Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 2, 1992 TAG: 9202030162
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGIE FISHER EDITORIAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A FRETTING GRANDMOTHER
LAST SUMMER, when my youngest son and daughter-in-law said they were thinking about taking my three grandchildren out of school to "home teach" them, I went bananas."You can't do that!" I screamed. "You have no training to teach. Neither of you has enough formal education in all the subjects the children need to learn. You'll sentence them to a lifetime of poverty because they won't be able to find decent jobs when they grow up. And other kids will treat them like freaks. You simply cannot do it!"
My son and his wife, who live in another state, had always had their children in a church-affiliated private school. Though I'd never quite approved of that, it was an accredited school.
But it was not inexpensive for a couple trying to raise three children on my son's modest income. More than once, I'd argued that they should enroll the children in public schools, which they were already paying for with their tax dollars.
Since tuition increases at the private school had helped spark the idea of "home teaching," I tried again to make the case for public schools.
"Mother, you just can't understand," my son responded, with more calm and maturity than I was showing. "Public schools aren't like they were when you were growing up; they're not even like they were when I was growing up." He recited a long list of familiar indictments against public schools: poor quality of instruction, crowded classrooms, lack of discipline, drugs in the lockers, condoms in the restrooms, guns on the playground.
It's very difficult to defend public schools when there is so much evidence to support such charges.
How, for instance, could I argue that my grandchildren were "better off" in public schools when school boards in many cities, including Norfolk, have had to install metal detectors and conduct random gun searches among kids of an age where spitballs used to be the major classroom contraband? Just the other day, three students were shot outside a middle school in Norfolk. And friends who are schoolteachers in Roanoke attest that it's not just in big cities that public schools have become mine fields.
To my great relief - after several weeks when I did some heavy-duty worrying and praying - my son and daughter-in-law decided against home-teaching, and enrolled their children in another church-run private school. They let it be known that it was despite my middle-age temper tantrums, not because of them.
My relief, however, didn't end my concern about the home-teaching movement, which has been spreading rapidly as more parents become disillusioned with public schools.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Education estimates, at least a half-million children were being taught at home, twice the estimated number in 1984. (In Virginia, education officials also report steady, annual increases in home instruction since the '84 General Assembly passed legislation permitting it.) Because many parents don't bother to get official approval, the actual number of children in home programs may be double the half-million estimate.
Yes, I've heard "success" stories: the occasional geniuses who have come out of home-teaching programs to go on to Harvard or MIT; the superior achievements by some home-schooled children on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. And I'll certainly concede there can be benefits when dedicated parents are able to work one on one with children in home-teaching programs, hand-tailored to meet a child's specific needs.
But there is nothing in laws authorizing home-schooling in Virginia or elsewhere that requires or ensures such idyllic teaching. And the odds for it don't look favorable to me.
Though secular home-schooling by parents with adequate incomes to buy home computers and other up-to-date teaching tools is increasing, the movement's appeal still seems to be overwhelmingly to low-income, fundamentalist Christian families. Doubtless, most of these are conscientious parents who are genuinely concerned about a lack of moral values in public schools. They've become convinced, often by religious leaders, that home-teaching is the best alternative.
Typically, the father works; the mother - with no teaching experience, except perhaps in Sunday school - assumes responsibility for instructing the children. Without an academic background in any subject, she may be trying to teach an older child calculus at the same time she's trying to teach a younger child the basics of reading - and, all the while, juggling cooking, cleaning, shopping and other household chores. What happens to the home-teaching routine - assuming one is established - if one of the children takes seriously ill, or if the mother herself gets sick?
But there are "support groups" - other parents also doing home-teaching - say home-teaching's defenders. Yes, but the support groups are likely composed of other mothers with the same kind of academic, financial and time limitations.
My objections go beyond these practical considerations, however. They go, first of all, to censorship - which is an implicit goal of some advocates.
Many parents, without ever looking into it for themselves, have bought the pitch by religious-right televangelists that books, fine art, music and other materials used in the public schools are "anti-Christ" or "occultistic," or promote homosexuality, sexual promiscuity or worse. Better, the parents are told, to keep children at home where what they read, see and think can be controlled.
That may be well-intended. But it is irrational to believe that school materials are chosen by agents of the devil, conspiring to lead generations of children to hell. And it is plainly wrong to deny children access to a wide range of good literature and other materials, to inhibit their ability to think, ask questions, reason, make judgments. There is more to life than Bible verses!
Many home schoolers apparently also believe that children don't need socialization beyond their brothers, sisters and a closely controlled circle of peers. But they do.
They need to learn how to get along with children of other socioeconomic backgrounds, races, religions, nationalities - yes, even heathens and riffraff. Isolating children until they are 16 or 17 can cripple them with inability to deal with anyone who is cut from a different mold.
But having said all that, do I want my grandchildren exposed to drug dealers and shooting sprees at school? You bet I don't! And I realize that many young parents (my son included) can't afford top-quality private schools that might ensure a well-rounded education, including social skills, in a safe, protective environment.
The public schools, though never perfect, once offered something approximating that kind of education in that kind of setting. What happened? How is it that taxpayers have spent billions of dollars to support and improve public schools, yet my son - as good and loving a father as they come - feels he can't risk sending his kids to these facilities?
I'm mad about it. I'm mad that the public-education system, which should be an institution that helps solve social problems, has become one of this nation's major social problems. I'm mad at all the politicians, bureaucrats and education "experts" who apparently can't, or won't, turn the system around.
My son is absolutely right: This grandmother just can't understand it.