By Mimi Rothschild

World Magazine’s Joel Belz takes the public school to task in a recent editorial. He is specifically covering a recent PBS special about homeschooling, which in his eyes, was relatively fair and balanced. Giving the last word to Dr. Bruce Shortt, the documentary allowed him to get this insightful thought in.

“Reich’s attack is fundamentally ideological. He is clearly a collectivist who, like his fellow travelers in the universities, is seeking complete cultural hegemony. What he is really objecting to is not the ineffectiveness of homeschooling, but its effectiveness. A homeschooled child is effectively a child outside the grasp of the state and, therefore, outside the grasp of those who control the state’s educational institutions. He fears that these children will have a worldview of which he disapproves and that he finds threatening. That is what drives Reich. His real concern is not ‘ethical autonomy’ or the welfare of children in any conventional sense; it is ideological control. Frankly, his ostensible arguments are so weak that it is difficult to view them as any other than a smokescreen for his ideological and cultural agenda.”

Right on! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The public school is terrified of homeschoolers. They are terrified of their academic excellence, their intellectual maturity, and ultimately, they are terrified of the ideological opposition they represent. Because of this fear, they will do anything they can to make it difficult for homeschoolers to do what they do.

To say that homeschooling keeps children from learning independently is a joke. The public school has been specifically designed to spread a specific worldview among youth. Anyone who thinks outside this box is a threat to the structure.