Missouri: Jasour, Hany El Saadany, News Desk
Special needs are spurring many families to homeschool, writes Anna North – recognizing public schools, legally required to provide “a fair and equitable education” for all, are only hindering their children’s learning.
“Let’s just figure out what works instead of being so constrained by the way we’re supposed to do it,” says homeschool mom Shawna Wingert, who pulled her 3rd grader from a Southern California school.
Eureka.
Instead of decrying the sacrifice millions of homeschooling families make daily to help their children succeed, why don’t more journalists focus on what made them homeschool in the first place?
One-size-fits-all vs. one-on-one attention
Wingert’s child had been reading since age 2 but had been overwhelmed by fear and anxiety from attending school. It reached the point where they “would panic every morning at the idea of going to school, panic about getting shoes on, panic about getting socks on, panic about leaving the car to go into the classroom.”
However, the “rigid” public-school system refused to make any accommodations Wingert suggested – even simple ones such as more advanced reading material to keep her child engaged.
Wingert unfortunately has plenty of company. One-third of families in a Washington Post-Schar School survey “say they made that choice (to pull kids out) because their child has special needs that public schools can’t or won’t meet,” North explains.
“Families sometimes feel they’re getting a one-size-fits-all approach: ‘Your child has this disability, and this is what we do for children who have that disability,’ versus saying, ‘What does your child need?’”
In contrast, homeschooling’s “one-on-one attention” model caters to each child, allowing “everything from a distraction-free learning environment to individualized reading instruction to lessons that play to kids’ strengths, not just their challenges.”
Other parents with advanced educational degrees have also seen the failures of public schools in their own families.
For example, Yale professor Christina Cipriano’s daughter failed to get the academic support she needed, despite an Individual Education Plan (IEP).
“If we keep providing all students with the same ‘this is the way we do things’ approach to education, neurodivergent students will continue to experience diminished academic achievement, increased punitive disciplinary practices and exclusionary placements,” Cipriano wrote.
Debunking the ‘regulations’ argument
As with most media outlets, Vox rushes to deploy the overused “homeschools-need-regulating” claim: “Some experts, however, are concerned that a lack of oversight in homeschool and microschool settings could leave students vulnerable not just to substandard education but even to injury or abuse because these settings are not subject to the same legal safeguards as traditional schools.”
Let’s consider all three charges: “substandard education,” “injury or abuse,” and “legal safeguards.” How are public schools performing on all these?
Terribly.
As the declining rates of literacy and math proficiency among U.S. high school graduates indicate, public schools are overemphasizing graduation rates over actual learning. As a result, many young adults are woefully unprepared for college and life in the real world.
Color me skeptical, but such bureaucratic mismanagement means the typical public-school student already suffers from a substandard education.
Just ask former schoolteacher Jeremy Noonan: “The public school accountability system, by relying solely on quantitative metrics like graduation rates to gauge educational quality and to evaluate administrators, frustrates teachers’ ability to truly teach and care for their students and look out for their long-term well-being.”
Let’s also tackle the injury-or-abuse claim. Shockingly, nearly 12% of recent public high school graduates are reporting sexual misconduct, which includes injury and abuse they’ve experienced from teachers or coaches.
Even worse, this figure is likely to be underreported.
With such high offence rates – often with these issues handled “in-house” with little, if any, disciplinary action against perpetrators – it’s no wonder organizations such as S.E.S.A.M.E. have formed to help students avoid sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment by educators.
