There’s a battle going on right now in our neighboring state of Illinois concerning the Illinois Homeschool Act. This Act takes the current minimal oversight of homeschoolers in Illinois and places families at risk of violation by state appointed truant officers right in their homes. The bill would require parents to file a homeschool declaration form as well as an education portfolio to their local school district effectively putting their children under the jurisdiction of the very system from which many of these parents are trying to get away. The form discloses personal information of the child and opens each family to the mercy of a truancy officer who might show up at the child’s home to demand evidence of the child’s education.
The American education system is a disaster on its way to self-destruction. It was always going to fail, but so committed are some Americans to the unrealistic ideal that education can be carried out by a centralized state, they cannot see its failure even when the quality of education has been in consistent decline for decades. This decline is evidenced by the ever-decreasing test performances, lowered quality of education, and the increasingly violent atmosphere of the schools. Homeschooling parents saw the red flags and slowly began to secede from the public schools back in the 1970’s. Since then, homeschooling has experienced a gradual increase, until the pandemic, when the number of homeschooling families doubled.
And something else happened during the pandemic. Parents began to realize with horror that their children couldn’t read, despite being reassured by various “assessments” given by the government schools that their children were on the appropriate level. The fraudulent teaching practices involved in the reading scandal currently rocking the education community were covered extensively by education reporter Emily Hanford in her docu-series Sold A Story. Those running the education system failed American children at a most basic skill: reading. Yet somehow, these same administrators believe they are qualified to offer proper evaluation of children who are being homeschooled.
The fact that education administrators want to do everything they can to keep control over homeschooling families is understandable. Homeschooled children are primarily cared for and educated by their parents. A parent’s first duty is to their children. Raising children is hard work. It is physically and emotionally taxing. The moment you bring your baby into the world there is a shift. Suddenly, each day’s rhythm revolves around your child. For some, this shift grounds them ever-more deeply to a sense of family and belonging. They surrender to the rhythm, welcoming the obligations of training and teaching their offspring, passing on their cultural and religious beliefs that define them as a family, or clan, or community. They lean into the demands and respond by stepping up and deepening their bond.
Hellbound and Down 