Elizabeth Bartholet And Rachel Coleman On Homeschooling’s Potential For Abuse by Off-Trail Learning published on 2020-06-06T13:32:16Z In May 2020, Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard Law Professor, called for significant new regulations on homeschooling in the United States. In this extra-long episode, I interview Professor Bartholet about her ideas, research, and proposals. We are joined by Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education — and a grown homeschooler herself — who contributes a wealth of experience and impassioned arguments for increasing oversight of homeschooling. While all three of us have different visions of what “appropriate regulation” might be, we also find areas of agreement. Discussion topics include: Who homeschools in the U.S.? How prevalent is abuse and neglect? What is good and important about homeschooling? What’s the justification for increased regulation? Do bad schools inflict just as much (or more) harm on children than homeschooling? And what are the most essential legal changes that Bartholet and Coleman would each like to see enacted? Read more about Professor Bartholet’s perspectives in the original Arizona Law Review article (https://arizonalawreview.org/homeschooling-parent-rights-absolutism-vs-child-rights-to-education-protection/), the Harvard Magazine interview with her (https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/05/right-now-risks-homeschooling), and her interview with the Harvard Gazette (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/law-school-professor-says-there-may-be-a-dark-side-of-homeschooling/). Learn more about Rachel Coleman and the Coalition for Responsible Home Education at responsiblehomeschooling.org. Genre Learning Comment by Natalia Gibson Testing really should NOT be the only solution for making sure a child is receiving a broad education. Parents need the ability to create a portfolio for their kids who would be unable to pass a test. In my state of Va. students need to reach the 25% percentile which may not sound hard but for those in that bottom percentile well they can’t pass and you are asking something of them and blaming them for something they cannot do! Ms. Bartholet mentioned special needs/anxiety in regard to homeschooling could help children but didn’t then carry that through to how they not only couldn’t homeschool with her ideas of testing but would then be pushed back into the situation which didn’t work for them in the first place. She needs to consider the child’s welfare from a different perspective so that she is not forcing testing on a child that isn’t appropriate. I would advise for her to look more into portfolios and broaden her ideas of what proves a child is receiving a broad education. 2020-06-15T12:56:49Z Comment by Bob Bartholet and Coleman’s (B&C) faith is that the State should be the main authority over a child’s/citizen’s life and to control the environment with pre-emptive dragnets to try to catch evil people before they maybe do bad things to others. B&C’s belief system is antithetical to how a free nation works. The USA holds parents, not State, choose how to raise and educate children. Schooling is not an arm of the police portion of the State. We do not profile a group (e.g., those who choose homeschooling, those with dark skin color, or mosque attenders) then apply discriminatory State controls on them to try to prevent them from maybe doing harm. B&C’s beliefs erode educational choice and destroy a core of independent home-based education. B&C’s logical conclusion is random monthly home State investigations of all families of public-school, private-school, or homeschool children during the summer since 3 months is plenty time for parents to starve, torture, or beat their children to death. 2020-06-11T18:35:35Z
