Say no to Harvard — keep homeschool freedom for kids: J. Michael Smith

An upcoming summit being sponsored by Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Bartholet features a lineup of homeschool critics who apparently plan to discuss how to reverse the freedom homeschoolers have gained over the last 40 years.

Many of the speakers and panelists have stated that they believe parents have too much autonomy and that “children’s rights” are not being adequately protected by the state.

The three basic areas of discussion cited on the summit agenda include alleged abuse and neglect of children by homeschooling parents, concern that homeschool students lack exposure to the “diverse culture” available in public schools, and skepticism that homeschoolers are adequately educating their children.

Attendance is by invitation only.

These criticisms aren’t really new: we have been facing these kinds of claims since the modern renaissance of homeschooling.

What is new is that all these concerns have been brought together in a single 80-page article written by Professor Bartholet and published by the Arizona Law Review — and that some of homeschooling’s most outspoken critics plan to gather in a single place to plot a strategy of attack.

To read the rest of this column at HSDLA.org, please click here.