Another Illiberal View About Homeschoolers

Illiberal Education: Constitutional Constraints on Homeschooling by Kimberly Alexandra Yuracko, Northwestern Law School

In case you are wondering about the definition of illiberal, from the Merriam Webster Dictionary

d: not broad-minded : bigoted


Ms. Yuracko's views on homeschooling and homeschoolers is certainly bigoted.


She says
Although homeschoolers are a diverse group, the homeschooling movement has come to be defined and dominated by its fundamentalist Christian majority many of whom choose to homeschool in order to shield their children from secular influences and liberal values.

At least they are finally catching on that homeschoolers are a diverse group, but contrary to what she believes homeschooling is not dominated by a fundamentalist Christian majority.

The reason for homeschooling that was most frequently cited as being applicable was concern about the environment of other schools including safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure. Eighty-five percent of homeschooled students were being homeschooled, in part, because of their parents’ concern about the environment of other schools. The next two reasons for homeschooling most frequently cited as applicable were to provide religious or moral instruction (72 percent) and dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools (68 percent). ~ Parents’ Reasons for Homeschooling


72% cited religious or moral instruction but no study reveals the parents religion affiliation. Therefore there is no data to support Ms. Yuracko's claim. One of my Pagan friends is homeschooling for religious reasons due to her daughter being harrassed at her former public school due to her Pagan beliefs. The majority of parents according to this study 85% choose to homeschool due to the school environment, not for religious reasons. I also have to question why Ms Yuracko believes it is OK for liberals to pass on their values in the public schools but not for conservatives to pass on their values to their own family members?  BTW I consider myself a LIBERAL

The paper relies on federal state action doctrine and state constitution education clauses to argue that states must—not may or should—regulate homeschooling to ensure that parents provide their children with a basic minimum education and check rampant forms of sexism.

I have to give Ms. Yuracko credit, I think she is possible the first to accuse homeschoolers of practicing rampant forms of sexism.

Is homeschooling sexist
The Feminist Homeschool
Feminist homeschooling is educating your children with the understanding that feminism is as much a lifestyle as it is a movement. It teaches that women and men are of equal value, neither being better or more worthy than the other. (read the rest here)

From Just Enough, and Nothing More
Homeschooling Is Anti-Feminist?
Feminist Homeschooling Concerns

Home Education Magazine November-December 2000 - Articles
Is Homeschooling Sexist? - Laurae Lyster-Mensh

I am a equal partner with my husband. I have an equal say in any decisions made concerning our family. My work as a housewife and a (former) homeschool Mom is valued.  We have never had strictly male/female jobs in our home. If I am sick my husband pitches in with the housework and both our boys have been taught how to cook and clean.  I am also the one that keeps track of our finances and deals with the insurance, although hubby will help if I ask him to. The time when women had no say in decision making is long gone. The CHOICE to stay home and be a housewife should have the same value as the CHOICE some women make to work outside the home. Those women who seek to deny women the CHOICE to stay home are as wrong as those who in the past sought to keep women imprisoned in their homes.

In some homeschool families it is the husband who stays home and homeschools the kids while the wife works outside the home and supports her family. I am just glad we live in a  country where we are free to make the CHOICES that are right for our individual families and not in a country where THE GOVERNMENT tells you what to think. Ms. Yuracko has no business using the government to ram her "sexist" beliefs down other women's throats.

At the moment I don't have time to download Ms Yuracko's bigoted paper on homeschooling and do a point by point rebuttal but I am sick and tired of women like Ms Yuracko and Ms. West trying to use the government to force their bigoted and intolerant beliefs on the rest of us.