The Importance Of Homeschooling

Maya Schenwar, a 2005 graduate of Swarthmore College, is executive director of Truthout, a Web site whose purpose is to save humanity and the planet. In “Radical “Unschooling” Moms are Changing the stay-at Home Landscape” Schenwar writes about homeschooling. Like their hippie and creationist colleagues, these new homeschoolers decry the morality of public education, which they see as steeped in sexism, racism, classism heterosexism, and elitism. They prefer a type of homeschooling called “unschooling,” in which parents act not only as teachers, but guide their children toward their own explorations. Now the feminist becomes a stay-at-home mother, who needs financial support, usually from the father.

Schenwar writes “Homeschooling was once

A Critique of Homeschooling” points out homeschooling undermines the common good in two ways. It withdraws not only children, but social capital from public schools detrimental to the remaining students. It takes away the ability of public education to improve and become more responsive as a democratic institution. Lubienski emphasizes homeschooling will cause the decline of public schools. Lubienski states “It diminishes the potential of public education to serve the common good in a democracy” (207). Homeschooling demands all the advantages of education as a private good, but nullifies the public good. Lubienski feels it a bad thing for the nation because it focuses on the benefits for one’s own children and fifty seven percent of Americans agree with him (215). School board elections, meetings, parent’s advocacy provide an opportunity for citizens to be

Hill’s article on “How Homeschooling and the future of Public Education”, he believes homeschooling is one of the forces that will change public education. Paul T. Hill is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a research professor for the Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington. He writes about the pros and cons of homeschooling. At present, he reports there are 1.2 million home schools. Homeschooling is not new; in colonial days children were educated at home by parents, tutors and older children. The one room school house was created by families that got together and hired a teacher. Homeschools are more likely to join the charter movement than get back into the public school system. Most of these parents hope their children will attend college so they must learn how to assess their children’s progress against higher education admission standards (20). These parents must find resources and make effective use of scarce time and money. Critics say this effort is a waste and that all the new human capital developed at such cost can only duplicate what already exist in conventional public and private schools. Homeschoolers are not all recluses living in log cabins. A growing number live in cities and are educated. Large numbers of homeschoolers are Christian fundamentalists and Mormons, as well as other religions. Homeschoolers dread bureaucracy, unions and liberals. They complain about the teachers and