THE NANNY STATE STRIKES BACK
School boards shouldn't be allowed to investigate the home-schoolers who walked out on them.
Barely two weeks have passed since the Ontario government's Policy Memorandum No. 131 on home-schooling took effect, quietly but decisively altering the lives of home-schoolers.
Home-schooling, of course, is the option parents take when they are disgusted with the public education system and either cannot find, or cannot afford, an appropriate private alternative. Hundreds of families in Ontario begin the great adventure of home-schooling every year, buoyed by studies showing that, even if the parents have little education themselves, they can do a better job educating their children than can the public schools.
Their courage also rises as home-schoolers prove to be ever more successful in academic competitions, from spelling bees to Scholastic Assessment Tests, and as more and more universities open their doors to home-schooled students or even compete to get them.
The cost involved in home-schooling is great, often exceeding that of private school. By and large, only two-parent families can contemplate it, since one parent usually has to stay home and do the teaching while the other keeps the family financially solvent. Farewell then, to the second income on which what Canadians call prosperity usually depends.
Unfortunately, however, the home-schooling family does not economize on school taxes. It continues to pay for the broken system it no longer uses and does so out of its reduced single income.
It is hard to think of a greater indictment to the public system than this, that thousands of ordinary families have decided it is better to pay for the system out of one income and not use it, than to use it and double their income.
To my knowledge, however, no one has complained of this injustice. Most home-schoolers have thought the cost acceptable, if it keeps school at arm's length. But the new memorandum threatens to shorten that arm considerably.
Previously, according to the Education Act, home-schoolers had only to notify the school board that they were withdrawing their children from school and assure the board that they would provide "satisfactory instruction" at home. The Home School legal Defence Association was created to deal with intrusive school boards that tried to regulate what home-schoolers did. But in most cases, the letter sufficed and all contact with the local board ended there.
No more. From now on, parents must write a fresh letter each year they intend to home-school. A small matter, you might say, but it is psychologically significant. It implies that, in the eyes of the state, home-schooling is by its nature a temporary measure and that public education is the norm. Most home-schoolers, however, disagree. They believe, often for religious reasons, that the primary responsibility for education lies with parents, not the nanny state.
More ominous, however, are a set of reasons which will entitle school boards to investigate home-schoolers. They include "credible reports" (of unsatisfactory educational practices" by "concerned third parties" (i.e.., snitches and busybodies) and "evidence that the child was removed because of ongoing conflicts with the school." It is difficult to imagine how any home-schooling family would be motivated to withdraw their children from school were there no history of conflicts with it.
These two provisions alone will effectively guarantee that the state will be able to interfere in any home-schooling situation, should it choose to do so.
The most objectionable aspect of the memorandum, which took effect June 17, is its preposterous fundamental premise. The school board will now be empowered to investigate wherever it feels that "satisfactory instruction" is not being given.
But if the school boards were able to recognise what satisfactory instruction amounts to, there would be no home-schooling in the first place.
If high-school graduates did not regularly arrive at university not merely illiterate and enumerate, but hostile to classical education itself; if problems of violence and drugs were not regularly reported in the schools; if it were not a well-known fact that textbooks become dumber and dumber as the years go by, while marks go up and up; if failed programs of sex-education were not constantly expanded; if there were not a greater concern expressed in schools with social engineering and behaviour modification than with learning, there would be no home-schooling. If public education itself in any way approached the level of being "satisfactory," then it might be reasonable for its representatives to pass judgement on home-schoolers.
But all the "ifs" point in the opposite direction. They explain why economically poor parents with little education can do better than the public system with all its funding. They explain why home-schoolers will continue to outperform school graduates by any objective measure. And they explain why, from the school board's point of view, the new memorandum is so important. A public system unable or unwilling to improve itself thinks next of destroying the competition.
Graeme Hunter teaches philosophy at the University of Ottawa and home-schooled his children.
OFTP RESPONSE
The following is a response to the article submitted by Graeme Hunter published on Wednesday, July 3rd.
Mr. Graham incorrectly stated the responsibilities of homeschooling families in the province relating to Policy/Program Memorandum (PPM) #131 released by the Ministry of Education on June 17th.
As a representative of the Ontario Federation of Teaching Parents, a provincial home education support organization, and a participant in the discussions that led to the creation of the the Program/Policy Memorandum (PPM) #131 that was mentioned in Graeme Hunter's article of Wednesday, July 3rd, I feel that I must clarify some of the points he made regarding this document and some of the impressions he left in his article.
First of all, Mr. Hunter leaves the impression that homeschoolers as a group are homeschooling because they don't like or are distrusting of public schools, have had bad experiences in the past, and that if the school system was better, we would all have our children in the public school system. While this is true in some cases, the majority of homeschoolers in the province have never had their children in the school system, are unknown to their local school boards, and are homeschooling for personal, family, and/or philosophical reasons. They do not dislike the public school system; they have simply chosen an educational path for their children which more closely fits their lifestyle choices and just happens to be different than the traditional path.
His article also suggests that we all now need to notify our school boards that we are homeschooling whether we are known to them or not. This document states: "If parents decide to continue to provide home schooling in subsequent years, they should give notification each year in writing prior to September 1 to the school board in whose jurisdiction their child last attended school." The Ministry knows that most homeschoolers have no desire to have contact with their local school board and do not expect homeschooling families who are unknown to them to be voluntarily contacting their local boards as a result of this policy paper. Clearly, they would like to have an idea of the official number of children being homeschooled in the province, but they know that this policy will not necessarily provide that. Therefore, the families who are expected to notify their local board of their intent to homeschool are those families who have already done so. The difference now is that they are required to do so each year.
This PPM is not legislation, and anyone who is not known to their local board who does not notify them is not breaking any laws. If the board becomes aware of a homeschooling family in their jurisdiction this is not credible evidence in and of itself that satisfactory instruction is not taking place. The board can request a letter of intent and the family can choose a course of action at that point.
The present document instructs school boards to "consider the child to be excused from attendance at school, in accordance with subsection 21(2), clause (a), of the Education Act. The board should accept the written notification of the parents each year as evidence that the parents are providing satisfactory instruction at home." They are therefore absolved of determining satisfactory instruction.
Mr. Hunter states that one of the reasons which entitles boards to investigate homeschoolers include "evidence that the child was removed because of ongoing conflicts with the school." He didn't finish the sentence. The document states “evidence that the child was removed because of ongoing conflicts with the school, not for the purposes of homeschooling." This is reasonable.
He states that "the most objectionable aspect of the memorandum... is
its preposterous fundamental premise. The school board will now be empowered
to investigate wherever it feels that satisfactory instruction is not being
given."
Actually, this statement is incorrect. Yes, the new policy directs boards
to initiate an investigation if there are compelling reasons to suggest that
there may be 'educational neglect'. However, the Education Act has
not been amended; the law has not changed with this new policy and so it remains
that only the ministry of education can actually conduct an 'official' inquiry
into whether or not a family is providing satisfactory instruction.
While Mr. Hunter enjoys the relative freedom of living in an area of the province in which school boards respect a parent's right to take responsibility to educate their children, this PPM represents a great advancement in the lives of homeschoolers in many parts of the province where school boards have been intrusive and often confrontational in their insistence on assessing the 'satisfactory instruction' . As Mr. Hunter pointed out in his article, these same boards are the ones who seem to be failing many of the children in the public system. This irony has not been lost on homeschooling families. However, as evidence of a step forward, this new policy clearly directs boards to accept the reality that homeschooled children ARE receiving satisfactory instruction and no longer do homeschooling families have to experience harassment, truancy charges or threats of calls to the Children's Aid Society which have been commonplace in the past.
Furthermore, this PPM instructs school boards to "recognize that the methodology, the materials, schedules, and assessment techniques used by parents who provide home schooling may differ from those used by educators in the school system thereby protecting the rights of parents to provide an individualized educational approach for their children. Parents may follow the Ontario Curriculum Guidelines or choose their own path.
With change there is always trepidation. This document is a result of years of discussions with the Ministry of Education in an effort to create a less contentious and more consistent relationship between homeschoolers and school boards. It is not perfect and it does not address all of the inequities in the system but it is a policy to build upon. The rights of homeschoolers have not been compromised.
Donna Sheehan
Executive Member
Ontario Federation of Teaching Parents
www.ontariohomeschool.org
