The other day I blogged about a quote which said freedom works only for a virtuous people, whereas a corrupt nation has more need of harsh masters. In the comments, Beth asked about people abusing their homeschooling freedoms and whether we ought to be willing to give up some of our freedoms for the sake of protecting kids who may become victims of educational neglect.
Short answer? No. I don't think greater govt oversight of homeschoolers would solve the problem of educational neglect. Any good it might accomplish would be more than offset by the harm such regulation would cause.
To begin with, we need to consider the purpose of government. Is the govt established to instruct us on all the good and right things we should do, and then monitor our behavior, and punish us if we fail? Or is govt established to punish the evil-doers and do things we cannot do individually (protect us from terrorists, build roads, coin money, etc)?
Personally, I think the govt does the second, but ought not do the first. But if the majority of society thinks govt should micro-manage people's lives, the discussion then becomes "How far do they go?"
Our state governments have seen fit to mandate that children attend some sort of an educational program. The wisdom and effectiveness of that could be debated (not unlike the debates on Prohibition in the 1920s), but either way, mandatory attendance is a given, and it's not going to be changed in the foreseeable future.
However, there is an important distinction to be made between mandatory attendance and mandatory education. A lot of conservatives find this to be a disgusting distinction. But given our society, there is some safety here. WHO says what an "educated person" is any more? There's quite a battle in our society over what is right and what is wrong, what is appropriate for children and what is not, what is necessary and what is extraneous, what is harmful and what is beneficial. Are we willing to have the State dictate the curriculum our children must follow? If the State chooses the tests our children must take, or if the State has the authority to approve our curriculum, or if the State okays which people are appropriate homeschool teachers, then parents are no longer free to choose the curriculum that best serves our individual children.
What happens when the State dictates education that goes against our religious beliefs? Or what happens when the State has one way of seeing education, and some children don't fit that mold? Is it not beneficial to the individual child, and his family, and society too, to have options available?
I think it is important to consider the ramifications to all of society when government is willing to usurp parental authority. Because governmental authority flows from the Fourth Commandment's demand that children honor their parents, the only way that government can maintain order in society is by ensuring that the parental office is honored by all. Think about this for a moment. When the govt itself usurps parental authority, the govt is, in essence, "shooting itself in the foot." When govt tells society that parents are not to be trusted and must be monitored, the govt undermines the very authority by which it governs.
So, I want the freedom to choose and adjust the educational program I'm providing to my kids. I want the freedom to do so without having to conform to the State's educational goals (which conformity certainly becomes necessary, in varying degrees, whenever the State regulates private-schoolers and homeschoolers), goals which sometimes contradict our faith and/or our educational philosophy. But besides what I want and what is convenient for me and other homeschoolers, there are issues here about what the govt can and should be doing, as well as whether the govt honors the office of father and mother.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Susan,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your thoughts on this and would like to challenge a few of the more obvious logical flaws...and here I must say that logic/reason stands in first place, because we are asking questions about the kingdom of the left, which is ruled by reason/logic etc.
First, would regulation by the state solve the problem of educational neglect, the answer would have to be yes, not no. Now, it will not have fixed the whole thing, but you cannot say that it will not solve the problem. If it succeeds in changing the direction of one family, it has solved the problem for one person. I do not believe that anybody in this discussion will say that they have a cure-all for this problem which occurs in the every form of schooling/unschooling that exists. From a Christian point of view, it is a failure to carry out one's vocation and this is not limited to one group of educators over another. What is funny about this whole discussion, is that if you listen to public educators, on the whole, they complain just as loudly about being evaluated as many homeschoolers do. (cf all the complaints about No Child Left Behind, and every other form of testing suggested by people who want the educational establishment to be evaluated).
Second, in the kingom of the left, the govt, can and does instruct us in the good things we should do, and monitor us...it is called taxes. Again, we might not agree with every form of tax that exists, but they do exactly what you say they should not and do not do. And, the more that people become irresponsible, the more govt will impose itself in more and more areas of life. Wrt education, govt knows that a country is handicapped when the people are not educated. (the idea of a liberal arts degree was rooted in the idea of what a man needed to know in order to live as a free (liberal) man.) Right now the US is in the bottom 10% in math and science, among the developed world, and it *is* presently hurting our position in the world. Your questions about what the state will do, wrt curriculum etc, are important to ask, but also realize that the state has an interest in the education of her citizens. And when parents, and here remember how Luther, in the Large Catechism ends the 4th commandment, (ie scolding parents who saw children, not as someone to be trained and educated to serve neighbor, but to serve the parents as slaves on the farm etc, to enrich the parents), do not do their jobs, the govt will take away freedoms, and honestly, I believe that the homeschoolers will be first to pay the price.
Dave (possibly Pastor Speers??) wrote -- "If it succeeds in changing the direction of one family, it has solved the problem for one person."
ReplyDeleteBut my point is that solving the problem for the one person has CREATED a problem for many other persons.
Had our family been required to conform to the school's expectations of curriculum, my children would have received a much worse education. So my children would be harmed by the regulations which would be intended to curb the possibility of another family's disregard for education. (Boy, that sentence was a mouthful!) More stringent regulations may or may not solve that problem for another family. But more stringent regulations would most certainly HARM other families. I gotta tweak the cliche: three birds in the hand are worth more than one in the bush. The homeschooling freedoms we have now allow a more valuable and more extensive "good" to be accomplished through that freedom than the "bad" that is also permitted alongside it.
The State does have an interest in the education of the citizenry. But at this point, the State doesn't have a very good handle on what's right and wrong in education. The private schools are handling education much better than the public schools are. The people who should be in charge of education are the ones close to the situation (the parents and the teachers) and not the lawmakers. From a logical point of view, the ones who are failing worst at education (that is, the State) shouldn't be the ones who monitor everyone else's attempts at education. Doesn't make sense.
I also think we may have a different foundational view of what government is and should be.
I also think it's a tremendously important point that, when govt does anything to undermine the authority of PARENTS, they are dismantling the foundation of their own authority. So when govt says, "We know better than parents how to raise children" (EVEN in the rare cases where they're right about that!), that message in itself is part of the undoing of respect for authority in this country.
Oh, if "Dave" is Pastor Petersen, then I'm going to suggest that the Casey kids, likewise, would have received a much less effective education, had homeschools been required to meet requirements set by the State for testing or curriculum oversight or portfolio review.
ReplyDelete