ever pass its school choice legislation. He even referred to the schools as businesses and parents and students as their customers.

Is providing education simply the sale and purchase of state-approved school goods? Is being a citizen just being a satisfied customer of public services? After this event I had John Holt’s words ringing in my ears: “A life worth living and work worth doing—that is what I want for children (and all people), not just, or not even, something called “a better education.”