Harvard law prof wants to ban homeschooling; will hold a conference about it in June 2020. (((They're))) afraid. Very afraid. The country is awakening due to the pandemic forcing most kids to homeschool, and many of those won't be going back (unless their parents need the free daycare so they can work to survive).

https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/05/right-now-risks-homeschooling

The Risks of Homeschooling

by Erin O'Donnell

May-June 2020

A rapidly increasing number of American families are opting out of sending their children to school, choosing instead to educate them at home. Homeschooled kids now account for roughly 3 percent to 4 percent of school-age children in the United States, a number equivalent to those attending charter schools, and larger than the number currently in parochial schools.

Yet Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein public interest professor of law and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, sees risks for children—and society—in homeschooling, and recommends a presumptive ban on the practice. Homeschooling, she says, not only violates children’s right to a “meaningful education” and their right to be protected from potential child abuse, but may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society.

“We have an essentially unregulated regime in the area of homeschooling,” Bartholet asserts. All 50 states have laws that make education compulsory, and state constitutions ensure a right to education, “but if you look at the legal regime governing homeschooling, there are very few requirements that parents do anything.” Even apparent requirements such as submitting curricula, or providing evidence that teaching and learning are taking place, she says, aren’t necessarily enforced. Only about a dozen states have rules about the level of education needed by parents who homeschool, she adds. “That means, effectively, that people can homeschool who’ve never gone to school themselves, who don’t read or write themselves.” In another handful of states, parents are not required to register their children as homeschooled; they can simply keep their kids at home.

[Moar at website]

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POC info for Elizabeth Bartholet

Morris Wasserstein Professor of Law

https://bartholet.wpengine.com/

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Conference website: Homeschooling Summit: Problems, Politics, and Prospects for Reform – June 18-19, 2020

https://cap.law.harvard.edu/events-and-conferences/homeschooling-summit-june-18-19-2020/