{"id":4161,"date":"2019-05-01T17:41:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T17:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=4161"},"modified":"2020-02-05T12:52:37","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T12:52:37","slug":"a-new-scholarly-book-on-homeschooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=4161","title":{"rendered":"A New Scholarly Book on Homeschooling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0James G. Dwyer and Shawn F. Peters,\u00a0Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice<\/a>\"\"<\/em> (University of Chicago Press, 2019).<\/p>\n

It has been several years now since we’ve had a rigorous scholarly book on homeschooling.\u00a0 This new book by Peters and Dwyer is a welcome addition.\u00a0 I will take two posts to review it.\u00a0 This first post will summarize the book’s contents.\u00a0 In a second post<\/a> I will make some comments of my own.<\/p>\n

Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dwyer<\/a>, Arther B. Hanson Professor of Law at William and Mary, and Peters<\/a>, Lecturer in Integrated Liberal Studies at the University of Wisconsin, here join forces to pen a book that is one part historical description and one part normative argument.<\/p>\n

The first three chapters, written by Peters, provide the historical description.\u00a0 Chapter one describes the pervasive use of the home to educate children in early North America during the colonial period and even into the 19th<\/sup> century, as well as the gradual eclipse of that tendency as formal schools were established, made free, and eventually made compulsory.\u00a0 Chapter two describes how after World War II many Americans grew increasingly distrustful of government entities, including public schools.\u00a0 Conservative Protestants, who had historically been strong backers of public education, began turning away from the increasingly secular public schools to private religious schools and, eventually, to homeschooling.\u00a0 At the same time, radicals on the philosophical left grew increasingly critical of the regimentation and bureaucracy of public education, advocating for private schools and, eventually, homeschooling.\u00a0 Peters spends significant attention on the legal history here, showing that American courts, from the Supreme Court on down, have always maintained that state governments have the right to regulate such independent educational ventures.\u00a0 Yet most states have chosen, largely due to very effective lobbying by private school and homeschool interests, not to regulate and, indeed, to abandon even what minimal regulations they had in place in earlier decades.\u00a0 Chapter three describes the growth and diversification of homeschooling and covers some of the controversies that have emerged as the movement has matured.<\/p>\n

A fourth chapter segues into the normative component of the book.\u00a0 Its main goal is to rule out extremist positions on either side as inherently irrational.\u00a0 The authors create a hypothetical liberal homeschooling family whose approach would satisfy even the most dedicated defender of public institutions and point out that many if not most actual public schools fail to live up to liberal ideals, thus silencing critics who would abolish homeschooling outright.\u00a0 On the other hand, anecdotal evidence abounds of \u201chomeschooling\u201d families whose abusive and\/or neglectful behavior toward their children could not be countenanced by any rational person.\u00a0 Thus there is no pragmatic basis for believing that homeschooling is by definition better than institutional schooling.<\/p>\n

The final three chapters, written by Dwyer, make the normative case for regulation of homeschooling in the name of children\u2019s rights.\u00a0 Dwyer begins by noting that \u201cthe State\u201d is not an independent entity but is merely a term we use for all of us together.\u00a0 We have historically granted parents rights to their biological offspring.\u00a0 Absent such a legal scenario chaos would reign; people could steal, buy, or kill children with impunity.\u00a0 So the question is not whether but how the state should regulate parenting.\u00a0 Dwyer lays out five normative principles that inform his answer to that question:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Children are persons, not property.<\/li>\n
  2. People do not have the right to control other people\u2019s lives. All persons possess rights to self-determination.\u00a0 Children, being persons, have this right as well.\u00a0 Children are not yet able to exercise this right, but that does not give others\u2014be they parents or the state\u2014the right<\/em> to control them.\u00a0 Parents and the state have interests in the outcome of a child\u2019s education, but that is not the same thing as a right.<\/li>\n
  3. Children have the greatest interest in their educations. Parents and the state have their own interests in the child\u2019s education, but the child\u2019s interest is paramount.<\/li>\n
  4. The State must determine what the child\u2019s interests are. The claim that parents automatically know best what their children need is manifestly false.\u00a0 A parent, for example, who might believe that her child should only eat lettuce is simply mistaken.\u00a0 The state should base its calculus on scientific consensus about the universal needs and tendencies of humans as discovered by such fields as child development, medical science, and so forth.\u00a0 Every child, for example, needs protein for healthy biological development, and a parent who might reject protein as ungodly or unhealthy should not be permitted to impose that mistaken conviction on the child.\u00a0 Dwyer does acknowledge here that as a practical matter the state often does a very poor job of formulating and acting on this scientific consensus, frequently responding instead to various pressure groups or fads.<\/li>\n
  5. The state cannot use religion as the basis for determining what a child\u2019s interests are. Here Dwyer is responding to natural law claims that God, not the state, has given parents the right to raise children as they see fit.\u00a0 For the state to accept that claim it would have to accept God, but whose god?\u00a0 Our society\u2019s diversity, not to mention our Constitution, make appeals to specific gods dangerous to the public interest.\u00a0 Moreover, there is no consensus even among natural law thinkers about what the natural law says about parent\/child\/state rights.\u00a0 The state must simply ignore appeals to divine command in its calculus.<\/li>\n
  6. The state has two functions when performing its custodial role for children. First, the state can limit children\u2019s rights in its police powers<\/em> function when those rights might threaten society (for example, not permitting young children to drive because they would endanger the public safety).\u00a0 Second, the state maintains a parens patriae<\/em>, fiduciary role for the child, trying to secure the child\u2019s interests.\u00a0 Education, it turns out, is a parens patriae<\/em>, not a police powers <\/em>matter.\u00a0 The goal of a child\u2019s education is not to conform the child to the state\u2019s demands but to foster the child\u2019s future autonomy.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In chapters six and seven Dwyer takes these six principles and applies them to homeschooling regulation.\u00a0 Chapter six aims to lay out the basic goods education should secure for children.\u00a0 He again enumerates six principles education should foster:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Cognitive and intellectual development<\/li>\n
    2. Knowledge acquisition<\/li>\n
    3. Interpersonal development<\/li>\n
    4. Identity formation<\/li>\n
    5. Family connection<\/li>\n
    6. Physical, psychological, and emotional security<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Given that in many of these domains there is no consensus about the specific content of these principles, what should the state do?\u00a0 It should not, asserts Dwyer, operate in its police power function and seek to create an education that merely adapts the child to meet the needs of the broader society (despite widespread rhetoric to that effect).\u00a0 Instead, it should make policies that foster the child\u2019s interest.\u00a0 Thus the state should require an education that maximizes children’s potential for autonomous decision making, exposes them to worldviews different from their own, exposes them to a diverse group of other persons, fosters positive self-concept, encourages healthy parent-child relationships, and ensures their physical and psychological safety.<\/p>\n

      In chapter seven Dwyer draws out the policy implications of what has gone before.\u00a0 He begins, somewhat surprisingly, by claiming, based on the sixth principle of safety, that children have a right to stay at home that is so strong that the state must show that requiring schooling serves children\u2019s compelling interest.\u00a0 Obviously, a home that does not provide safety would require state intervention.\u00a0 But beyond that Dwyer cannot construct an argument that would require children to leave their homes.\u00a0 Therefore homeschooling should not be abolished.\u00a0 It should, however, be regulated, because of the state\u2019s requirement to require equal opportunity to all children.\u00a0 How?\u00a0 In three ways.\u00a0 First, to be legally empowered to homeschool, a parent should demonstrate before doing so that she is capable.\u00a0 Dwyer thinks a high school diploma or GED serves as a fairly good proxy for basic parental intellectual capacity, but he also wants evidence that a parent can do the job.\u00a0 For a child who has never been to school before, normal healthy development in the preschool years is a good indication of parental competence.\u00a0 For a student being pulled from school, a trial run during the summer with pre-and-post-summer evaluation by the school would suffice.\u00a0 A criminal background check should also be performed on all household members to help guard against potential abuse.\u00a0 Second, periodic review of homeschooled children should be conducted by a school district employee (ideally someone who has homeschooled successfully in the past).\u00a0 This review would function like a well-child checkup but emphasizing cognitive development, and it would be based on a portfolio, not a standardized test, so as to preserve homeschooling pedagogical freedom.\u00a0 Alternately, required partial enrollment in some formal institution might serve as equivalent to periodic review.\u00a0 Third, if a review finds that a child\u2019s homeschooling is not adequate, a sliding scale of interventions should be put in place so that the state\u2019s role can be tailored to need and be as minimal as possible.<\/p>\n

      In a final concluding chapter the authors acknowledge that their recommendations are not likely to be heeded given the political power of homeschooling advocacy groups (especially the Home School Legal Defense Association).\u00a0 They also slip in two other possible reforms.\u00a0 First, states might use a \u201ccarrot rather than stick\u201d (p. 227) approach by offering financial assistance to families who are willing to comply with the sorts of regulations suggested in chapter seven.\u00a0 Second, lawsuits could be filed that, if successful, could force legislatures to do what they heretofore have been unwilling to do, namely to ensure that all children receive equal protection under the law.<\/p>\n

      Milton Gaither, Messiah College<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Record:\u00a0\u00a0James G. Dwyer and Shawn F. Peters,\u00a0Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice (University of Chicago Press, 2019). It has been several years now since we’ve had a rigorous scholarly book on homeschooling.\u00a0 This new book by Peters … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,11,12],"tags":[495,63,1846,279,1850,1847,1848,363,1849],"class_list":["post-4161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-legal","category-policyregulation","tag-home-school-legal-defense-association","tag-hslda","tag-james-g-dwyer","tag-parens-patriae","tag-police-powers","tag-shawn-f-peters","tag-university-of-chicago-press","tag-university-of-wisconsin","tag-william-and-mary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4161"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4269,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4161\/revisions\/4269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}