The Home Schooling Movement; C. Bolick

84 The HOOle Schooling Movement by Clint Bolick A s "movements" go, home schooling is one of the most eclectic, coalescing an extraordinarily diverse group of indi viduals around a -single purpose-the educa tion of children outside the traditional school ing structure. The growing ranks of home schoolers span the entire political spectrum, encompassing conservatives and liberals, libertarians and pop ulists. Many home schoolers are rigidly traditional and scrupulously law-abiding, while others are long-time practitioners of civil disobedience. Some are fervently religious and have removed their children from mainstream schools because they are too secular, while others are nonbe lievers who consider public schools too reli gious. Still others are compelled to educate their children at home because they live in geo graphically isolated areas, remote from ordi nary schools. What binds this heterogeneous movement to gether is a deeply held devotion to a single overriding principle: that parents have the re sponsibility-and the right-to direct and control the educational development of their children. But despite the consistency of this view with the principles of liberty on which this Clint Bolick is an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. He is working on a book entitled, Changing Course: Civil Rights at the Crossroads.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and are not intended to represent the policy of the Department of Justice. nation was founded, the right of home schoolers to freely exercise their choice is in serious dispute-giving rise to one of the most compelling civil rights controversies of our time. Contrasting -Styles, Impressive Results Another characteristic unifying home school ers is the enormous commitment-in terms of time, energy, patience, and persistence-they must invest to carry it through. And yet thou sands of families across America have made this commitment. The exact number of home schoolers is difficult to determine, but a recent study places the figure as high as 260,000. And by all appearances, those numbers are in creasing. Many critics confuse home schoolers with nonschoolers, counterculturists who reject the value of any formal education. On the contrary, most home schoolers place an extremely high value on education; so much that they are un willing to entrust that vital process to surro gates. To some extent, all parents are home schoolers, for education does not take place solely in a formal classroom. But the term ac curately applies only to those parents who have taken this phenomenon a major step further, by turning their homes into formal institutions of learning -''schools" in the purest sense of the word.

If a "typical" home school exists, it prob ably follows one of two widely divergent pat terns. The first is the structured home schooling environment. Home schools within this cate gory are generally extremely ordered, with set goals, characterized by rigorous schedules and "attendance" requirements, textbooks and other professional materials, extensive "home work," and frequent tests. Many religiously motivated home schoolers embrace this ap proach, and infuse a great deal of religious edu cation into the learning environment. The other common approach is less struc tured. Many home schoolers eschew competi tion and academic pressure, and allow their children to proceed with their own interests in a positive environment designed to stimulate in tellectual curiosity, similar to the approach em ployed in Montessori schools. Learning tools often used in less structured home schools in clude computers, frequent "field trips" and cultural experiences, and defined manual chores.

Either approach generally produces impres sive results. Indeed, the very nature of home schooling virtually insures a high return on the investment. The teacher/student ratio is by defi nition quite small, providing for a highly indi vidualized learning environment and enhanced capacity to respond to particular needs. Unlike many teachers in public schools, home school teachers are necessarily extremely motivated, and possess a direct interest in the achieve ments of their children. While many home schoolers are not certified teachers, neither are they encumbered by arbitrary certification re quirements or the political and special-interest demands of the educational bureaucracy. Moreover, home schoolers may draw upon plentiful resources tailored to their needs. The Calvert School and the Santa Fe Community School are just two of the national "satellite schools" that provide formal curricula, teaching materials, and tests for home schools, monitor academic progress, and award di plomas; and local private schools also fre quently offer similar "out-student" services.

Some public school districts allow home school students to enroll in certain courses, participate in extracurricular activities, or use their facili ties. Support networks, such as Holt Associates 85 in Boston, founded by the late home school pi oneer John Holt, and the Hewitt Research Center in Washington state, directed by Dr. Raymond Moore, share practical information via newsletters, books, and seminars; and these organizations are supplemented by active sup port groups at the local level. Many critics condemn home schooling for supposedly overlooking "real world" social ization skills. But that is precisely why many home schoolers elect to teach their children at home-they object to the type of "socializa tion" to which their children would be sub jected in the public schools. Instead, many home schoolers provide alternative socializa tion outlets, such as Scouting, church groups, and community athletic programs.

Home schooling is not for everyone; in fact, it's not even for most people. It requires an ex traordinary commitment that most parents cannot afford to give. But for those who do make that commitment, it can be very re warding and fulfilling for both parents and chil dren. Rather than rejecting it out of hand, we should acknowledge the advantages of home schooling and accept it as a viable alternative educational institution wholly consistent with American ideals. Pioneering Spirit The potential benefits of home schooling are exemplified by the Schneeberger family, which lives in rural Woodland Park, Colorado. The Schneebergers have four children, ages 3 through 10, and have been home schooling for three years with extraordinary success. Peter Schneeberger is a postman with a col lege degree in fine arts and mathematics, while his wife Rory, who handles most of the teaching duties, is a former public school teacher and Christian school principal who earned degrees in child development and psy chology. The Schneebergers are nondenomina tional Christians, and decided to become home schoolers because, as Rory explains, "home is where the attitudes and convictions of life are hammered out." "My experiences in the public schools," she adds, combined with "the militancy of some so-called Christian schools, also tugged at our hearts and contributed to our 86 THE FREEMAN. MARCH 1987 decision to educate our children at home, under loving, caring, and firm supervision."

The school day at the Schneeberger's "Rainbow Ranch Christian Family School" begins at 8:30 A.M. with pledges and prayers, followed by academic lessons until 11:30 A.M. Peter comes home for lunch, which provides for midday family time. During the afternoon, the smaller· children nap while the older chil dren correct their papers or participate in field trips, practical "life experiences," or Christian service. After school, the older children are ac tive in community athletics, Christian Scout ing, 4-H, and animal chores. Rory designs her own curriculum and sup plements it with professionally developed ma terials, such as Rod and Staff, American Chris tian Schools, Inc., and library books. When Rory needs assistance, Peter steps in or they consult other professional teachers or tutors. The academic results produced by the Schneebergers' home school are stunning. Lucas, age nine, tests regularly and exten sively. Last year, compared with other third graders nationwide, Lucas scored between the 76th and 100th percentiles (93rd percentile overall) on every facet of the Stanford achieve ment test, demonstrating proficiency at fifth to college grade levels. These results were con firmed by other nationally recognized tests. He was recently accepted into an adult education class in Colorado history, one of his special in terests; and his parents hope to eventually enroll Lucas in an early college admission pro gram.

Despite the uncertain legal status of home schooling in Colorado, the Schneebergers have not been challenged by educational officials, and they maintain a "friendly working rela tionship" with Calvin Frazier, Colorado Com missioner of Education, and their local district. The Schneebergers are active in home school ing support organizations and consider them selves "blessed immensely" by their experi ence as home schoolers; and it is difficult to comprehend an educational arrangement that would be more beneficial for their children. The Schneebergers' experience is not atyp ical. In recent years, leading institutions of higher learning such as Harvard University have admitted students who have been educated Rory Schneeberger with sons Michael and Logan with notable success exclusively at home. With increased exposure, home schoolers may be able to overcome the apprehension and hostility purveyed by the educational establishment while adding to their ranks new families for whom home schooling is an appropriate alter native.

Legal Quagmire Although the number of home schoolers ap pears to be growing, the species is constantly endangered by its most voracious predator, the State. A decision to educate children at home requires not only a commitment to undertake an enormous educational effort, but frequently also to take on a hostile public educational bu reaucracy, abetted by the compulsory school attendance laws. State laws governing home schooling are re markable in their inconsistency. Parents who are educating their children at home with the blessing of one state can move to a neighboring jurisdiction and suddenly become outlaws. As of 1983, for instance, parents could educate their children at home relatively freely in Idaho Peter Schneeberger assists son Lucas in a lesson or Montana, but would do so at their consider able peril in Wyoming or Washington state. Home schooling laws generally fall into one of three categories. The most permissive are the "equivalency" laws, which generally re quire only some showing that the alternative education provided is comparable to that pro vided by the public schools. A second category is comprised of "certification" statutes, in which the "teacher" must be certified by the state or fulfill some other requirements. Fi nally, the most restrictive are the' 'prohibition"

laws, which limit educational choices to tradi tional public or private schools. In such juris dictions, home schoolers often attempt to cir cumvent the law by claiming that their homes are schools, or by incorporating as such. Most courts have rejected such arguments, even where the home schoolers demonstrate superior educational achievement. Other courts, how ever, have given a more sensible definition to "school," such as the Indiana Court of Ap peals, which declared in 1904 that [a] school, in the ordinary acceptance of its meaning, is a place where instruction is imparted to the young .... THE HOME SCHOOLING MOVEMENT 87 We do not think that the number of persons, whether one or many, make a place where education is imparted any less or more a school. Relatively few courts have taken such an en lightened approach. Consequently, where state laws are prohibitive or restrictive, the educa tional bureaucracy can make life miserable for home schoolers. Its interest is typically not the educational well-being of the child, for if the debate is defined in those terms the home schooler will often prevail. Instead, the educa tional bureaucracy's interest is pecuniary in na ture-the local school district usually loses funding for every child removed from the school system. Accordingly, school districts resort to any means at their disposal-scare tactics, threats, criminal prosecutions - to coerce parents to return what the school dis tricts view as their property. Moreover, by con demning home schooling as deviant behavior, the educational bureaucracy often induces in termeddling citizens to turn in their neighbors in classic police state fashion.

Those home schoolers unfortunate enough to be engaged in a legal imbroglio face over whelming obstacles. Home schoolers are pro secuted under truancy statutes, violations of which are treated as criminal acts and prose cuted by the local district attorney and the child abuse apparatus, with its presumption of guilt and accompanying network of condescending social workers. The tragic irony is that home schooling is not child abuse; on the contrary, home schoolers who are subjected to this hu miliating process are often among the most conscientious of parents. Once the legal apparatus of the state is un leashed, many home schoolers are ill-equipped to resist effectively. Although most cases can be resolved by a simple phone call to the prose cuting officials from an attorney explaining the parents' rights, this frequently doesn't happen, for a variety of reasons. First, by definition, most home schoolers are one-income families since one parent stays home to educate the chil dren; and for this reason many cannot afford attorneys. Second, few attorneys are experi enced in home schooling cases. The issues in volved are complex, combining elements of such disparate legal fields as constitutional, 88 THE FREEMAN. MARCH 1987 family, and criminal law; and it costs money to give a lawyer time to develop his expertise.

Third, many home schoolers attempt to repre sent themselves, using one of the numerous home schooling legal defense tnanuals avail able. Unfortunately, these manuals often ill serve the home schoolers by misstating the law, and of course they cannot teach people how to practice law. Consequently, many home schoolers are overmatched by skillful prose cutors, and thereby lose not only their cases and sometimes their children - but also create adverse precedent by which other home school ers may be bound. Constitutional Precedents Home schooling will continue to be a risky enterprise in many jurisdictions unless and until the courts definitively address the nature and extent of the rights involved. The preferred course of action is legal reform; but without ju dicial intervention, states may continue to enact arbitrary laws, and local school districts may continue to intimidate home schoolers with im punity, regardless of how capable and suc cessful the home schoolers are at educating their children.

A number of constitutional arguments can be made on behalf of home schoolers, but two in particular provide the best prospects for suc cess. For those parents whose religious beliefs impel them to teach their children at home, the First Amendment may provide a viable de fense. This issue was presented to the Supreme Court in Wisconsin v. Yoder in 1972, but its holding of the case is extremely narrow due to the facts. In the Yoder decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Amish parents could remove their children from formal schooling after the eighth grade and teach Amish values and skills, notwithstanding a state statute requiring atten dance in a public or private school until age sixteen. The Amish parents, who were con victed of violating this law, were precluded by their religious tenets from satisfying the "sub stantially equivalent education" exception to the compulsory education law, since they fun damentally objected to the nature of the high school-level schooling required by the state.

The Court determined that the parents satis fied the requirements of the First Amendment by demonstrating that their actions were a con sequence of their deeply held religious beliefs. Although the Court noted that the state could permissibly impose minimum educational stan dards and compulsory attendance requirements, it concluded that the state's interest in requiring additional y~ars of formal schooling was out weighed by the parents' religious beliefs, par ticularly where the parents provided adequate, if informal, vocational training at home con sistent with their religious views. As Justice Stewart explained in his concurring opinion, "Wisconsin has sought to brand these parents as criminals for following their religious be liefs, and [it] cannot constitutionally do so." The Yoder decision was certainly good news for home schoolers, but its impact is limited by the narrowness of the Court's decision. The Court relied upon the unique characteristics of the Amish beliefs and lifestyle, and addressed home schooling only at the high school level.

Moreover, the First Amendment is of little value to those home schoolers whose actions are not impelled by religious beliefs. The strongest constitutional argument on behalf of home schoolers in general rests upon the Four teenth Amendment, under which the Supreme Court recognized in a trilogy of cases during the 1920s-cases that the Court reaffirmed in Yoder-that parents have a right "to direct the upbringing and education of [their] children." The first of these cases, Meyer v. Nebraska, involved the criminal conviction of a school teacher who violated a law prohibiting instruc tion in German to students below the eighth grade. The Court struck down the law, holding that the teacher's "right ... to teach and the right of parents to· engage him to so instruct their children . . . are within the liberty of the [14th] Amendment." The Court invalidated an even more authori tarian enactment in Farrington v. Tokushige in 1927. The case involved a Hawaii law regu lating the affairs of foreign-language (i.e., Jap anese) schools. The law limited attendance to one hour per day; empowered the Department of Public Instruction to control curricula and textbook selection; required permits for the THE HOME SCHOOLING MOVEMENT 89 Education and the State Once the State has accepted full responsibility for the education of the whole youth of the nation, it is obliged to extend its control further andfurther into new fields: to the physical welfare of its pupils, to their feeding and medical care, to their amusements and the use of their spare time and, finally, to their moral welfare and their psychological guidance. Thus universal education involves the creation of an immense machinery of organization and control which must go on growing in power and influ ence until it covers the whole field of education and embraces every form of educational institution from the nursery school to the university.

-CHRISTOPHER DAWSON schools and their teachers as well as disclosure of the identities of the students; and compelled the teachers to sign an oath pledging to "direct the minds and studies of pupils . . . to make them good and loyal American students." The Court concluded that the law violated the indi vidual liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment since "it would deprive parents of fair opportunity to procure for their children in struction which they think important and we cannot say is harmful." The most pernicious deprivation of educa tional freedom, however, was a state statute prohibiting attendance in any non-public school whatsoever, which was struck down in the landmark Pierce v. Society of Sisters case in 1925. Justice McReynolds proclaimed the vital doctrine that provides the greatest hope for home schoolers today: The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public school teach ers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and di rect his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.

The jurisprudence of the Pierce era repre sented the high-water mark for judicial protec tion of substantive liberty, but the courts have frequently reiterated these principles in subse quent cases. However, until the Supreme Court directly rules on the constitutionality of laws that prohibit or unreasonably restrict parents who choose in good faith to educate their children at home, such laws will continue to flourish and to deprive parents and children of precious liberties. A Matter of Civil Rights The spectacle of a parent being hauled off to jail and deprived of the custody of his or her children-not because the parent is not ful filling basic responsibilities, but because he or she is doing so, perhaps quite successfully, in a manner that offends some members of the com munity - is repulsive to the fundamental con cept of freedom in America. As a nation, we have chosen to entrust the upbringing of chil dren to parents rather than to the state, a choice that distinguishes ours as a free society.

Where home schooling is tolerated, mean while, many young people are obtaining a high-quality education while forming a bond with their parents that should constitute an ideal in a family-oriented society such as ours. And where governments do not obstruct good faith home schooling, they can devote their full re sources to matters, such as child abuse, that de serve far greater attention than they present!y receive. Clearly, our present quest for educa tion reform should include a relaxation of laws that limit or prohibit the home schooling option -not only because government is failing to ed ucate children successfully, but as a matter of right. The persecution of home schoolers is one of the gravest deprivations of civil rights in America today. The issue can easily be re solved, however, if only we apply the basic principles on which our nation's moral claim is staked. 0 90 The Moral Case for a Balanced Budget by Joseph S. Fulda T here is much talk these days about bal anced budgets, but the talk is about figures when it should be about values, about the economic consequences of imbalance when it should be about its moral propriety.