Homeschooling Movement Sees Opportunity During Health Calamity
n the early days of the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S., when the number of known cases was barely cresting 1,000, advocates for homeschooling were greeting news of the outbreak as an opportunity to promote their cause.
“While the virus has caused illness and hardship for many, keeping children out of school is not a global calamity,” wrote libertarian think tank operative Kerry McDonald in Forbes on March 11, two days before President Trump declared coronavirus a national emergency.
McDonald wasn’t the only cheerleader for homeschooling in the face of a pandemic. “Learning can happen anywhere,” Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos enthused on Twitter.
School closings were turning parents into “the nation’s teachers,” according to the Washington Times, a consistent advocate for public school privatization. The article, by Christopher Vondracek, told readers not to think about home-schooling as being “associated with religious reactions to the secularization of public education and the banning of prayer in public schools during the 1960s.” Homeschooling, he contended, “looks nothing like that of yesteryear,” because now “innovative lessons abound” and new technologies—including video streaming, apps, and social media—have made homeschooling a better option for parents seeking “individualized instruction and safer environments” for their children.
But homeschool advocates, and other proponents of public school privatization, who cheerlead for their cause while tragedy unfolds resemble vulture capitalists that have taken advantage of other catastrophes.
But homeschool advocates, and other proponents of public school privatization, who cheerlead for their cause while tragedy unfolds resemble vulture capitalists that have taken advantage of other catastrophes.
Vondracek pointed readers to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), which “lists a variety of reasons for home-schooling.” What Vondracek failed to mention is that NHERI is not an educational organization but is instead part of a network organized by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), an intensely powerful homeschool advocacy and lobbying group.
HSLDA founded Patrick Henry College, which, as the New York Times noted, is known as “the first college primarily for evangelical Christian home-schoolers.” In 2017, HSLDA received an audience with DeVos “to discuss the success of homeschooling and to determine what homeschoolers need from the federal government for continued autonomy and success,” according to NE News Now, the media outlet of the American Family Association, a Christian advocacy.
Another source Vondracek quoted is the same Kerry McDonald who said, “Homeschooling can be CONTINUE READING: Homeschooling Movement Sees Opportunity During Health Calamity - LA Progressive
