Should home-schoolers have freedom?

October 25, 2005

Spectrum\Ron Hamman

Over the last several weeks, we have heard from a variety of people over the issue of freedom - specifically in regard to those who choose to educate their children at home. If you have listened carefully, you have heard two things from those who favor government regulation of the home-schooling community: 1- freedom; and 2- jealousy.

What comes through loud and clear to those who read well is that home-schoolers do not deserve to be free from government control. So let us explore freedom for just a moment.

Thus far, we have heard from the School Board president, a current educator, a retired teacher and a cartoonist. Of the School Board president, let us ask him how much he enjoys the government control of the No Child Left Behind Act, or the Adequate Yearly Progress reports for our district this last year.

Have we heard from him how much the school district needs to have increased rules and regulations in order to maintain federal funding so that they adequately educate our children? Or has he publicly come out in support of tougher high school graduation requirements and exit exams?

The truth of the matter is that we hear nothing but a bunch of excuses as to why these things are unfair, and that they need to be free to educate our children as they please. Does he relish a loss of freedom?

And what about our two esteemed educators? Do they, too, relish the loss of liberty? After all, high school exit exams, the No Child Left Behind Act and AYP reflect on their ability to teach. And all three of these are government mandates that put increased pressure directly on teachers to do what they are hired to do, and thus are control from the government and a loss of professional freedom.

Were it not for rapidly declining test scores and the reconfiguring of the SAT tests to increase those scores, teachers would have so much freedom to teach as they please. But let's face it, where is the finger pointed first when children fail academically?

So, do our educators glory in their loss of freedom?

And what about our cartoonist? Let us ask him if he would like to lose his freedom. He could lose his freedom in a number of ways. One would be if the government told him what he was allowed to draw.

Did I hear a gasp about the First Amendment? Come now, do you really believe that you can hold on to it for yourself when you seek to destroy it for another?

And what if he lived in another country? Or, do you really believe that America will last forever? Or at least be free forever?

Or, what if a crippling disease entombed his soul in a body that couldn't move. Would he enjoy his loss of freedom? More likely, he would long for the way things used to be.

Truth is that none of them want anyone else telling them what to do. So if they would not want their freedom restricted, why would they ever advocate the restriction of another's? Is it not because of jealousy? You know, someone else has something that they don't?

Oh, they cry foul for when the few home-schooled who enroll, and how much remediation must be done. I have never heard them bemoan the plight of our colleges, trade schools or local businesses who have to deal with the lack of education they receive in a publicly schooled child.

But when this happens, is it not more of a humble admission of failure on the part of the one, rather than of the whole home-schooled community?

And what have they to be jealous of? Is it the involvement of the parents, which is probably the single biggest factor in the success of all education, and not the teachers?

Or is it the money they lose because of non-enrollment? No, no, it couldn't

be; this would be greed. Heaven knows this is for the children.

But let me tell you what I'd be jealous of if I were them: A small, vocal minority being able to win freedom. But I would also fear them, too, especially when small voter turnouts demonstrate how much of our population really cares about being free.

Or at least that small, vocal minority.

Ron Hamman is the pastor at the Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla.