My Take: What will more oversight over homeschooling families accomplish?
Dear Michigan parents,
The newly Democrat-controlled legislature wants to add more oversight and restrictions to homeschool families in Michigan. We don’t know yet what this will include, though we know it will include registration of homeschool families. A previous bill, introduced in 2015, would have mandated biannual “check-ins” with certain designated authority figures. Will this new bill include a similar requirement?
So the question is, why does this matter and why does it concern all Michigan parents? The short answer is: Any attack on fundamental parental rights to guide and control the education of children is an attack on everyone’s parental rights.
There have been a few, terrible and tragic instances of abuse that did occur at the hands of parents claiming to homeschool. So, the Democrats want to use these tragedies to pass legislation. The legislation they are seeking to pass wouldn’t protect any child from abuse. Having a list of names is meaningless unless there is an end goal to utilize that list for other purposes.
Not only do children who attend public schools sometimes suffer abuse at home that goes unchecked, they often face abuse at school. The Department of Education’s own findings show 9.6% of students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career. There have been many stories of educator abuse, both sexual and physical, over the past two decades, which doesn’t even include verbal abuse that occurs by teachers. There is also abuse and violence perpetrated by fellow classmates. According to an article on Michigan.gov, one out of every 14 Michigan high school students were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property during the previous 12-month period before the survey was taken.
Registering homeschool families will not prevent abuse, so is the end goal biannual check-ins? Are homeschooling families in Michigan going to be expected to forgo their Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful searches? The American justice system is predicated on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Will homeschool families be presumed guilty of abuse until we “check in” and prove our innocence? This is an affront to freedom and liberty that cannot be tolerated.
Shouldn’t our legislature worry more about figuring out how to improve the public education system that they are supposed to have oversight of? The parents of public school students should be outraged that more isn’t being done to protect students in public schools, and to ensure that they are receiving a good education. Instead, the legislature wants to waste time, energy, and money to extend its oversight to a community that generally produces well-educated students. The more restrictive and difficult it becomes to homeschool, the less the public schools consider input from parents. This essentially leaves children trapped in the public school system, and it makes public school officials brazen in their beliefs that they will decide what children will be taught.
This is what happens when the public education system believes parents have no other options. They begin to believe that the public schools are the ultimate authority over the children and what they will learn. Clashes over questionable materials in Michigan public schools have already occurred — this will only get worse if homeschooling becomes difficult.
If the public school system knows that ignoring the concerns of parents will result in children being pulled out to be homeschooled, they know they MUST listen and respect the opinions of parents. Private schooling is unaffordable for many families. If homeschooling, which can be done quite successfully at a fraction of the cost of private school, becomes difficult to do, public schools will charge ahead with whatever agenda they wish.
Parents in Michigan should band together to stop this unnecessary push to begin regulating homeschool families. Protecting the rights of families to guide and determine their children’s education shouldn’t be a divisive issue. All parents want to have the authority to determine their child’s educational path regardless of which path they choose.
Please contact your state senator and representative to let them know that their priority should be to improve the educational outlet they do have oversight over public schools and that they should not infringe on the parental rights of anyone in Michigan.
— Christina Kimble is a Michigan resident and has homeschooled her children for 11 years.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: What will more oversight over homeschooling families accomplish?
