“If not for the Religious Exemption clause, my parents would have had to, at the very least, turn in my standardized test scores to the county officials. I think it would have strongly encouraged my parents to educate me better.”
Let me start off by saying I do not hate homeschoolers or homeschooling. It’s possible to homeschool children in a healthy way, with quality education, care, and socialization. It’s also possible to teach your children after your own beliefs without forcing them to agree with you. Rather than shame them into agreement, if you instead give your children freedom of belief, they will genuinely respect you as they grow. They will be able to actually consider issues themselves, becoming confident in their sense of personal identity.
Sadly, for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of children, homeschooling causes harm, from poor socialization to various forms of abuse. I think the only good thing that came out of my home-schooling was that my mother encouraged creativity in the realms of art and make-believe. Because I was allowed to escape into my worlds of playing-pretend, because I was allowed to become absorbed in creating fantastical stories, I somehow survived.
My parents decided to homeschool for religious reasons. They wanted to raise as many children as possible to become “strong Christian leaders.” In addition, they were concerned about safety, wanting to protect us from the bullying, violence, and early sexual encounters common to public school. Ironically, my siblings and I were not saved from those things. Rather, we were trapped in a closed environment that fostered these dangers.
Bullying? I had to watch one brother be sadistically and systematically bullied by another brother. Violence? Besides abuse from my brother, my mom threw things, broke things, frequently threatened to injure me, and occasionally followed through. (I won’t even go into the spanking topic.) How about early or inappropriate sexual encounters? Yep, we had incest and sexual harassment in varying degrees. My parents had the ability to stop these occurrences, but let them go on instead. So you see, I wasn’t protected at all.
There are plenty of things my parents did wrong by choosing to homeschool, but I’ll just briefly note two. The first is emotional abuse, mostly by my mother. The second is lack of good education: academic in some areas, and basic life knowledge in others.
In terms of emotional abuse, I suffered more than my siblings because of my curious, independent nature. I didn’t act ladylike enough, I asked questions, I dared to form my own opinions, and I complained when things were unfair. Therefore, I was punished, shamed, and manipulated by my parents until I hated myself so much that I truly wanted to die. The shame they fed me on was the only thing I had to define myself, as my parents also discouraged us kids from developing our own identities. We were supposed to be a singular unit, The Christian Family, led by the Patriarch and never disagreeing with what we were taught. The teachings were often morally disgusting (racism, bigotry, sexism), and there even problems with the way they tried to teach basic Christianity.
What do I mean by that? Well, plenty of people learn about their family’s faith without being forced into it, but I was not so lucky. My purpose was decided for me before I was born; in mom’s words, I was to be “a strong Christian influencing the world”, no matter what I thought about it. The fear tactic was used a lot, too. I had to live in constant terror of demonic possession, of accidentally sinning, and of God’s punishments.
If that isn’t bad enough, possibly the worst thing my parents did was intentionally isolate me. In order to preserve my morality, in their eyes, they kept me away from nearly all outside influences. I never remember not being lonely. Even the rare “friends” I was allowed to play with came from conservative homeschool families like mine. I could never open up to them because my mother obsessively watched us, never letting us leave her sight. I can still feel the frustration, confusion, and despair.
If you ask them now, my parents might claim that they didn’t isolate me intentionally. But there’s no doubt about it: no matter how I begged, I was not allowed to have friends. Only in college did I learn the real meaning of having a friend. That isn’t something that happens to a kid by accident.
It would take too long to write about all the educational deficits in my upbringing. To give you the general idea, though, all the textbooks for history were Revisionist. (That means the writer tried to make history seem a certain way by meticulously choosing events selectively, and/or just writing lies.) Because of their freedom under Virginia’s Religious Exemption clause, my parents only focused on teaching a handful of subjects: reading, writing, math, and a very inadequate introduction to science. I learned some history, but was never tested on it. Other important subjects like basic geography were left out entirely.
Let’s not forget the deficits in my education about “how to survive in the real world.” I had social phobia for a long time because I was never given the chance to practice dealing with people. As a result, I didn’t know how to order food for myself until very late, I would have panics over making simple phone calls, and I had no idea what was socially acceptable to say. Also, I was never taught how to budget money. I was never given a sex education, either.
Finally, let’s imagine how things might have turned out if there had been sufficient oversight of my homeschool education. If not for the Religious Exemption clause, my parents would have had to, at the very least, turn in my standardized test scores to the county officials. I think it would have strongly encouraged my parents to educate me better. Proper oversight may not have stopped abuses from occurring in my home. However, the abuses could have been openly discussed, and perhaps minimized, if only someone had ever come to check on us.
In public school, there are often resources available for someone concerned about abuse; at the very least, there are more people around, such as teachers, which a child could open up to. This is not the case for homeschoolers—at least those excused from all supervision by laws like Religious Exemption. We need to have more oversight in place. For example, a social worker could visit and interview a homeschool family once a year or so.
That’s just my two cents. I hope this honest testimonial helps shed some light on the issue of homeschool oversight.
Lynne A. was homeschooled in Virginia from the 1990s through the 2000s. Her family homeschooled under the state’s religious exemption clause. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Statement Supporting West Virginia House Bill 2749
For Immediate Release: Access to Public School Athletics Improves Homeschool Outcomes
Canton, Ma., 2/16/16—Last year, a bill to allow homeschooled students to participate in West Virginia public school athletics programs died in committee. This year, West Virginia lawmakers are trying again. House Bill 2749 would require the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission to consider homeschooled children eligible for participation in public school athletics programs at the public school they are zoned for. “Our research is clear—access to public school extracurriculars offers tangible benefits to homeschooled students,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the alumni-run Coalition for Responsible Home Education. “It’s time to give West Virginia’s homeschooled students access to public school athletics.”
Participation in public school athletics and other extracurriculars has been found to have pronounced benefits for children’s socialization, self-esteem, and leadership skills across the board. A recent study of homeschool alumni in particular found that those who participated in public school athletics rated their homeschooling experience more highly than did other respondents. Further, researcher Joseph Richard Barno found that college admissions officers weighted extracurriculars more heavily for homeschool graduates than for traditionally-schooled graduates, suggesting that extracurricular participation is especially important for homeschooled students who are college-bound. “Excluding homeschooled children from this important aspect of physical and personal development puts them at a profound disadvantage with respect to their peers,” Coleman said.
West Virginia’s House Bill 2749 is part of an ongoing trend toward increasing homeschooled students’ access to extracurriculars in their local public schools. Over half of all states provide homeschooled students some form of participation in athletics or other extracurriculars through their local public schools, and that number is growing. Many states also allow homeschooled students to take individual courses at their local public schools. In fact, in 2007, the most recent year for which we have data, 16% of homeschooled students were enrolled in school part time. “Cooperation between homeschoolers and local school districts benefits homeschooled students,” said Coleman. “When public schools provide homeschooled students with access to curricular and extracurricular activities, they foster a positive relationship between public schools and homeschool families.”
Critics argue that granting homeschooled students access to public school athletics creates problems in fairness and access for other students. However, the Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers conducted a 2012 survey of state athletics associations which found that granting homeschooled students access to public school athletics has not caused problems in those states that have already done so. Critics also point to the variety of community athletic leagues available to younger children, but these options tend to narrow as children grow older, forcing parents to choose between homeschooling and athletic participation. “The evidence is clear that granting homeschooled children access to public school athletics improves homeschool outcomes,” said Coleman. “It’s time to let these children play.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Statement Supporting Virginia Senate Bill 612 and House Bill 131
For Immediate Release: Access to Public School Athletics Improves Homeschool Outcomes
Canton, Ma., 2/16/16—Last year House Bill 1626, which would have granted homeschooled students access to public school athletics, passed the House (57-41) and the Senate (22-13) only to be vetoed by Governor McAuliffe. This year the state’s homeschoolers and their supporters are trying again. Senate Bill 612 and House Bill 131 would prohibit public schools from barring homeschooled students from their athletic activities and thus require the Virginia High School League (VHSL) to change its requirement that student athletes be regular students at the school they represent. “Our research is clear—access to public school extracurriculars offers tangible benefits to homeschooled students,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the alumni-run Coalition for Responsible Home Education. “It’s time to give Virginia’s homeschooled students access to public school athletics.”
Participation in public school athletics and other extracurriculars has been found to have pronounced benefits for children’s socialization, self-esteem, and leadership skills across the board. A recent study of homeschool alumni in particular found that those who participated in public school athletics rated their homeschooling experience more highly than did other respondents. Further, researcher Joseph Richard Barno found that college admissions officers weighted extracurriculars more heavily for homeschool graduates than for traditionally-schooled graduates, suggesting that extracurricular participation is especially important for homeschooled students who are college-bound. “Excluding homeschooled children from this important aspect of physical and personal development puts them at a profound disadvantage with respect to their peers,” Coleman said.
Virginia’s Senate Bill 612 and House Bill 131 are part of an ongoing trend toward increasing homeschooled students’ access to extracurriculars in their local public schools. Over half of all states provide homeschooled students some form of participation in athletics or other extracurriculars through their local public schools, and that number is growing. Many states also allow homeschooled students to take individual courses at their local public schools. In fact, in 2007, the most recent year for which we have data, 16% of homeschooled students were enrolled in school part time. “Cooperation between homeschoolers and local school districts benefits homeschooled students,” said Coleman. “When public schools provide homeschooled students with access to curricular and extracurricular activities, they foster a positive relationship between public schools and homeschool families.”
The Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers has been promoting sports access bills in Virginia for several years now. In 2012, they conducted a survey of state athletics associations and found that granting homeschooled students access to public school athletics has not caused problems in those states that have already done so. The organization’s website features the stories of numerous homeschooled children who would like the chance to play, highlighting the benefit sports access would bring homeschooled children across the state. Critics of homeschool sports access point to the variety of community athletic leagues available to younger children, but these options tend to narrow as children grow older, forcing parents to choose between homeschooling and athletic participation. “The evidence is clear that granting homeschooled children access to public school athletics improves homeschool outcomes,” said Coleman. “It’s time to let these children play.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Statement Opposing West Virginia’s House Bill 4175
For Immediate Release: Accountability Is Critical to Homeschool Success
Canton, Ma., 2/1/2016—Last year, West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin vetoed House Bill 2793 and Senate Bill 444, legislation that would have removed nearly all of the state’s protections for homeschooled children. This year the West Virginia legislature is renewing its deregulation push nonetheless. House Bill 4175 would weaken the state’s assessment requirement and remove other crucial safeguards for homeschooled children. “West Virginia’s existing requirements are designed for the benefit of the state’s homeschooled children,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the alumni-founded Coalition for Responsible Home Education. “That the legislature is again trying to remove these safeguards is a travesty.”
H.B. 4175 would require parents to submit assessments of their children’s academic progress to the local superintendent only after grades three, five, eight, and eleven, rather than annually as under the current law. While parents would still technically be required to have their students assessed annually, the legislation includes no accountability measures to ensure that assessments would take place during the years when parents are not required to submit the results. “Annual assessments are important to ensure that children have access to educational resources and to identify learning disabilities,” Coleman said. Many homeschool alumni argue that assessment requirements improve the quality of education homeschooled students receive by ensuring that their parents are motivated to provide them with a solid and well-rounded education.
Perhaps the most startling provision of H.B. 4175 is that it would allow parents to administer their children’s standardized achievement tests themselves. The current statute bars parents from administering these tests for their own children in an effort to protect against cheating, but this would change under the new legislation. The Coalition for Responsible Home Education recommends that students’ assessments be carried out by someone other than the student’s parent in order to ensure accountability. “I have spoken with homeschool alumni whose parents changed their standardized test answers, allowing their educational neglect to go unnoticed,” said Coleman. “We need standards that work for homeschooled children, not standards that open the door to fraud.”
Finally, H.B. 4175 would remove the annual notice of intent requirement and allow parents to homeschool without a high school diploma or GED. Currently, homeschool parents in West Virginia are required to submit an annual notice of intent. Under the new legislation, this notice of intent would be submitted only once, when beginning to homeschool, making it easier for school districts to lose track of homeschooled children. H.B. 4175 would also remove the current requirement that homeschooling parents have a high school diploma or GED. “Parents’ level of education has a profound affect on homeschooled children’s academic achievement,” said Coleman. A recent study of homeschool alumni found that those whose parents had graduated from high school reported far higher levels of academic preparedness across a range of subject areas than those whose parents lacked a high school diploma or GED. “This legislation would allow parents to homeschool their children for grades they never completed themselves,” Coleman added. “West Virginia’s lawmakers must do better than this.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Statement Opposing South Dakota’s House Bill 1013
For Immediate Release: Assessments Are Important for Homeschooled Children’s Well-Being
Canton, Ma., 2/1/2016—With House Bill 1013, South Dakota stands poised to remove its assessment requirement for homeschooled second graders. Currently, homeschooled students are assessed during grades two, four, eight, and eleven. “Assessments are critical to homeschooled children’s wellbeing,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the alumni-run Coalition for Responsible Home Education. “Removing the assessment requirement for homeschooled second graders risks decreasing the quality of these students’ early education.”
Homeschooled children benefit from assessments in a number of ways. Assessments can help reveal whether children need glasses or whether they have ADHD or autism, ensuring that parents are equipped and empowered to meet their children’s needs. Assessments also ensure that homeschooled children are being provided with educational activities and resources, providing parents with accountability. Many homeschool alumni contend that assessment requirements improve the quality of education homeschooled students receive by ensuring that their parents are motivated to provide them with a solid and well-rounded education. “Accountability is important in all walks of life,” noted Coleman.
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education recommends having homeschooled students assessed annually. “Assessments help ensure that homeschooling is provided in good faith,” said Coleman. “In some cases, abusive parents take advantage of homeschooling to isolate their children and hide their abuse.” There is some research to suggest that homeschooled children may be at greater risk of severe child abuse. In a 2014 study of child torture, University of Wisconsin pediatrician Barbara Knox found that nearly half of the cases she examined involved homeschooling. “Assessments offer a general check on homeschooled children’s wellbeing,” said Coleman.
This legislative season, South Dakota lawmakers will make a choice about the state’s assessment requirement for homeschooled second graders. Their decision will effect the state’s roughly 4,000 homeschooled children. “We need policies that center on the needs of homeschooled children,” said Coleman. “We can’t afford to gamble with these children’s well-being.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by Rachel Coleman
Statement Regarding Adrian Jones
For Immediate Release: Kansas Child’s Death Related to Lack of Oversight for Homeschooling
Canton, Ma., 12/03/2015: On Thanksgiving day, police found the remains of a child in a barn owned by Michael and Heather Jones. It is believed that these remains belong to Adrian Jones, whom police had discovered missing the day before, and that the child was beaten to death and fed to the family’s pigs. It is unclear how long Adrian’s death would have gone unreported had police not learned of his absence while investigating a domestic violence call. “Adrian’s death is just one more example of the problems inherent to Kansas’ lax homeschooling laws,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the alumni-founded Coalition for Responsible Home Education.
In Kansas, homeschooling takes place under the state’s private school law, which offers virtually no oversight. Parents beginning to homeschool are required to submit paperwork establishing their home as a private school, but after the initial filing state involvement ceases. Michael and Heather Jones registered their homeschool in July 2012 under the name Jones Academy. After this, their contact with education officials likely ended. “Parents who homeschool take sole responsibility for their children’s education and wellbeing,” said Coleman. “We need to hold them accountable for that responsibility and ensure that homeschooling is not used to cover for abuse and neglect.”
Currently, Kansas has no law preventing parents who have been convicted of serious crimes from homeschooling, and no system for flagging cases where families with concerning past social services involvement begin to homeschool. Because the Joneses had prior contact with both police and social services, such protections might have helped prevent Adrian’s death. Florida is currently grappling with similar questions after the death of a young girl, Janiya Thomas, whose mother was allowed to homeschool despite having a criminal record and a concerning history of social services involvement. A bill intended to prevent deaths like Janiya’s is expected to be introduced in Florida’s next legislative term.
Adrian is not the first Kansas homeschooled child to die of child abuse, or the first Kansas homeschooled child whose parents have failed to report him missing. Nine-year-old Brian Edgar was suffocated by his parents in 2002, and 11-year-old Adam Herrman disappeared in 1999 but was not reported missing until 2008, nearly a decade later. While no body was ever found, it is believed that Herrman, who was withdrawn from school to be homeschooled after teachers reported suspicions of child abuse, was murdered by his parents. Nor is Adrian’s death the only ongoing child abuse investigation to involve a homeschool family this month. Two weeks ago in Topeka, a city councilman’s 14 homeschooled children were removed from the home due to abuse.
“While child abuse may occur anywhere, there is some reason to believe that homeschooled students may suffer severe and fatal child abuse at a higher rate than other students,” said Coleman. Barbara Knox, a pediatrician at the University of Wisconsin who specialises in child abuse, found that nearly half of the 38 cases of child torture she and her colleagues had collected for a 2014 study of child torture involved homeschooling. “This is a pattern all of us see over and over and over again,” Knox noted. Similarly, preliminary data on child fatalities collected by CRHE indicates that the rate of child fatality may be higher among homeschooled students than among other children. “It’s not that homeschooling makes parents abusive, but rather that homeschooling exacerbates risk factors that are already there,” said Coleman. “We need a system for flagging and identifying at-risk homeschooled children. We must prevent child abusers from hiding behind lax homeschool laws.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.https://responsiblehomeschooling.org
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Statement Regarding McIntyre v. El Paso Independent School District
For Immediate Release: Texas School Districts Must Be Permitted to Protect Homeschooled Children’s Right to an Education
Canton, Ma., 11/03/2015 — Yesterday the Texas Supreme Court heard McIntyre v. El Paso Independent School District, a case centered around what authority, if any, Texas school districts have to ensure that homeschooled students are being educated. The case began in 2008, when Laura and Michael McIntyre’s then-17-year-old daughter ran away from home in order to attend public school and the children’s grandparents made a report to the school district stating that they had never seen their grandchildren doing schoolwork.
Under Texas law, homeschools operate as individual private schools. Parents are not required to provide notice of homeschooling or to submit any evidence that they are educating their children. While parents are required to provide instruction in good citizenship, math, reading, spelling, and grammar, there is no assessment mechanism to ensure that this instruction is being provided. “Texas’ homeschool law offers some of the fewest protections for homeschooled children in the country,” said Rachel Coleman, a homeschool alumna and the executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. “School districts aren’t given a lot of clarity or direction when it comes to safeguarding homeschooled children’s right to an education.”
When the county truancy officer visited the McIntyres, the couple refused to show him any evidence that they were educating their children. Based on this and on statements made by the children’s grandparents and the couple’s then-17-year-old daughter, the officer brought truancy charges against the McIntyres. When the charges were later dropped, the McIntyres sued the school district, claiming that the district had violated their fundamental liberty interest to direct their children’s education without any oversight from the state.
While the questions put to the Supreme Court also involve some technical legal issues, the central question remains the same—how much authority does the school district have to ensure that homeschooled children are being educated? The Coalition for Responsible Home Education recommends annual assessment requirements to ensure that instruction is being provided, and supports school districts’ ability to act on tips of educational neglect in states that lack such oversight. “Parents have many options for how to educate their children, but they don’t get to choose whether to educate their children,” said Coleman. “School districts should continue their vital role in protecting all children’s rights to be educated.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices. https://responsiblehomeschooling.org
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Statement Regarding Janiya Thomas
For Immediate Release: Florida Child’s Death Related to Lack of Oversight for Homeschooling
Canton, Ma., 10/20/15—On Sunday, October 18th, eleven-year-old Janiya Thomas’s body was found in her mother’s freezer. Janiya was last seen in August of 2014, but her absence was not noted until this past month, when child welfare officials investigating a complaint of child abuse against another child in the household began to wonder about Janiya’s whereabouts. Janiya’s absence was not noticed earlier because she, unlike her four siblings, was homeschooled. “We need to do more to protect children like Janiya,” said Rachel Coleman, a homeschool graduate and the executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education.
In the days since the discovery of Janiya’s body, many have wondered how her absence went unnoticed for as long as it did. Unfortunately, Janiya’s case is not unique. Rather, it is one of many known and documented abuse cases where abusive parents have used homeschooling to hide and perpetuate their abuse. Last March, the bodies of two homeschooled children, Stoni Blair and Stephen Berry, were found in a Detroit freezer. This is not the first time that homeschooling has been used to cover up abuse in Florida, either. In 1995, Lucas Ciambrone, a seven-year-old homeschooled in Janiya’s native Manatee County, was tortured to death by his parents, and in 1997 the Ludwig sisters were removed from their home after investigators discovered that they had been beaten and kept in cages.
“While abuse may occur anywhere, homeschooling appears to be a common factor in cases of severe abuse or child torture,” said Coleman. Barbara Knox, a pediatrician at the University of Wisconsin who specializes in child abuse, conducted a study on child torture in 2014. She found that nearly half of the 38 cases of child torture she and her colleagues examined involved homeschooling. “This is a pattern all of us see over and over and over again,” Knox noted. Similarly, preliminary data on child fatalities collected by CRHE indicates that the rate of child fatality may be higher among homeschooled students than among other children. “We support homeschooling as an educational option and do not believe that homeschooling makes parents abusive,” said Coleman. “But we absolutely must find ways to prevent child abusers from hiding behind lax homeschool laws.”
According to news reports, Janiya’s mother filed homeschooling paperwork with the local school district in August 2013. When her mother missed the evaluation deadline the following summer, the school district sent her a notice. At this point, officials suspect that Janiya’s mother told the school district that Janiya had moved out of state. This same thing happened to Timothy Boss, a ten-year-old homeschooled boy killed by his parents in Iowa in 2000. “Ordinarily, when a student moves to another state their new school contacts their old school for their records,” Coleman said. “When homeschooling is involved, this often doesn’t happen, creating space for children to fall through the cracks and disappear.”
Other gaps in Florida’s oversight of homeschooling likely also contributed to Janiya’s death. Florida law allows parents to forgo annual assessments by enrolling their children in a private “umbrella” school, which may consist of as little as filling out an online enrollment form. John and Linda Dollar, who tortured and starved their five adopted children, homeschooled through one such school. There are other deficiencies as well. In 1990, Florida’s homeschool lobby defeated a bill that would have prevented registered child abusers from homeschooling, and Florida does not have a system for flagging cases where children with a concerning history of social services reports are removed from school to be homeschooled—a provision that might have helped Janiya. “We must do better by these children,” said Coleman. “Janiya’s name should be a call for change.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
How Homeschooling Prepared Me for the Peace Corps
By Hännah Ettinger
The first time I set foot in a public school for academic reasons was the day I took the SAT. I was almost late because I’d run back into the house twice (pencils, calculator; lunch) and had turned into the wrong school parking lot (busses only for the elementary school next door, thanks to MapQuest). It was 2006. I’d found out I was taking the SAT just the night before.
I walked into the school hallway and panicked when I saw the sign about weapons on campus. I had a pocketknife in my backpack—I always did. I hoped no one would check. Next to the sign was a poster for Mean Girls, which was an ironic touch I wouldn’t appreciate until 2012 when I saw the movie for the first time.
And here I was: homeschooler goes to school. I jumped at my first bell, rolled my pencil off my slanted desk by accident, and couldn’t figure out how to gracefully tuck my bag into the wire cubby underneath my seat. I almost peed my pants waiting for the end of the essay time after I finished early, because I had forgotten that you can’t take bathroom breaks during a section and hadn’t gone during the lunch break.
The next time I entered a public school for academic reasons was this year, and this time I was teaching. In Kyrgyzstan. As an English language education volunteer.
The thing that surprised me most was not the culture shock or the students’ behavior or the barrage of questions I get from the other teachers. Instead I was surprised to discover how well prepared I was to work in this environment and in this sort of culture—and not by the training I received from Peace Corps. It was my 12 years of homeschool education that prepared me the most for thriving in this job.
Kyrgyz culture is highly family-focused, the result of generations of nomadic culture now settled into community-centered culture after Soviet organization and nationalization. Kyrgyz people are organically family-oriented in ways the new patriarchalists in American homeschooling can only fantasize about, and their communities are agrarian and place-driven in ways that would warm the cockles of Wendell Berry’s heart. I feel right at home.
I grew up as the oldest of 9 kids, mom’s right hand soldier in the day-to-day homeschool family fray, and was (as a little girl growing up in California’s San Joaquin Valley) an avid reader of romantic agrarian novels—Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, Little Britches, etc. Living in a world where the social life revolves around what’s being harvested and canned right now, where everyone uses an outhouse, where you have to walk down the block to get water from the nearest well—it’s a world more familiar to me than most elements of American pop culture. I am more comfortable here among the sheep herds and bean fields of Talas than I was trying to find my way around the gilded halls of Las Vegas.
Homeschoolers have widely differing experiences, but perhaps one thing they have in common: the hurry up and wait schedule of a school education that is tied to the rhythms of family life. With your schooling dependent on your primary caregiver (usually) until a certain age when you’re able to self-direct and manage your attention and time well enough to be responsible for your own assignments, I ended up following mom around her day with my questions and textbooks.
“Mom,” I’d ask as she chopped vegetables, “why isn’t this long division problem working?” And she’d look over her knife and onion debris to my book on the counter and we’d talk it through while she kept cutting. I’d ask her to help me spell things while she folded laundry, read her drafts of my writing assignments while she nursed the baby. I worked on my math in the back seat of the van while she was in the grocery store, I read my science books in the back of the room during my dad’s evening community meetings for work. My education centered itself squarely around the higher priorities of family life.
When I arrived in country for my pre-service training for my time here as an education (Teaching English as a Foreign Language, or TEFL) volunteer, one of the first things we got told was that we’d have to adjust our habits as Americans to match those of our counterparts (the local teacher we’re assigned to work with and help support the professional development of), especially regarding our expectations for time management.
“First, think of everything you want to get accomplished in a month as if you were in America,” said a volunteer who’d been in country for a year already. “And that’s what you should expect to get done in a year.”
During training, we learned quickly to pace ourselves and slowly adjusted to “Kyrgyz time.” Here, if someone invites you for a dinner party and tells you to come at 6pm, it’s rude to show up any time before 8pm. Dinners during the summer months were regularly being served at 10 or 11 at night, and volunteers stressed over this, since our language lessons started at 8 or 9 in the morning and many of us were still struggling with the significant ripple effects of jet lag.
And then, we got sworn in and sent to our permanent sites. Most of us paired with teachers are working with female counterparts, and the women here are all married and closely tied to their obligations at home. Food preparation and housework and the kitchen garden and the children and helping out extended family members with anything that is traditionally considered “women’s work” all falls on them, and their work at school takes secondary priority. Teachers are regularly late to appointments or cancel lesson planning sessions (or even lessons themselves) due to their obligations at home.
My counterpart, a widow with a few sons in their late teens and early twenties, has been teaching for 25 years and gets to choose her work schedule at the school thanks to her seniority. She and I don’t have to negotiate with obligations to in-laws or a husband for our time to work together, which can be a struggle for other TEFL volunteers. But I still have to hurry up and wait to find time in her schedule to meet—in between her planning a wedding, canning relishes and jams for the winter, supervising the harvesting of the bean fields, and her popular social life as one woman in a tight communal membership of housewives and teachers and extended relatives in a small town in rural Kyrgyzstan.
For other volunteers, this is just another part of culture shock, something different to adjust themselves to. We got trained for this, and our program managers are supportive as we adjust and negotiate with the home-work balance of our counterparts to find equilibrium.
And I laugh–as I sip tea at my counterpart’s kitchen table while her phone buzzes nonstop on the bench beside her and her sons pop in and out asking when dinner will be ready and as she hops up from our lesson planning to fuss over the loaves of bread rotating through the little convection oven in the corner and stirs the soup and seals jars of compote—because I’ve just come back to the center of things again, negotiating education in the kitchen while the world revolves around a mother.
Hännah Ettinger is currently serving as a TEFL Peace Corps Volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Lynne A.: “I wasn’t protected at all”
“If not for the Religious Exemption clause, my parents would have had to, at the very least, turn in my standardized test scores to the county officials. I think it would have strongly encouraged my parents to educate me better.”
Let me start off by saying I do not hate homeschoolers or homeschooling. It’s possible to homeschool children in a healthy way, with quality education, care, and socialization. It’s also possible to teach your children after your own beliefs without forcing them to agree with you. Rather than shame them into agreement, if you instead give your children freedom of belief, they will genuinely respect you as they grow. They will be able to actually consider issues themselves, becoming confident in their sense of personal identity.
Sadly, for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of children, homeschooling causes harm, from poor socialization to various forms of abuse. I think the only good thing that came out of my home-schooling was that my mother encouraged creativity in the realms of art and make-believe. Because I was allowed to escape into my worlds of playing-pretend, because I was allowed to become absorbed in creating fantastical stories, I somehow survived.
My parents decided to homeschool for religious reasons. They wanted to raise as many children as possible to become “strong Christian leaders.” In addition, they were concerned about safety, wanting to protect us from the bullying, violence, and early sexual encounters common to public school. Ironically, my siblings and I were not saved from those things. Rather, we were trapped in a closed environment that fostered these dangers.
Bullying? I had to watch one brother be sadistically and systematically bullied by another brother. Violence? Besides abuse from my brother, my mom threw things, broke things, frequently threatened to injure me, and occasionally followed through. (I won’t even go into the spanking topic.) How about early or inappropriate sexual encounters? Yep, we had incest and sexual harassment in varying degrees. My parents had the ability to stop these occurrences, but let them go on instead. So you see, I wasn’t protected at all.
There are plenty of things my parents did wrong by choosing to homeschool, but I’ll just briefly note two. The first is emotional abuse, mostly by my mother. The second is lack of good education: academic in some areas, and basic life knowledge in others.
In terms of emotional abuse, I suffered more than my siblings because of my curious, independent nature. I didn’t act ladylike enough, I asked questions, I dared to form my own opinions, and I complained when things were unfair. Therefore, I was punished, shamed, and manipulated by my parents until I hated myself so much that I truly wanted to die. The shame they fed me on was the only thing I had to define myself, as my parents also discouraged us kids from developing our own identities. We were supposed to be a singular unit, The Christian Family, led by the Patriarch and never disagreeing with what we were taught. The teachings were often morally disgusting (racism, bigotry, sexism), and there even problems with the way they tried to teach basic Christianity.
What do I mean by that? Well, plenty of people learn about their family’s faith without being forced into it, but I was not so lucky. My purpose was decided for me before I was born; in mom’s words, I was to be “a strong Christian influencing the world”, no matter what I thought about it. The fear tactic was used a lot, too. I had to live in constant terror of demonic possession, of accidentally sinning, and of God’s punishments.
If that isn’t bad enough, possibly the worst thing my parents did was intentionally isolate me. In order to preserve my morality, in their eyes, they kept me away from nearly all outside influences. I never remember not being lonely. Even the rare “friends” I was allowed to play with came from conservative homeschool families like mine. I could never open up to them because my mother obsessively watched us, never letting us leave her sight. I can still feel the frustration, confusion, and despair.
If you ask them now, my parents might claim that they didn’t isolate me intentionally. But there’s no doubt about it: no matter how I begged, I was not allowed to have friends. Only in college did I learn the real meaning of having a friend. That isn’t something that happens to a kid by accident.
It would take too long to write about all the educational deficits in my upbringing. To give you the general idea, though, all the textbooks for history were Revisionist. (That means the writer tried to make history seem a certain way by meticulously choosing events selectively, and/or just writing lies.) Because of their freedom under Virginia’s Religious Exemption clause, my parents only focused on teaching a handful of subjects: reading, writing, math, and a very inadequate introduction to science. I learned some history, but was never tested on it. Other important subjects like basic geography were left out entirely.
Let’s not forget the deficits in my education about “how to survive in the real world.” I had social phobia for a long time because I was never given the chance to practice dealing with people. As a result, I didn’t know how to order food for myself until very late, I would have panics over making simple phone calls, and I had no idea what was socially acceptable to say. Also, I was never taught how to budget money. I was never given a sex education, either.
Finally, let’s imagine how things might have turned out if there had been sufficient oversight of my homeschool education. If not for the Religious Exemption clause, my parents would have had to, at the very least, turn in my standardized test scores to the county officials. I think it would have strongly encouraged my parents to educate me better. Proper oversight may not have stopped abuses from occurring in my home. However, the abuses could have been openly discussed, and perhaps minimized, if only someone had ever come to check on us.
In public school, there are often resources available for someone concerned about abuse; at the very least, there are more people around, such as teachers, which a child could open up to. This is not the case for homeschoolers—at least those excused from all supervision by laws like Religious Exemption. We need to have more oversight in place. For example, a social worker could visit and interview a homeschool family once a year or so.
That’s just my two cents. I hope this honest testimonial helps shed some light on the issue of homeschool oversight.
Lynne A. was homeschooled in Virginia from the 1990s through the 2000s. Her family homeschooled under the state’s religious exemption clause. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 16 May, 2016 by CRHE
Katrina B.: “My parents sincerely tried their best”
“I believe oversight of homeschooling is a necessary starting point. I also encourage parents who are homeschooling to actively distinguish their roles as teacher and parent. I encourage them to learn about the effects of social contact on children’s brain development, and follow the recommendations of mental health professionals for each age group.”
Despite how hard homeschooling was for me, my parents sincerely tried their best. My mother sought external resources to supplement her teaching as I got older. I attended some classes offered privately for home schooled students. In what would have been my freshman year I attended two classes at a public high school. Unfortunately my mother was not comfortable with me making friends there, and though people asked me to hang out I never could. I started to avoid these situations so I wouldn’t have to come up with an excuse why I couldn’t. My two closest friends were both homeschooled girls like myself. We liked doing crafts and listening to the radio, picking our favorite bands.
Let me start by telling about the nearest success in my home schooled years. My craft of choice was beadwork—stitching tiny glass seed beads into fabric-like pieces. I made jewelry and small pouches out of these. After learning a new bead stitch from one of my homeschooled friends I started using beads to cover tiny glass bottles, the kind homeopathic remedies came in. For several years I’d participated in a holiday craft fair. One year I was placed next to a woman who sewed, crocheted, and beaded bags, purses, and amulet pouches. She had a full-time business and made her living selling what she made. We got along well even though she was middle-aged, and my mother asked her to mentor me.
We met once a week at my mentor’s house for about six months. She taught me how to contact the buyers of local stores and show them my beaded things. A New Age bookshop ordered a dozen beaded remedy bottles and I set to work filling the order. It took longer than I expected, and I was happy to deliver them and pick up a check. The bottles quickly sold out and the store contacted me to place another order. I wanted to fill the second order but I didn’t know if I could. My eyes were red and strained from so much tiny, focused work. I did not know what a business plan was and had not been taught to pay myself for my time. When I calculated my profits I turned out to be making less than $2/hour. No one talked to me about the possibility of raising my prices—or how to figure out what a reasonable price might be. My mentor was unable to advise me because her own business was in trouble as well as she faced competition from cheap imported goods.
None of the adults around me were able to discuss the challenges or issues that I encountered. My mother praised me but it fell flat because the problems hadn’t been addressed. She was unable to teach me to set goals, value my time, regroup, or look at the bigger picture. I did not learn case studies of successful companies. I was told only that overseas factories were both bad and run by bad people. It is not reasonable to expect parents or someone undergoing major business challenges to put the global economic situation in perspective for a teen. I don’t fault anyone for not having done this, but I do note that home schooling had no way of defining or rewarding success outside our family bubble.
At the time I was more concerned with finding social opportunities than running a business. My two homeschooled friends had gone to a concert of a favorite band and that I hadn’t been allowed to attend and I was devastated. I began pressing my mother to let me do more social things. She felt I did plenty already. I could not make her understand that I wanted a larger social life, and she decided my insistence was rebellion. I spent a lot of time alone in my bedroom. I imagined I’d be a cheerleader if I went to high school, but later I imagined I’d be one of the girls who cut class and looked cool smoking cigarettes in the parking lot. I didn’t have the opportunity to do either, or get any sense of my personality around others.
Although what bothered me most was the lack of social life, the business attempt and failure seems more significant. I was dejected about all of this. My mother tried to teach me both self-help and spiritual methods for dealing with it. While she had the best of intentions, her misapplication of self-help and spirituality was not appropriate. The problems I faced were real and solvable in the world. They did not originate inside of me.
The roles of parent and teacher are extremely different. I do not believe these roles should be the same. I am thankful to have had parents who cared about me and tried their best. Truly great parents know they can never be outgrown, and are secure in this. Truly great teachers enable their students to surpass them, they understand that a student who outgrows them is a sign of success. I did not realize this until I was an adult struggling to understand why my parents treated me as much younger than I was. It’s easy to write off high school traditions such as prom or graduation as meaningless, as I was taught they were, but I wonder if my parents would have benefited from these moments of growing up, and showing up, as I would have.
My parents started homeschooling me partway through first grade. My mother felt she was protecting me by homeschooling me. When I was seven and eight years old I asked to go to school and finally my mother agreed to let me “try” it. I spent the last few months of third grade and all of fourth grade in public school in Seattle. I sat in the front of the class with three other girls and we all did well: we raised our hands all the time, we got good grades, and we played at recess together. However my mother wanted to homeschool me again. Neither of my parents valued school, they saw only the negatives of their own experiences and were unaware of they ways it had benefited them or could have benefited me. My mother gave me a choice: I could get a puppy and home school to learn how to take care of it, or I could continue in public school. We had given away a dog when I was young and I’d wanted a puppy ever since. I chose the puppy.
My parents called themselves “liberal,” and while religious (Buddhists), they did not homeschool for religious reasons. If anything, a tension with and distrust of American society motivated my parents to keep me at home until my late teens. There was more emotion than politics in the way they talked about their views. Sometimes my mother would say we were “unschooling” when questioned, but this was incorrect. I was not directing my own learning; I was trying to manage my mother’s needs and my own.
She wanted me to succeed but she didn’t know how to prepare me for success. I was allowed to “try” school again for seventh grade, as a sophomore, and as an early college entrant at 17 years old. Fourth grade remained the only year I finished. Sometimes leaving school was my mother’s choice and sometimes it was mine. I was never encouraged to stick it out, but rather my decision to leave was always met with relief. The world outside our family made my mother uncomfortable. When I got to college I had no sense of time management or how to prepare for a test. Finishing things was difficult for me (when I finished things as a kid my parents and I would have to address what came next, a difficult question for everyone). I left the early entry college by choice—I was completely unmotivated to do anything but socialize. Several years later I applied to a college that specialized in art. I filled my first transcript ever with a year of good grades and then transferred to a general college that welcomed non-traditional students.
I feel lucky when I consider the opportunities I was afforded despite being home schooled. My parents had me take standardized achievement tests to keep up to my grade level in math and English, and they encouraged me to attend college. I believe oversight of homeschooling is a necessary starting point. I also encourage parents who are homeschooling to actively distinguish their roles as teacher and parent. I encourage them to learn about the effects of social contact on children’s brain development, and follow the recommendations of mental health professionals for each age group. Lastly, I encourage parents to do healthy and honest self-assessments of their own reasons for homeschooling at least once a year.
Katrina was home schooled in Washington State from 1988 to 2000. For additional thoughts and experiences of homeschooled alumni, see our Testimonials page.