There’s been an earnest new academic journal article published entitled “The Harms of Homeschooling.” (Note, January 2010: I have removed the link to this article for now due to difficulties downloading the  file.)  Author Robin L West attacks the lack of regulation of homeschooling (she doesn’t mention or indicate that she understands unschooling) by governments in the United States. It is an opinion piece, with few references and citations to support the sweeping statements and presumptions masquerading as fact. These things come along every once in awhile, my blood pressure rises and then falls, and life goes on. There is nothing new here and anyone involved with homeschooling, unschooling, etc. has heard the arguments ad nauseum. There’s the misunderstanding that only fundamentalist Christians homeschool, the class argument (some do it “well” as measured by standardized tests, while other kids need school as a “safe haven”), the anti-feminist argument, and all the other things (lack of socialization, diversity, citizenship training) that supposed progressives use to attack what they believe is a homogenously right wing homeschooling community.

However, aside from the author’s various biases and inside-the-box thinking, the article raises some red flags for me, probably because of its timing. Unregulated homeschooling, says West, puts children at risk of abuse and – horror of all horrors – not being immunized. That sounds like she agrees with the nasty new requirements the UK government is currently plotting for homeschoolers and the fear campaign being waged under the banner of H1N1. I’m never clear from reading this sort of article what problem regulation is supposed to solve. Where is the evidence that homeschooling parents are child abusers or that their children are not doing well academically? In fact, I see the article as just another demonstration of defensiveness from a dying dinosaur…as, I believe, are the UK government’s abominable actions. But the death throes could create havoc in many families’ lives, not to  mention harm to the children who would otherwise have avoided the trappings of schooling. 

I have some advice for highly educated, apparently progressively-minded people like this author: Stop defending an institution that is not working. Rather than trying to comfort the dinosaur, put it out of its misery. Put your energies and talents into dismantling and rebuilding the lousy, undemocratic, coercive, out-of-date assembly line school system that government regulation has created and to which homeschoolers are supposed to measure up.