The editors at Scientific American in May penned an unnamed article citing concerns for an “untold number of U.S. children” who are at risk for poor education or physical abuse.
Simple oversight by the federal government could lessen these concerns and see that more children have the basic human right of education, the editors write.
“We want them to reach adulthood ready to take on the world,” the editors say.
Understanding that premise helps with understanding Scientific American, famous for its long history of publishing brilliant minds. The website for Scientific American states it is currently owned by Springer Nature, a “global and progressive” publishing group, which states its goal is covering science, health, technology, the environment and society while advancing social justice.
“The government is losing control over the minds of other people's children, and that's the big issue here. Homeschooling is fine. They're doing a good job, and parents have figured out that they could learn more at a fraction of the time,” Corey DeAngelis, an author and school choice advocate, said on American Family Radio Thursday.
DeAngelis told show host Jenna Ellis that homeschooling creates a better learning environment than so many public schools who are impacted by the teachers unions.
“Yeah, they have a monopoly on the money, but they also have a monopoly on the minds of other peoples’ children, but no more … and they’re calling for federal regulations of homeschooling because of it.”
Constitutional conflicts with federal oversight
There are Constitutional conflicts with requiring government intervention into homeschooling, DeAngelis said.
“They’re calling for required background checks for parents to home school. In other words, to raise your own children parents have to prove their innocence. That’s a Fourth Amendment violation, and it’s against a whole lot of Supreme Court precedent going back to 1925 with Pierce vs. Society of Sisters, where the Court famously ruled that the child is not the mere creature of the state,” DeAngelis said.
The Fourth Amendment provides the right for people to be secure in their homes, with papers and effects and against unreasonable search and seizure.
Education is often, but not always, left for states to decide. The Biden administration’s recent re-write of Title IX regulations – currently the subject of seven different lawsuits from 26 states – is an example of federal impact on education.
At the core of the new Title IX is the administration’s progressive LGBTQ policies that put girls' sports and safe public spaces for all girls at risk.
Last week, in a setback for the radical Left, a federal judge blocked its implementation in four states.
The editors at Scientific American express concerns that some Christian homeschooling curricula teaches creation rather than evolution. That could lead to a problem with the 14th Amendment, DeAngelis said.
“Other curricula describe slavery as ‘Black Immigration’ or extol the virtues of Nazism,” the article claims.
It also cited occurrences of abuse of homeschooled children.
Those safe public schools
Children, though, are not guaranteed safety in public schools. Data from the K-12 school shooting database showed almost 350 school shootings in 2023 alone, resulting in 248 victims either wounded or killed.
Red states and blue states were equally affected, but there was no noticeable media coverage of angry shooters bursting into living rooms or small-group gatherings of homeschoolers.
In many instances, danger isn’t only about mass shootings.
A 2023 study by Psychology Today found that 11.7 percent of high school graduates responding to the survey reported having experienced at least one form of educator sexual misconduct between kindergarten and 12th grade.
Many cases went unreported, and few reports resulted in disciplinary action for the educator.
There are a lot that public schools, especially in majority-black school districts, can do to improve student success both inside and outside the classroom.
In the public schools in Baltimore, DeAngelis said, 40% of the high schools have a 0% math proficiency rate.
"What do they do there? They say, ‘Oh, we've got to reward that system, give them more money because they're failing.’ It’s a total joke. It's a clown show. Those regulations haven't led to the stellar academic results in the government school system,” DeAngelis said.
How homeschoolers can hold their ground
There are ways to fight back against the threat of government regulation.
DeAngelis says homeschoolers bonding together in groups, and anything to advance school choice policies at the local level, are just a couple of examples.
“Homeschools ban together already and fight against federal government authoritarian overreach," he noted. "I would say you’re your most powerful when you’re in groups. If you have more people, a broader coalition, I think you have a better chance of winning."
DeAngelis said the reality is some level of government regulation of homeschooling is already in effect because taxpayers continue to fund public schools once they choose to home school their children.
“The best chance against this is by having more people benefiting from a broader coalition,” he said.
