With a growing list of states adopting universal school choice, and many parents taking control of their kids' education, the editors at Scientific American magazine reportedly want states to treat homeschooling parents like K-12 teachers and require them to pass an initial background check before they can teach their own children.
Jim Mason, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), says the proposal is preposterous.
"A lot of these proposals are a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that public schools are losing students in greater numbers than they have before," he submits. "They don't need to have a whole lot of practical reasoning or real-life application other than as a reaction to the drain from public schools."
Calling the growth of homeschooling a "problem," Scientific American submits that "some children may not be receiving any instruction at all."
"In the worst cases," the editors add, "homeschooling hides abuse."
So, they argue – with no supporting evidence – that students need uniform standards.
"That's one of the major problems," Mason responds. "They want to have uniform, federal regulations. Homeschooling is great for kids because you can customize the education to the actual needs of this child and their talents and their interests."
As Mike Farris, founder of the HSLDA, recently pointed out to Washington Watch, those on both sides of the aisle understand that "children get their values from whoever they spend the majority of their time with." And with woke ideology invading schools, it has become less and less difficult to prove that homeschooling is "at least as good as the public schools."
