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[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]
If you follow my writing and podcasting, you know that I am a big proponent of homeschooling. My wife and I homeschool our five kids (at least, the ones who are old enough), and before I recently left California for Texas I was teaching history and literature to teenagers from other families in our homeschooling community.
We homeschool for all the obvious reasons: public schools and even many, if not most, private schools are now hopelessly broken, “dark, satanic mills” of woke indoctrination; polls show that homeschooled kids are not only better educated but better socialized than public school kids; we value the freedom, family unity and self-sufficiency; it enables us to keep the kids’ passion for learning alive instead of having it ground out of them by the drudgery and routine of standard education; we can focus not only on intellectual pursuits but also impart life skills that public schools no longer teach; we’re free to include religious and moral instruction; and it enables me and my wife to control the pace at which they are (inevitably) exposed to corrosive cultural influences.
So at every opportunity I urge parents and grandparents to homeschool if at all possible, in order to rescue their children from the grim alternatives. But I’m also aware that homeschooling is a very demanding commitment that only a minority of parents are in a position to undertake, and I fault no parent for being unable to make that commitment.
The surge of interest in homeschooling since the pandemic is a blessedly welcome development for society, but it has brought with it increased suspicion and scrutiny from the current Powers That Be. Leftwing ideologues have been working on capturing the culture, especially education, for over half a century, ever since they abandoned marching in the streets to make the Long March through the institutions. Homeschooling is a deeply serious threat to the Left’s totalitarian lust for power, and that is why Scientific American, the nation’s leading mainstream science magazine, recently added its voice to the call that homeschooling parents be “regulated.”
In a May 14 opinion piece titled, “Children Deserve Uniform Standards in Homeschooling,”, the editors of Scientific American called for federal homeschooling regulations, going so far as to suggest that parents of homeschooled children “undergo a background check.” The magazine reiterated this message in its June 17 “Today in Science” newsletter.
The op-ed cited data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) which stated that nearly 3% of American children — that’s 1.5 million kids — were homeschooled in 2019. That number rose dramatically during and in the wake of the pandemic nightmare, which at least had the positive benefit of giving many parents an eye-opening revelation about the kind of dumbing-down indoctrination and predatory sexualization that their children were being exposed to in the woke public school system. The most recent NCES estimate is that 5.4% of children in grades K-12 were homeschooled in 2020-2021. I have seen estimates as high as 10%, however; it is a difficult figure to pin down, partly because eleven states do not even require parents to inform anyone that they are homeschooling.
In any case, the op-ed admits almost grudgingly that many homeschooled children “are well-rounded and well-adjusted children who go on to thrive as adults.” But, Scientific American frets, “others do not receive a meaningful education” – a laughable concern considering what a catastrophic failure education in America is today. Never mind a “meaningful” education – our failed children today can’t even spell the word.
It is important to note that Scientific American has been captured by woke ideology to such an extent that City-Journal devoted a lengthy recent article called “Unscientific American” to detailing how the mag has gone from covering popular science to promoting social-justice-in-science, publishing articles with titles such as “Modern Mathematics Confronts Its White, Patriarchal Past” and “The Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity.” This is not scientific, educational, or even rational; it is ideological propaganda, pure and simple. Keep that in mind when it comes to the magazine’s editors complaining that parents can’t be trusted to teach their own children.
The Scientific American op-ed claims that studies which show equal or higher levels of academic achievement among homeschooled students are often “methodologically flawed” – in other words, they produce results that are embarrassing to the establishment. The editors quickly go on to fear-monger about the risk of “horrific abuse” children are exposed to from homeschooling parents; in fact, they’re actually at much greater risk of bullying, violence, and abuse in the Thunderdomes of today’s public schools – not to mention school shootings. The op-ed even warns that some homeschool curricula “extol the virtues of Nazism.” The “Nazi” smear is a sure sign that the aim of this op-ed is to not to ensure the welfare of homeschooled children but to demonize their parents – who tend to (but not always) lean conservative – as A Threat to Democracy™.
Scientific American doesn’t explicitly mention this, but other accusations often directed at homeschoolers are that the kids are not being fully assimilated into the mainstream culture (as if that were a bad thing), they are getting too much religious education (as if that were a bad thing), and they are being inculcated with – gasp! – traditional values (as if that were a bad thing).
Anyway, the editors argue that the “federal government must develop basic standards for safety and quality of education in homeschooling across the country.” They add that homeschooling parents should be required to undergo a background check — the same as K-12 teachers. By the way, to see just how effective a background check is, scroll through the videos at Libs of Tik Tok for the countless examples of openly radical freaks and groomers that somehow managed to get hired to teach our children.
Scientific American editors also complain that parents “are not required to have an education themselves to direct instruction.” In response, I would argue three points: one, that there are plenty of video examples online of barely literate, foul-mouthed teachers who don’t know their dangling participle from their XY chromosome; two, that what “educators” are mostly trained to teach today are Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, and anti-Americanism; and three, no one is more passionately committed to give their children a solid education than parents. Countless fathers and mothers (not “birthing parents”) who homeschool have simply taken the leap and committed to educating themselves and then their children. It’s demanding but it’s working, and that’s a “meaningful education” for the whole family.
Those same countless parents across the nation are wised up to, and fed up with, the politicized public education system and its obsession with drag queens, pride flags, transgender indoctrination, personal pronouns, and Critical Race Theory racism. They are sick of the Left’s mission to drive a wedge between them and their kids in order to transfer children’s trust and allegiance to the State.
The upshot is this: the aim of the neo-Marxist Left is to break down the family unit by de-legitimizing parents’ legal and moral right to determine how their own children are raised. The Left wants to take your children and grandchildren and raise them as loyal, dependent subjects of the atheistic State, disconnected from their own history and culture, and devoid of critical thinking skills, intellectual independence, or a spiritual dimension. This is no conspiracy theory; the evidence for it comes directly from the horse’s mouth, with many so-called “educators” proudly proclaiming on social media that they consider themselves activists and revolutionaries out to dismantle or smash every social norm. “I’m your parent now,” they openly tell the schoolchildren in their charge.
This is not merely an unacceptable state of affairs; it is predatory, civilizationally destructive, and ultimately satanic. Education is the key battleground today for your children’s future, your family’s future, and this nation’s future. Homeschooling should be encouraged, not forced to conform to federal government approval. Parents must be granted every form of assistance to pass down the True, the Good, and the Beautiful instead of being smeared as threats to their own kids.
“Education is a basic right,” the Scientific American editors conclude. “We need to make sure kids have chances to investigate what makes them curious, study history and science and reading, and ask questions and learn from others. We want them to reach adulthood ready to take on the world.”
Agreed. And it is abundantly clear that parents who want those opportunities for their children are going to be crushingly disappointed trying to find them in our public schools, maybe not even in most private schools, and certainly no longer in the pages of Scientific American.
Deprive the Left of any more generations of indoctrinated drones. “Teach your children well,” as Crosby, Stills and Nash once sang. Homeschooling is the way.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.
Scientific American clearly is a woke organ on all issues including home schooling
“WE” want Educators not Indoctrinators!
“WE” want Journalists not Propagandists!
“WE” want our Founding Articles not The Rules for Radicals!
“WE” want Family and Friend Unions not Political Exclusions!
“WE” want Workers not Freeloaders!
“WE” want Flag Wavers not Flag Desecrators!
“WE” want ALL Colors United not Divided!
“WE” want Jobs not Mobs!
These are a few from my 25, “What do We the People Want?” When I post them on social media, the Democrats hate them… Why? So, I tell them to read them backwards to make them happy.
I used to write that the indoctrination started in college… now it goes all the way back to Sesame Street! I blame the TEACHERS UNIONS, actually Marxist Mafias, who have taken over every school. They are so against home schooling because that’s a percentage of our young that they can’t recruit into their CULT! Then they grab them up in college when a home schooler’s dream in an engineering degree and then their professors encourage other classes with Studies in the title and BOOM, in just one semester, they take a class in Women’s Studies, Peace Studies, Whiteness Studies, Transgender Studies, and then they switch majors, dye their hair orange and purple, piercings everywhere, and now a protester in support of riots, burning down cities, and supporting terrorists!
Mr. Tapson, You are leading the way out of the path to a horrible future. Well Done.
On a light note I went to my local county library to pick up a book I had ordered. There was a small sign on the head librarians desk stating “my pronouns are she her” etcetera. I could not resist. I said that I did not have any pronouns but would she be interested in a dangling participle. There was silence. She obviously was ignorant of the term. Her associate started screaming at me and I hurriedly retreated.
Wonderful story. I will spread that one. As someone once commented to me, maybe you should write for Mad magazine (although they might now be woke, as well, if they still publish).
Thanks, foxhound. That’s a great story – I may have to steal that line about the dangling participle.
You should’ve asked her about the angle of your dangle. 😛
Showing my tin-hattery here- woke capture of formerly conservative-leaning or neutral publications is a thing.
The Economist magazine was once clearly center right-leaning, but started an unmistakable leftward drift about 15 years ago.. I dropped my subscription for that reason.. Recently I reluctantly resubscribed at the urging of my wife, who remembers the fair, middle-of-the-road, quality reporting and opinion from that time, and wanted our 15 yo daughter to have exposure to it, .
I’ve been reading it, and am finding my reasons for dropping it are still intact. It’s fully onboard with the need to replace fossil fuels to save the planet, it treats Trump’s NY trials as if they are just, and is full of news about China’s successes while minimizing China”s totalitarian treatment of its peoples and threats to its neighbors.
It’s no different from the leftward drift at Scientific American described here.
I used to read “The Economist” too but you’re right, it turned to shit years ago.
The last I knew, “Commentary Magazine” was good but don’t hold me to that. It’s been a lot of years since I read it.
Speaking of homeschooling: http://politickles.com/blog/the-pros-cons-of-homeschooling/
My bartender in Naples, FL, a 40ish widow and mom of 3 children has always home schooled her boys. Her 16 year old middle child completed the HS curriculum, graduated and is now headed to community college. She works only evenings to be there for her kids.
We homeschool. On occasion, we are asked how on earth we think we are qualified to teach our children. We point out that, being products of the public system ourselves, it’s a rather poor commentary on that system if we are left incapable of passing on what we were taught…
(cue the charge of being racist nazis)
This is one choice we do not regret, and we will not cease our efforts to prepare our children for what they will face in their lives. This system has failed, and those who cannot deal with that reality shall be dealt with by it.
“We point out that, being products of the public system ourselves, it’s a rather poor commentary on that system if we are left incapable of passing on what we were taught…”
That’s a very good point. I wouldn’t have thought of it.
The last comprehensive research on school employee sexual misconduct was twenty years ago, and it was damning. It showed that 1 in 10 students were victims of teacher sexual misconduct at some point in their K-12 schooling.
This research covered at least twenty years, so when you consider those types of numbers, it’s no wonder the media focuses/focused on the comparative-but-relatively miniscule church scandals of various denominations. That’s tens of millions of victims of the public education system.
https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf
https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/teacher-sexual-crime-misconduct-research/
— homeschooling is a very demanding commitment that only a minority of parents are in a position to undertake —
It was surely easier in the three-generation household, and even somewhat easier in the one-breadwinner household that was the norm immediately after World War II and ended during the inflations of the Seventies. Note how inflation, changes in tax law, and the relentless broadening of the “mission” of the government-run schools have eaten into the educational alternatives available to American parents. While those changes didn’t necessarily have the herding of all American children into government-run schools as one of their intentions, they did encourage that effect — and “educators” are dismayed that the trend seems to have turned against them.
Homeschooling most certainly requires that ones’ priorities be squared away. We have been waiting for the government to come up with an answer to the musical question ‘What if they had an ‘education system’, but no one sent their kids?’
Just another brick in the wall….all in all
So our reptilian overlords are going after home schooling. They want and will permit no refuge, not a sliver of a hidden hole to be immune from their world spanning tyranny.
Now that’s predatory. Like a wild ferret rooting out the rabbit hole to scare up every trace of its victims. No stone must be left unturned, no potential retreat unexplored, no vacuum in the power field; nothing must be allowed to escape … not even light. They devour children like Goya’s painting of Uranus. It’s already happened to hundreds (thousands?) of sexual mutilation victims.
They are the Nazgûl … They will never stop hunting you.
Don’t just teach your children well. Protect them well.
The “Nazgul” that is brilliant!
The NEA opposes Home Schooling they want all the kids to be Indoctrinated/Brainwashed at the NEA run Schools
I am not in a position to homeschool my children but I did create supplemental online lessons for them which counter woke left wing ideology in schools. The website is getinsight.pro and it’s free to any parent and any child who wants to use it.
“Teach Your Children Well”. I wish I had
Actually, Homeschoolers are getting a better and broader education, and one that will benefit them in the future. Thats why the government is going after them, because they are resisting a culture that has totally turned against civiliation. The culture of liberals has went so woke that the children are not taught a curriculum in schools, its more about politics, changing your bodies, and anti-semetism. This does not benefit anyone to live a sound, moral, or stable life.
When I homeschooled I was the teacher, the principal, the school book coordinator and the head of the school board. I had four children. We began at 9 am and finished at 1 pm. When my boys needed more help with spelling I found a summer spelling camp for them which improved their spelling by 3 grade levels. When they needed help with cursive I found an older lady who did professional calligraphy and tutored on the side. I found a professional artist who taught them once a week at night. I also put them into Suzuki music. During the summer I signed them up at a private school for writing lessons. The amount of money I spent on the homeschool tuition, and all of the extras was equal to sending only one of them to a nice private school.
Being the prime teacher I was able to guide their personalities more so than any one teacher they had for one year. The one thing most people would say about my kids was, “It sure is refreshing, they seem so normal.” As if they had been born in the 50s and just stepped into the early 2000s. My oldest daughter went to Hillsdale College, and the three boys went to college to study software programming. So when people asked if I was concerned about their social skills I could laugh in their faces.
I am a supporter of Hillsdale College. They are remarkable and have fabulous on-line courses. If I had children they would go to Hillsdale!
The Piels were tmid 20th c en tury and they were big Com mies.” back in the he
Let’s remember that science is one half of the progressive equation. Combined with govt mandates, progressives believe that they can improve and alter human behavior. But only if they’re allowed to do it their way.
Perhaps Scientific American, being all sciency and stuff, can answer two simple questions:
1. What public school did any of the Founding Fathers attend?
2. Why did the quality of education drop ever since the Department of Education was founded?
The quality of public (government) education began to decline significantly after 1960. That was due largely to the mass migration to the US following the end of WW2, but the “public schools” model was a dinosaur from the 19th century. Carter’s Big Ed machine only grew the problem that much more.
Time to abandon public schools forever. Homeschooling is a civil right.
In theory, I agree with the notion of abandoning public schools. But you need to have things prepared for parents. Generous tax cuts for parents teaching at home and vouchers for parochial schools are a start.
In the meantime, demanding and enforcing standards on public schools are a must. Incompetent teachers need to be fired and the administrative staff should be cut down to bare bones.
I agree about preparing parents. That’s why I fully support voucher systems, tax cuts, or whatever. That said, in my view, those are really transitional systems. My ideal is homeschooling, education totally independent of government with moms returning to traditional roles IF they so choose.
Children obey rules more readily in informal social controls systems (parents and respected elders like clergy). In the old days, for example, when children misbehaved at home, pops might say, okay, you go to bed tonight without dinner. That forced compliance. Why? Because as a rule children love their parents and seek their approval because they fear the loss of parental love above all. Parental love is food, clothing, etc. Sounds brutal maybe, but IMO it’s true.
Formal social controls like laws, rules, and regulations don’t work to instill respect for others in children because the state legislatures, state education bureaucracies, and school boards are too distant, and they have little or no fear of the consequences for breaking rules and acting like fools. Children don’t see those systems and they don’t fear consequences. The miscreants at school laugh at administrators and teachers. Some of them WANT to be suspended.
What else happened in the schools in the late 50’s/early 60’s? Consolidation! That was when the rural one room schoolhouses were closed up and all the country kids were bused to large graded schools in the towns. Before that, the town schools were also much smaller, and kids did not go to larger schools till high school
Back in the 70’s and 80’s I really enjoyed Scientific American and learned a great deal from it. Since their sad descent into woke I have nothing but scorn and contempt for them. I would not line my cat box with their woke rag now.
We couldn’t possibly think outside the government’s box. I mean, why would any parent have a problem sending their child into a potential war zone five days a week? PEW PEW.
And it’s not just gunfire the kids have to worry about. There’s also rape, drugs, bullies, the ever=present racial powder keg, pervy teachers, and school “counselors” advising adolescents they need a snip or two to find their “true identity.”
Jeb: “Return (government) education to the states.”
Me: “The state IS the government.” derp.
The Big Ed Monopoly ~ aka, Dumb and Dumber.
PS: Did I mention Jobama’s climate change refugee/migrant kids? 99% don’t speak English, but they’ll fit right in with Barack’s … er, I mean, Joe’s plan to bankrupt taxpayers, so there’s that.
But have a nice day. >:-)
If a family has the skill and patience. home schooling is far better than giving a child to a ‘unionized, common core indoctrination center’. Our government was founded upon the idea of liberty for citizens. It has morphed into controlling ‘subjects’.
Our government hates it when we ‘citizens’ live in a way that doesn’t need government subsidized support.
I had the opportunity to work inside a state’s public schools for some time. There are CRIMES committed against children by other children every. single. day. in schools all across the country. I’ve seen it. And not just crimes but verbal abuse of every kind. That’s not to mention the crimes and the disrespect teachers get every day in the dinosaur “public schools.”
This is what happens when children are given a “right” to an education. That’s literally the law in every state, and it’s the chief reason why the schools are failing. They can’t expel the failing kids who have no intention of ever learning a damn thing, and every intention of raising hell for 12 years at the expense of all the other students. Expel them. Expel them on the motion of a teacher. Yes, teachers should have the power and right to say who will be in her / his classroom. Period, end of discussion. No disciplinary administrators involved. When teacher says “out,” out the brat goes.
There are many homeschooling families who are slackers and don’t really educate. There are also a notorious few that abuse. Since there is public outrage about the bad apples, the best thing is for homescoolers to write the remedy. Here’s what I propose: 1) All homeschooling families must join a group of at least 4 other families that meet at least every 2 weeks; 2) All homeschoolers (except severely disabled) must take a standardized test of general academic skills annually, at state expense; 3) If a student tests below grade level, the parent must meet with the parent of a proficient student or may receive free academic guidance from a public or private school to draft an improvement plan at set expense at a set rate. 4) All parents in the group must be educated about child abuse and become mandatory reporters. If students leave the group, they me group must report the family as truant if they cannot verify that the children are enrolled in a school or are members of another homeschooling group. This is loose regulation, but probably many cases of abuse and neglect will be noticeable over time in a homeschooling group with activities for both parents and children. Certainly it would be soon evident if the children are not fed or educated. It’s foolish to simply trust homeschooling families. They need accountability to a private or public school group and be observed regularly so that hopefully abuse gets reported.
With all due respect, I simply don’t care that some parents who homeschool their children are “slackers” and “don’t really educate.” Let them be slackers. Let the children of slackers be beach bums or hippies, or whatever they want to be. I won’t take responsibility for their bad choices. So, if they get hooked on drugs and die, or they go to prison, it won’t be because I subsidized their parents’ stupid choices.
Learn to think outside the NANNY GOVERNMENT box.
Absolutely NOT.
1. Any homeschooling parent who makes ANY effort AT ALL is doing a better job than the public schools.
2. Homeschooling parents are the best experts at what their children should learn and when, NOT the gov’t or the writers of standardized tests. Also, the tests are infested with woke nonsense, CRT, etc. Take a look through a current GED test prep book.
3. Not all areas have formal homeschooling groups–and there is absolutely zero need to enforce socialization, hHomeschooled kids routinely are much BETTER socialized than their public schooled peers.
4. The mandatory reporter system is a joke. As has already been noted here, many mandatory reporters are, themselves, abusing kids. Abuse within the homeschooling community is nowhere near the problem it is among public schooled kids, who spend their days with mandatory reporters. The media just likes to scream about it on the rare occasions when it does happen
You have a nasty desire to increase government involvement in FAMILY life. You NEED to get that fixed.
I have been expecting an anti-homeschooling push from the left in reaction to the massive increase in the number of homeschoolers. There is another, totally nuts and bolts, reason why they cannot allow homeschooling to continue to expand at the current rate: money.
The public schools are a never-satiated financial black hole. They are spending more per kid per year than it costs to homeschool a kid through all 13 years. And they are sure they STILL don’t have enough money.
Homeschooling parents are finding out how little it actually costs to provide an excellent education. Plus, with the massive increase in housing values, are coming big unpleasant surprises on their property tax bills, causing people to actually look at those bills and realize that 80% of their property taxes are going down the black hole that is mal-educating the kids. Are those parents going to vote for the next school tax levy? Certainly NOT.
Everyone needs to be forced into the system to keep pouring money into the black hole
And it really bothers statists, most leftists, and power-mongers that homeschool children and adults who were home educated do statistically significantly better than the public/state-schooled in terms of academic achievement, social development, and success in adulthood https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/
And it really bothers statists, most leftists, and power-mongers that homeschool children and adults who were home educated do statistically significantly better, on average, than the public/state-schooled in terms of academic achievement, social development, and success in adulthood https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/ They do better without $7,000 of your/my tax dollars per year per child, without state-controlled licensed teachers, without university professors of education, and without state-approved curriculum, without woke counselors informing them how to think and live, without 6 hours per day with 28 peers plus/minus 11 months their own age, and without the latest education theory way of learning how to learn to read or do math.
They do it with mom and dad, siblings, homeschool friends, public school and private school friends, t-ball, scouts, church and synagogue and mosque groups, volitional relationships, and the love and care of family and friends. Kind of like humans thrived for thousands of years before institutional state-run schooling. Imagine.