One of Harvard University’s faculty directors has lashed out at homeschooling, asserting the practice is “dangerous” and gives parents “authoritarian” control.
In other words, Harvard comes out against parenting. Oh, and Christians, too. Naturally.
Elizabeth Bartholet, a law professor and faculty director of the schools Child Advocacy Program at Harvard went so far as to claim the increasingly popular practice of homeschooling should be banned.
Prof. Bartholet claims that it gives parents “authoritarian” control over their own children, noting that 90 percent of homeschoolers are driven by conservative, Christian beliefs and that the parents are “extreme religious ideologues” who question science and will seek to remove them from mainstream culture.
In an 80-page document published by the Arizona Law Review, Bartholet spuriously addresses “the rapidly growing homeschooling phenomenon and the threat it poses to children and society”.
Apparently, the Harvard professor believes free thinking individuals that worship God and disagree with establishment education focused on climate change, gender transitioning, open borders, and participation trophies are a danger to society.
She writes: “States should impose significant restrictions on homeschooling,” adding: “[t]he new regime should deny the right to homeschool, subject to carefully delineated exceptions for situations in which homeschooling is needed and appropriate. Parents should have a significant burden of justification for a requested exception. There is no other way to ensure that children receive an education or protection against maltreatment at all comparable to that provided to public school children.”
The belief that the government can raise a child better than the parents is arguably the more acute danger, and one that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Michael Donnelly, senior council for the Home School Legal Defense Association called her views “extreme” and explained that calling “American homeschooling parents too ignorant or too religious goes against the weight of decades of scholarly research on homeschooling which demonstrates positive academic, civic, and social outcomes”.
Statistics prove students who are homeschooled graduate college at a higher rate than their peers – 66.7 percent compared to 57.5 percent – and earn higher grade point averages.
Not too bad for a bunch of conservative Christians with a set of deep religious beliefs and core family values. Or did she mean “basket of deplorables”?
This scrutiny couldn’t have come at a worse time for the university.
The institution is currently under the microscope of both the country and the President for attempting to secure $9 million from the Cares Act while receiving inordinate amounts in endowments: in excess of $40 million dollars.
When asked about the handout at a recent press briefing, President Trump responded: “They shouldn’t have taken it”.
Seems the only values that should be in question are the values of Harvard University itself.
