Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. During a recent episode of the I've Had It podcast, host Jennifer Welch critiqued basically every alternative to the state-run school system, saying, We have a fundamental crazy Christian problem. I'm talking about the freaks of the megachurch. I'm talking about the ones that have schools that are these crazy indoctrination factories, hate academies.
And then, when that hit isn't strong enough, they go to homeschooling. It's a huge problem, end quote. Welch's co-host then went on to add, and I quote again, I don't trust someone that wants to be with their kids 24/7. For these so-called dumb people, she said, it's just easier to keep their kids home.
Now, of course, I can't think of a single person who homeschools, and I know quite a few of them, who think of it as easier. That aside, the podcaster's critique of alternative schooling, including homeschooling, is not uncommon. It's widely assumed that teaching requires a rarefied skill set and that only trained professionals qualify. It's assumed that homeschooled kids are minimally educated and tend to lack proper social integration. And ultimately, it's assumed that homeschooling puts kids at risk.
Therefore, the state has to step in to regulate the practice and to offer sufficient protections for children. In Colorado, a budget shortage, which was never supposed to happen, of course, ever again after legalizing marijuana here, is justifying the elimination of alternative schooling programs, including homeschool enrichment programs, charter schools, and hybrid school funding. Budget concerns, however, do not present the entire picture of what's at work. Also at play here, perhaps even more so, is a worldview that shapes an approach to public affairs, but especially education. In this framing of reality, it is intolerable to Colorado's governing class that something as central as education could not be fully under state control.
And the reason is a fundamental distinction in how to answer a basic question. To whom do kids belong? Do they ultimately belong to the state and are outsourced to parents, or do they belong to parents who can then choose to outsource their education or at least part of it to the state? Do parents serve the state or does the state exist to aid parents in their fundamental duties? For a large segment of the professional educational class, the answer is clear and simple.
In their view, the state and its approved agencies are responsible for children, not the parents. That's why in school districts across the country, we see educators claim the prerogative to remove, to silence, to even arrest parents who challenge that. authority. But what makes this worse, of course, is another widespread assumption that educators are experts and parents are not. Many parents would be shocked to learn just how much time an education major spends on teaching ideologies and pedagogical theory compared to the actual content of education, like reading, writing, science, and math.
In other words, even if the fundamental philosophy of knowledge and learning were not so skewed to begin with, education majors study far more about how to teach than what to teach. But there's also here a matter of what secures basic liberty. The American experiment has long prioritized mediating institutions, those associations, institutions, and organizations that stand between citizens and the big state. It's because America has been so decentralized that it has remained so free. And the most important of all mediating institutions is the home.
It's also best equipped and most responsible for the cultivation of new citizens who come, of course, in the form of children. Of course, quality does matter. It's valid to Ask if parents are able to deliver the level of learning necessary for emerging citizens at various levels. But if that's the concern, nationwide studies consistently show, on average, that homeschooled and private schooled students score higher on test than public school peers, even on college admission tests. There is of course a major disagreement about what matters the most.
How they score on things like science and math are how they score on things like diversity, equity, and inclusion. Parents are best equipped to secure the education of their children. They have vested interest. They care the most. And even if they choose to outsource various aspects of it to co-ops, to charters, religious schools, or even public schools, whatever resources are employed, parental authority should be presumed.
The state can and should come alongside moms and dads and help when possible, but its place is behind the parents, not out in front and certainly not above them. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Dr. Timothy Padgett. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download podcasts.
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