# Should Homeschooling be banned? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 13, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721 "2020-05-13T15:49:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/1 "2020-05-13T15:49:25Z")
[THIS](https://nypost.com/2020/04/23/harvard-professor-wants-to-ban-authoritarian-homeschooling/) Harvard professor says yes. The article says" A Harvard University law professor has sparked controversy after calling for a ban on homeschooling. Elizabeth Bartholet told Harvard Magazine that it gives parents “authoritarian” control over their kids — and can even expose them to white supremacy and misogyny. “The issue is, do we think that parents should have 24/7, essentially authoritarian control over their children from ages zero to 18? I think that’s dangerous,” Bartholet said. “I think it’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and to give the powerful ones total authority.” Interestingly a woman who herself was homeschooled and never stepped foot into a public school until she went to Harvard,[wrote a reply](https://medium.com/@melbapearson/a-response-to-the-risks-of-homeschooling-from-a-homeschooled-harvard-grad-67648f9a0d0f). Harvard is hoping to host a[conference in June which will focus on getting homeschooling banned.](https://www.city-journal.org/harvard-conference-purported-dangers-of-homeschooling) [Here is another article](https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemcshane/2020/04/21/harvards-lazy-attack-on-homeschooling/#71d35712473f)refuting the article from an education journalist at Forbes. So what do you all think? I’ve worked with alot of homeschooled kids and while I’ve seen some negatives, most of the times the kids are actually educationally ahead of their public school peers and have just as much peer interaction. Quite frankly the Harvard proff, her big problem is she wants the state to be in absolute control and destroy parents rights to educate their children. Granted this is just one professor but its sad shes at such a high regarded university. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/2 "2020-05-13T16:16:31Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Granted this is just one professor but its sad shes at such a high regarded university. There is something sad here, and maybe a little ironic too. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/3 "2020-05-13T16:17:20Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Harvard is hoping to host a[conference in June which will focus on getting homeschooling banned.](https://www.city-journal.org/harvard-conference-purported-dangers-of-homeschooling) No, that isn’t the focus of the conference. I suppose that’s a possible outcome after they have their discussions. Btt the focus is to discuss the problems with home schooling and come up for strategies to fix them. That sounds like a good idea. > [@](#): > > We will convene leaders in education and child welfare policy, legislators and legislative staff, academics and policy advocates, to discuss child rights in connection with homeschooling in the United States. The focus will be on problems of educational deprivation and child maltreatment that too often occur under the guise of homeschooling, in a legal environment of minimal or no oversight. Experts will lead conversations about the available empirical evidence, the current regulatory environment, proposals for legal reform, and strategies for effecting such reform. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/4 "2020-05-13T16:22:07Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Quite frankly the Harvard proff, her big problem is she wants the state to be in absolute control and destroy parents rights to educate their children. :rolleyes: Excluded-middle fallacy, and a rather pearl-clutching flapdoodly one, too. Even if parents were legally required to provide some non-homeschooling form of education for their children (as they are in, e.g., Germany and the Netherlands), that’s not automatically equivalent to requiring _“the state to be in absolute control and destroy parents rights to educate their children”_. Parents have plenty of control over and educational input into their children’s lives even when the children also receive some other form(s) of schooling. Here’s a less hysterical-vapors [description of the article in question](https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/05/right-now-risks-homeschooling): > [@](#): > > […] Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein public interest professor of law and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, sees risks for children—and society—in homeschooling, and recommends a presumptive ban on the practice. Homeschooling, she says, not only violates children’s right to a “meaningful education” and their right to be protected from potential child abuse, but may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society. > > “We have an essentially unregulated regime in the area of homeschooling,” Bartholet asserts. All 50 states have laws that make education compulsory, and state constitutions ensure a right to education, “but if you look at the legal regime governing homeschooling, there are very few requirements that parents do anything.” Even apparent requirements such as submitting curricula, or providing evidence that teaching and learning are taking place, she says, aren’t necessarily enforced. Only about a dozen states have rules about the level of education needed by parents who homeschool, she adds. […] > > [Bartholet] argues that one benefit of sending children to school at age four or five is that teachers are “mandated reporters,” required to alert authorities to evidence of child abuse or neglect. “Teachers and other school personnel constitute the largest percentage of people who report to Child Protective Services,” she explains, whereas not one of the 50 states requires that homeschooling parents be checked for prior reports of child abuse. Even those convicted of child abuse, she adds, could “still just decide, ‘I’m going to take my kids out of school and keep them at home.’” […] > > […] surveys of homeschoolers show that a majority of such families (by some estimates, up to 90 percent) are driven by conservative Christian beliefs, and seek to remove their children from mainstream culture. […] > > [Bartholet] views the absence of regulations ensuring that homeschooled children receive a meaningful education equivalent to that required in public schools as a threat to U.S. democracy. “From the beginning of compulsory education in this country, we have thought of the government as having some right to educate children so that they become active, productive participants in the larger society,” she says. This involves in part giving children the knowledge to eventually get jobs and support themselves. “But it’s also important that children grow up exposed to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints,” she says, noting that European countries such as Germany ban homeschooling entirely and that countries such as France require home visits and annual tests. […] > > Bartholet maintains that parents should have “very significant rights to raise their children with the beliefs and religious convictions that the parents hold.” [_Directly contradicting the OP’s paranoid exaggeration about wanting “the state to be in absolute control”, you’ll note._] But requiring children to attend schools outside the home for six or seven hours a day, she argues, does not unduly limit parents’ influence on a child’s views and ideas. “The issue is, do we think that parents should have 24/7, essentially authoritarian control over their children from ages zero to 18? I think that’s dangerous,” Bartholet says. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/5 "2020-05-13T16:26:42Z")
I think it should be banned. Most parents aren’t equipped to teach all of the academics. Plus the kids need to socialize with other kids and get exposed to ideas other than what their parents. Personally, I’ve always thought the motivation for a lot of home schooling parents is to keep their kids away from those that aren’t just like them, and I don’t think that’s healthy. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/6 "2020-05-13T16:36:03Z")
From an optics perspective, a Harvard professor is probably at the farthest end of the spectrum of someone who would find sympathy from homeschooling advocates. And the overwrought commentary about “state control”? ISTM that they are not easily dismissed. When compared to the current anything-goes environment, any additional oversight would be by-definition an increase in “state control”. However, the value of a conference to highlight potential issues and discuss remedies is, I feel, warranted. I would count this professor’s comments as an opening salvo from one side of the debate. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/7 "2020-05-13T16:38:27Z")
My 2 cents (disclaimer, I grew up homeschooled myself, so I am a biased source): Homeschooling is one of those things that can backfire big time or pay off big time. It all depends on the parents and the students involved. My parents were prominent leaders in a homeschooling organization as well. Now, some things that need debunking: 1. “Homeschoolers lack social skills because they don’t interact with others” - plenty of homeschoolers get plenty of social interaction; indeed, many are often more skilled at interacting with people of all ages than their schooled peers, who often only hang out with classmates of similar age. One refrain in the homeschooling community was that one way to spot a homeschooled kid was that they preferred to have conversations with people much older than they. 2. “Homeschooling is conservative” - it initially started out that way, but increasingly it is becoming bipartisan and more liberals are doing so too. The main payoff of homeschooling is that it enables kids to pursue specific interests or paths with a lot more focus or energy than they would have otherwise. I attended a Christian college with a disproportionate amount of homeschoolers and in the overall homeschooling community you’ll find stories of kids who are advanced beyond their peers in a particular skill - be it math, music, history or some other focus - because they not only have more time to pursue that focus, but also have not had their interest in learning killed by the classroom the same way many other schooled kids have. (Sure, not all kids who go to school have their love for learning extinguished, but many do.) One disadvantage of homeschooling is that, if homeschooled through high school, one lacks the high school GPA/transcripts for college application, so your SAT/ACT scores become all the more vital. You have to get a significantly higher SAT score to compensate for the lack of high school documentation. For this reason, and others, I recommend that many homeschoolers stop the homeschooling experiment before high school and just go to HS by then. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/8 "2020-05-13T16:40:42Z")
In Ontario, you need permission from the school board to home school. I don’t think that’s a happy medium, however. There aren’t frequent check ups, and post-secondary schools can’t trust the parent-generated report cards. Home schooling has to be exhausting _for the “teacher”_, who hopefully has a university degree and knows how to plan lessons, but there’s a good chance they don’t. Because they’re not working, they have to be a homemaker. The children don’t get to socialize as often, are constantly in that parent’s presence, and so forth. And, of course, the elephant in the room: it’s a fantastic way to hide abuse and educational neglect. Like in many other places, schools try to pass everyone, even the undeserving. There’s a test students take in grade 10 that they **must** pass to graduate in every Canadian province. But in Ontario, you can just take an extra course if you fail that test to pass, and if you fail that you can keep on trying until you reach eighteen. These courses are administered by the school (or by parents) so undeserving people pass anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/9 "2020-05-13T16:45:15Z")
I think there are plenty of reasonable arguments to be made against an outright categorical ban on homeschooling in the US, such as: - Most other developed democracies also allow homeschooling education, although with stricter oversight than US law requires, and their outcomes seem satisfactory. [ETA: although remarks like **Kimera757** ’s about insufficient oversight are giving me pause.] - Especially in a large and sparsely populated country like the US, many people have very limited access to education alternatives, so it would be unwise and unfair to take homeschooling off the table entirely. - There are ways to provide more oversight and stricter standards for homeschooling without banning it outright. One can make that case without resorting to splodyheaded strawman allegations like the OP’s about anti-homeschoolers wanting _“the state to be in absolute control and destroy parents rights to educate their children”_. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/10 "2020-05-13T16:47:35Z")
One of the problems with talking about education in the United States is it varies not only from state-to-date but from county-to-county and even within the same district from school-to-school. But I was under the impression that home schooled children in most states were required to take some standardized test to ensure they were actually getting an education. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/11 "2020-05-13T16:48:36Z")
Additionally, I’m assuming Dr. Bartholet herself was never homeschooled. The danger of violence in schools (Minneapolis-Saint Paul, as an example), peer bullying, school shootings, etc. also has to be taken into account. Ironically, the same people who often decry bullying, classroom violence or school shootings will typically downplay the danger when homeschoolers say they want to keep their kids out of school because of those dangers. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/12 "2020-05-13T16:50:05Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Ironically, the same people who often decry bullying, classroom violence or school shootings will typically downplay the danger when homeschoolers say they want to keep their kids out of school because of those dangers. Do you have any evidence that there is any relationship between the former and the latter? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/13 "2020-05-13T16:59:33Z")
Poking around for the [actual article](https://arizonalawreview.org/homeschooling-parent-rights-absolutism-vs-child-rights-to-education-protection/) published by Bartholet, I notice some important wording in the abstract that the OP and his main source article left unquoted: > [@](#): > > This Article calls for a radical transformation in the homeschooling regime and a related rethinking of child rights. It recommends a presumptive ban on homeschooling, with the burden on parents to demonstrate justification for permission to homeschool. In other words, Bartholet isn’t even suggesting a categorical ban on homeschooling. She’s merely arguing that parents who want to homeschool should have to demonstrate that their choice is justified and respects their child’s constitutional right to an adequate education. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/14 "2020-05-13T17:08:41Z")
If the concern is authoritarian control over children, I acknowledge that it’s a legitimate concern (being a children’s libber since approx 1st grade) but bloody hell, _SCHOOLS_ have authoritarian control over children and are typically rather abusive of it. Whether a child’s parents are more so or less so would vary a lot from family to family. If the goal is to protect children from authoritarian control by adults, bickering about home schooling versus conventional schooling does _not_ strike me as a useful place to start. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/15 "2020-05-13T17:27:26Z")
As with everything, homeschooling should be regulated. I know some home schooled kids who were home schooled specifically because their parents didn’t want them exposed to the “evils” of public education. Those kids are messed up adults now. Mostly on drugs and food stamps. Then there are some whose parents actually were really smart, and thought that they could do a better job than the school. Those kids are a bit off socially, but for the most part, do pretty well. School is also a place where quite a bit of child abuse is caught and reported. Someone who physically abuses their family may wish to hide behind homeschooling in order to not get caught. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/16 "2020-05-13T17:29:32Z")
The right to a good, modern education that meets minimum standards and makes one capable of contributing to society is the right of every individual child, and it’s the right of society at large for everyone to be educated. Parents don’t have a competing right to prevent it. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/17 "2020-05-13T17:46:50Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The right to a good, modern education that meets minimum standards and makes one capable of contributing to society is the right of every individual child, and it’s the right of society at large for everyone to be educated. Parents don’t have a competing right to prevent it. Parents do have a right to freely practice their religion, and that includes homeschooling their children if they so choose. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/18 "2020-05-13T17:51:54Z")
I wouldn’t go so far as to make it illegal. But I’m not in favor of home schooling. I think most parents who do it, do it for bad reasons and do a poor job of it. I view home schooling as being like smoking cigarettes. You should be free to do it if you choose. But you should also be smart enough to choose not do it. This does not apply to all of the parents who are currently being forced to teach their kids at home due to schools being closed. You guys are doing the best you can under difficult circumstances that you didn’t choose. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/19 "2020-05-13T17:57:59Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > If the concern is authoritarian control over children, I acknowledge that it’s a legitimate concern (being a children’s libber since approx 1st grade) but bloody hell, _SCHOOLS_ have authoritarian control over children and are typically rather abusive of it. Whether a child’s parents are more so or less so would vary a lot from family to family. > > If the goal is to protect children from authoritarian control by adults, bickering about home schooling versus conventional schooling does _not_ strike me as a useful place to start. I think the argument is that dividing up a child’s time between two separate environments weakens the authoritarian possibilities of both of them. Parents can keep a watch for the signs that the school is too authoritarian and teachers can keep a watch for the signs that the home is too authoritarian. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721/20 "2020-05-13T17:58:40Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Parents do have a right to freely practice their religion, and that includes homeschooling their children if they so choose. Well, parents have the right to teach their own religion to their children, of course. That doesn’t mean they’re entitled to prevent their children from receiving any other teaching. In fact, parents can be fined or jailed for “educational neglect” if their children don’t get adequate schooling in some form, irrespective of whether they’re getting religious training from their parents. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-homeschooling-be-banned/853721.md?page=2)