It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but homeschoolers are not especially appreciated by many public school educators. Though some public school educators might contradict this statement, perhaps truthfully so far as they themselves are concerned, the evidence of this is as plentiful as it was unpleasant for the homeschoolers who experienced it. In many school districts across the US, administrators have arbitrarily refused to follow their states’ laws regarding homeschooling (except under legal duress) or have made demands far beyond their legal authority of homeschoolers living in their districts. Some school district administrators have gotten homeschoolers who were in compliance with their states’ laws prosecuted and sometimes even thrown in jail! In such cases, the charges were eventually dismissed as groundless, or the homeschoolers won, but legal proceedings should never have been begun. Additionally, some public school district administrators have used the threat of prosecution for truancy, educational neglect, or child abuse, to try to intimidate legally compliant homeschoolers into enrolling in public school. And again, most of these homeschoolers, some with legal assistance, have faced down the attempts at intimidation, but that the threats were made at all is an outrageous abuse of authority. On another front, public school administrators, teachers’ unions and state-level educrats have been aggressively lobbying legislatures to impose burdensome regulations on homeschoolers - without demonstrating any need for regulations - forcing homeschoolers in those states to exert considerable effort to defeat the needless regulations. Though couched in terms of concern for homeschoolers’ children, this is really an attempt to discourage homeschooling through regulatory burden. The evidence is clear and abundant. Many public school teachers, administrators, and educrats have (and still are!) expended considerable taxpayer paid time and misused taxpayers’ dollars to try to hinder homeschoolers and put a stop to homeschooling by means of threats, harassment, and regulation. The purpose of this article is to look at and better understand some of the reasons behind this opposition.

One reason homeschooling is opposed has to do with how public schools are funded. Much of the money a public school receives from state and federal governments is based on the school’s "Average Daily Attendance" (ADA). The higher the ADA, the more money the school receives. Thus, every student who is homeschooled decreases the ADA of the public school the student would have attended. Since a school district receives, on average, some $7000 or $8000 per student, much of it from the state and federal governments, each homeschooled student in a school district represents a significant amount of money that the district will not receive. Some educators bristle at the idea of money being a motivator, and it may not be for them, but others have been quite frank in acknowledging the significance of money in their opposition to homeschooling. Significantly, when homeschooling parents come under pressure to cease homeschooling, the pressure is not to enroll their children in a school, but in a public school. In one court case, later overturned, the judge forbade the parents to enroll their child in a private school. Also not by coincidence, incidents of homeschooling parents coming under pressure to enroll their children in public schools become more frequent when public schools’ budgets are tight.

Another source of opposition to homeschooling finds its motivation in the lure of power and authority. Now don’t start conjuring up Chaplinesque mental images of a delusional tinpot dictator juggling a beach ball painted to look like a globe. I’m not talking about rule-the-world megalomania. What I am referring to is several very ordinary human tendencies: the tendency of governmental entities to grow; control-freak-itis; the arrogant reaction of professional pride when crossed. Governmental agencies often try to grow as a proof of the need for their services and thus justify their existence. Homeschooling threatens public schools’ bureaucratic self-justification by reducing the number of students being served in classrooms and, in a sense, being a competitor to public schools. School administrators and educrats are accustomed to being relatively unchallenged within their sphere of authority - the real and the imagined. They are used to being in charge. Homeschoolers run afoul of school administrators and educrats by asserting their independence and daring to act independently in an area where these officials are used to running the show. Going further, neither administrators nor teachers enjoy having "non-professionals" intruding on matters they perceive to be "their own" (i.e. their area of professional competence). They really believe that mere parents couldn’t possibly do what they, the professionals, can do - educate children. Succumbing to the temptation to try to give upstart homeschoolers a comeuppance is all too human.

Some educators oppose homeschooling for the reason that they have, and bring into their teaching, a moral-ethical agenda that goes far afield from the academic subjects that are supposed to be schools’ focus. This agenda encompasses many things. Some, such as racial acceptance, are reasonable. Some - sexual amorality (euphemistically termed "alternative lifestyles"), racial preferences (disguised as "diversity"), exclusion of Christianity (deemed "separation of church and state", though other religions are seldom similarly excluded), promotion of government programs or action as the solution for societal problems - are inappropriate at best, and put students’ futures at risk by wasting valuable class time, supplanting what should be done. Another notable aspect of the agenda many educators bring into public schools is undermining parental authority. Public schools usurp parents’ rights and authority in various ways. A technique dubbed "Values Clarification", which is flexible enough to be brought into multiple subjects, seeks to induce students to set aside whatever moral values they may have learned from their parents, and come up with "their own" "values" (actually, the "values" toward which the teacher and the curriculum guide them). While public schools cannot even give a student an acetaminophen without obtaining permission from their parents, many schools have dispensed condoms to students, arranged for female students to obtain birth control drugs, and even referred female students to abortionists, all the while keeping the students’ parents utterly in the dark. Federal law requires that public schools make all curricular materials readily available for parental examination, including those chosen by teachers for supplemental use. Many public schools obstruct the efforts of parents who attempt such an examination. In California (and perhaps other states) public schools are legally required to notify parents of all classes, presentations, or assemblies dealing with sexuality and accommodate parents’ requests that their children not be present. Many public schools "lose" or just simply ignore such parental requests, dishonoring the requests (the express will of the parents!) and violating the law. Other schools circumvent the intent of this law by sending parents a vaguely worded, all-inclusive permission form at the beginning of the school year, along with other forms requiring parental signatures. Between the vague wording and the timing, most parents will sign it, not realizing its full import. While this is legal, the deception is real. Such circumventions of parental authority are so far from being rare that they form a pervasive pattern that can only be conscious. Educators with this agenda dislike homeschooling because it evades their non-educational purposes, and is directed by the parents they are trying to supplant.

Much of all this is well known in the homeschooling community, or at least does not come as a surprise. While educratic greed or ambition or pride are somewhat understandable, being rooted in basic human nature, many aspects of the social agenda discussed above seem so obviously destructive - to the students and to the education process - as to make the agenda appear irrational. What isn’t so well understood is the unifying philosophy that answers the "Why?" question.

While what is being experienced isn’t some kind of grand conspiracy, it is the result of people with a common philosophy (or who are influenced thereby) - Secular Humanism - acting individually (and sometimes in concert) to bring those ideas into public school classrooms. This does not mean that all educators think of themselves as Humanists (nor that all Humanists would coopt schools to further their philosophy), yet the problems in public schools cited above are reflective of Humanist ideas, attitudes, and influences (see link below, Humanist Manifesto II and the Humanist Philosophy Page on the American Humanist Association website , which document the ideas this article attributes to Humanists). Moral absolutes are rejected (absolutely!) by Humanists. For this reason, educators who are of the Humanist mind-set encourage students to be "open minded" about sexual experimentation while helping students to evade parental awareness of the students’ actions and, much less successfully, to evade some of the natural and often dangerous consequences of sexual promiscuity. In Humanist thought humans are basically good, but corrupted by society, initially and especially by parents. That parents are humans, supposedly basically good, seems to escape Humanists’ notice. Humanists see government schools, when guided by Humanism, as a means of counteracting the corrupting influence of parents and society. Being of the elite, the Humanists’ influence isn’t corrupting, of course. It is these ideas that are at the heart of circumventions of parental authority by public schools. More to the point of this article, this distrust of parents, rejection of moral absolutes, and belief in corrective socialization through government schools lie at the root of many educators’ opposition to homeschooling.

Several aspects of homeschooling offend Humanist ideas. Those who are doing the teaching and are in charge in a homeschool, the parents, are viewed by Humanists as the initial and primary corrupters of children. To them, it’s like foxes guarding a chicken coop. At the time of this writing, most homeschooling families are Christians or followers of other religions that teach moral absolutes, moral absolutes that are rejected by Humanism. Thus, homeschooling tends to strengthen children’s religious and moral convictions, where Humanist and Humanist-influenced educators in public schools would be trying to undermine and supplant those convictions. Ultimately, Humanists are upset that homeschooled students are being kept from the supposedly corrective influence of public schools.

So, what does all this mean for homeschoolers? Is it time to "circle the wagons", to fortify our houses, to cut off all friends and acquaintances who aren’t pro-homeschooling, and eschew encounters with public school educators? Of course not! On the other hand, homeschooling parents do need to be aware of legislative and regulatory proposals (state and federal) that could affect their families’ rights to homeschool. There are statewide and national organizations and local support groups who can help with this. Homeschooling parents should also be prepared to make their views and concerns known to their legislative and Congressional representatives when legislation is being considered that could limit their right to homeschool or could affect their families generally. Homeschoolers should be familiar with and comply with their states’ laws as they pertain to homeschooling. Homeschooling parents should also pay attention to the general "atmosphere" for homeschooling in the area where they live - the attitudes and actions of their local school district and child abuse prevention agency (such agencies are sometimes used to harass and intimidate homeschooling families). Homeschoolers who live in states or local areas that are unfriendly to homeschooling should seriously consider membership in their statewide homeschooling organization and Home School Legal Defense Association. In states with complex laws, or whose state level educrats, school district administrators, or local social workers are unfriendly to homeschooling, homeschoolers would be wise to be circumspect about the hours their children are out of doors and how freely they communicate to others that their family homeschools. I’m not saying homeschoolers should live in fear, and yes, I know the US (and similarly free nations) has great freedom. What I am saying is that by using our freedom wisely we could avoid legal or bureaucratic confrontations that, even if we are ultimately successful, could be very expensive, and could greatly stress our families.

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Links to pages about Humanism: