Category: Whole Family Learning

Parents are recognizing that they have many more options for their children’s education and are continuing to abandon government-assigned district schools.

Emily Burns had every intention of staying in Massachusetts. A longtime Boston resident, she and her husband left the city to settle in the upscale suburb of Newton in January 2020 so her three children could attend highly-rated public schools. What followed were two years of ongoing disruption and frustration.

In the fall of 2021, mask mandates were still in place in her local district schools, and the Montessori school that her younger children attended grew stricter with its mask policy, so Perez decided to homeschool all of her children and turn her learning pod into an established schooling alternative.

In the wake of the devastating school shooting in Oxford, Michigan this week that claimed the lives of four teenagers and injured seven others, state board of education member Tom McMillin called for an end to Michigan’s compulsory schooling laws.

“The picture of the home-schooled student that emerges from the data doesn’t resemble the socially awkward and ignorant stereotype to which Ms. Bartholet and others appeal. Rather, home-schooled children generally develop into well-adjusted, responsible and socially engaged young adults,” they wrote.

We shouldn’t be too surprised that the ongoing exodus from public schools is leading those loyal to government-run schooling to go on the offensive. A new Washington Post Op-Ed is leading the charge, boldly declaring in its headline: “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.”

With most schools open for full-time, in-person learning this year, it seemed reasonable to assume that parents would eagerly re-enroll their children in their local district school, tabling last year’s alternative education plans. That doesn’t seem to be the case.

The homeschooling rate in the US doubled in 2020, and tripled from its pre-pandemic level, as parents sought other options when confronted with prolonged school closures.

In my 2019 book, “Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom”, which gained even more traction throughout 2020 and 2021 as schools closed and homeschooling soared, I trace the roots of non-coercive, self-directed education back to the Enlightenment and, particularly, to the writings of philosopher John Locke.

Mandates are emerging even though children are, thankfully, not at severe risk from the coronavirus.