I read a fascinating article in World Magazine last night. Try this link to read the article.
The article started out talking about a recent PBS television segment on home schooling in America. What was interesting is when they interviewed Professor Robert Reich from Stanford University.
From his place of infinite wisdom he said the state has an “interest in knowing that children are growing up to become well-rounded public citizens.” Is his concern that homeschooled kids are not very good at mathematics, or that they’re having a problem getting into Stanford or could it be that they can’t read very well? Well that doesn’t seem to be what he’s worried about.
Here is another quote: "If parents can control every aspect of a kid's education, shield them from exposure to the things that the parents deem sinful or objectionable, screen in only the things which accord to their convictions—and not allow them exposure to the world of a democracy—will the children grow up then basically in the image of their parents, servile to their own parents' beliefs?"
Well, how’s that? Now we see what he’s really worried about. It’s not the academics, but who gets to control what the children believe and what kind of environment they are raised in.
This article made me think back when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that parents had no say in what the public schools taught their children. Parents were told that when they send their kids to the public school they had to accept what the public school decided was best for the children to learn.
The cultural elite think they know what’s best for our children. But their objective is not that the kids are well-rounded but that they conform to their image. Apparently, it takes a village to raise a child – a village where the parent has limited input.
An interesting comment in the story was by Bruce Short a homeschooling attorney. Here is what he said about Reich’s comments: “Reich's attack is fundamentally ideological. What he is really objecting to is not the ineffectiveness of homeschooling, but its effectiveness. A homeschooled child is effectively a child outside the grasp of the state and, therefore, outside the grasp of those who control the state's educational institutions. He fears that these children will have a worldview of which he disapproves and that he finds threatening. That is what drives Reich. His real concern is not 'ethical autonomy' or the welfare of children in any conventional sense; it is ideological control.”
Very good article! I guess things like this are to be expected as we impact our world.
Philip
