Harvard Law Prof: Ban Homeschooling, Shield Children From Parents' 'Near-Total Authority'

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Harvard Law Prof. Elizabeth Bartholet, who runs the Child Advocacy Program at the university, says that homeschooling poses "real dangers to children and to society," that many of the parents "look to the Bible" instead of science for understanding the world, and that homeschooling should be prohibited except in rare, unique cases.  “The issue is, do we think that parents should have 24/7, essentially authoritarian control over their children from ages zero to 18? I think that’s dangerous,” Bartholet says. “I think it’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and to give the powerful ones total authority. Bartholet's views are detailed in an article she wrote for the Arizona Law Review and summarized in a Harvard Magazine article, "The Risks of Homeschooling."

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In the summary of her 80-page article in the Arizona Law Review, it states, "This Article describes the rapidly growing homeschooling phenomenon and the threat it poses to children and society. "Homeschooling activists have in recent decades largely succeeded in their deregulation campaign, overwhelming legislators with aggressive advocacy. As a result, parents can now keep their children at home in the name of homeschooling free from any real scrutiny as to whether or how they are educating their children. "Many homeschool because they want to isolate their children from ideas and values central to our democracy, determined to keep their children from exposure to views that might enable autonomous choice about their future lives. "Many promote racial segregation and female subservience. Many question science.

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