Mary McCarthy posted the following on HEM-Networking in response to a request from another list member that homeschoolers of all persuasions make themselves known, as homeschoolers, to their elected representatives.
HOMESCHOOLING DIVERSITY PROJECT 2007
For too many years, the homeschooling community has stood by and allowed the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) to politicize how families choose to educate their children and represent us as a personal constituency to our elected representatives.
Over the years, HSLDA has championed many non-homeschooling issues. Those issues, instead of representing homeschooling families, have represented the extreme right wing of the Republican Party and a theocratic, conservative agenda.
HSLDA has crafted an image of homeschoolers as HSLDA’s Republican Party loyalists, and portrayed homeschoolers as a large fundamentalist Christian voting block. Perhaps only ten to twenty percent of the homeschooling community joins HSLDA, so obviously, their manufactured image is false and misleading in order to serve a personal political agenda. It follows that eighty to ninety percent of our community who are independent have no organized lobby.
But more importantly, HSLDA has taken a fundamental right away from all homeschooling Americans they have supplanted our right to represent ourselves as individual citizens and usurped our right to represent ourselves. We have willingly given up our self- representation and handed it over to a political lobbying organization. We have given up our rights as Americans. Shame on us!
Now homeschoolers are faced with a Democratic majority who believe that carefully crafted image of homeschoolers and will be looking at a way to strike out at the Republicans and their lobbyists with punitive legislation. Homeschooling families will be the ones to suffer the results of that legislation as democratic legislators attempt to impose regulation on what they perceive as a far-right wing group in need of regulation. Sadly, homeschoolers will be solicited to join HSLDA to protect their `rights’ against the very backlash HSLDA created.
It is time for HSLDA to choose which master they will serve: homeschool families or the Republican Party? It does not take a Bible scholar to know that no one can serve two masters (Matthew
6:24; Luke 16:13).Please join me in supporting the HOMESCHOOLING DIVERSITY PROJECT 2007 by contacting your elected representatives, both state and federal, and telling them that HSLDA does not represent you and that you are a capable citizen fully able to represent yourself.* Tell them that as a family you have chosen to accept full responsibility for the education of your children, and that your choice does not mean you are also a Republican Party loyalist or HSLDA supporter. It’s time to take back our rights as citizens from overly aggressive, inappropriate and misleading lobbying by HSLDA.
* Not sure who your elected representatives are? All you need is to go here: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ and type in your zip code.
M-M
posted by Valerie
You inspired me to write to my representatives. Last year I wrote an article about homeschooling for my local paper, emphasizing that many homeschoolers do not fit the right-wing Christian stereotype, and also wrote about the other misconceptions of homeschooling. People were surprised to find out much of this information. Good for you to brew the coffee. It will not be good to be lumped together as a conservative group. It’s always scary when people think they need to protect people from themselves.
I cannot help but believe you are right. As an Agnostic, I feel uncomfortable with HSLDA speaking on my behalf when I don’t share their philosophies.
I have also noticed a tendancy of HSLDA to cry wolf in order to justify their own existance and usefulness. Meaning to say dig up old issues that have long since been dealt with and stirr up controversy where there was none and often I have seen chain panic reactions within the homeschool community over issues that were never issues or are no longer issues and that originated from HSLDA “messages” or “calls for support”. I don’t think by doing that they are serving anybody else but their own wallet.
They have too much of a personal agenda to claim to represent “the homeschool community” and should either change their name and claims or change their agenda. Thanks for bringing this up.
Cynthia Whitfield, I’d like to read your article, is there still a link available to it?
Please provide your documentation for your statement, “Perhaps only ten to twenty percent of the homeschooling community joins HSLDA, so obviously, their manufactured image is false and misleading in order to serve a personal political agenda. It follows that eighty to ninety percent of our community who are independent have no organized lobby.”
Where do you get your numbers?
You sound a bit frantic…you are afraid of both Republicans and Democrats?
Does NHEN provide legal services to homeschoolers who must deal with legal attacks from uninformed Social Services or School officials?
I do agree with Cynthia Whitfield’s statement, “It’s always scary when people think they need to protect people from themselves.” As this is exactly what you all sound like. It is indeed scary and very revealing when you feel you need to protect yourselves from fellow homeschoolers. It reveals that your true issue is not homeschooling…You are religious intolerants. Anything to do with a religious person…anything a religious group tries to do….Oh my, you can’t allow that. Your own religion prevents it.
Unfortunately, the link is no longer available. I realize now that I should have saved it and put it in my favorites so it would always be there! But thanks for asking.
Regarding the numbers, I believe Ms. McCarthy balanced the estimated number of ‘homeschoolers’ (exact definition of who was counted, unknown) against the number of HSLDA members to come up with a rough level of representation.
This method has been used elsewhere:
http://homeschoolingislegal.info/represent.asp
If you all are truly concerned about this issue and not just jealous of the legislative successes that the HSLDA folks have had, perhaps you should form your own organization to forward your ideas–as all things are accomplished in the political arena. But rather than forward good reasoning and straight-forward ideas, you condemn and castigate the ideas of others who have a different opinion. This is not progressive and looks like your real goal is to destroy other homeschoolers who happen to think differently than you do. Do you not believe your ideas have enough value on their own? Don’t all homeschoolers have at least one thing in common–the desire to provide education for their own children in the manner that they see fit? Why bite and devour one another? Promote your ideas positively. If others join you, you will find success and will have gained it on the merits of your ideas, not on how well you can condemn the ideas of others.
Jealous? Of HSLDA? I don’t think that’s it at all.
That HSLDA wants to further organize homeschoolers and continue to affect legislation doesn’t mean that all of us have the goal of forming homeschool-specific lobbying groups for politics-in-general. We do not see the need to continually work to gain political influence as a permanent group — we’re homeschoolers, not lobbyists.
As for condeming the ideas of others, sometimes we just plain disagree with the continued insertion of ‘homeschooling’ into legislation. Rather than the ideas themselves, it is the precedent and the continued pigeonholing of ‘homeschooling’ in legislation that we find objectionable (what can be granted can be taken away).
http://www.homeedmag.com/HEM/1.....n_tch.html
Convincing Others We Don’t Want Homeschooling Legislation — 1999
http://www.homeedmag.com/HEM/H....._tkch.html
Responding to Current Legislative Challenges Promoted by National Organizations — 1998
Then there is the disagreement over whether ‘homeschooling’ (practiced by people of widely varying opnions) should be politicized in one direction or another by only a portion of the participants.
http://www.boston.com/news/edu.....cs?pg=full
Reading,writing &right-wing politics
This fall, conservative Christian homeschoolers will hit the campaign trail for George Bush and other candidates who support their political agenda. Why aren’t liberal homeschoolers following suit? — 2004
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“We believe that some day homeschooled young people will help reverse Roe v. Wade [and] stop same-sex marriage . . . ,” wrote HSLDA president Michael Farris in a statement that launched Generation Joshua.
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What do Roe v. Wade and same-sex marriage have to do with homeschooling?
And about ‘forming your own organization,’ well even if we don’t go that far, isn’t self-representation to one’s elected representatives a grassroots version of the same thing?
From the Boston article:
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But Hegener of Washington state says that the loosely organized “inclusive” homeschool movement is the essence of democracy.
“It’s messy,” he said. “But . . . this is democracy in action. Top-down hierarchies are not democracy in action.”
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Valerie has asked me to respond to everyone’s comments. I generally don’t do that because I write what I write. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. But, for a friend I will address the comments.
Cynthia, thank you for writing your representatives. ‘brew the coffee’ – hadn’t heard that one before. I like it! Thanks. I also missed your article.
Agnostic, you said it very well. I personally agree with your observations; they have been mine also over the last 16 years.
Truth lover, I don’t know what to tell you. I find it somewhat tragic that you are nitpicking over numbers (I’ll get to those) while you should be concerned about HSLDA’s actions on your behalf. You seem unable to grasp the seriousness of having your Constitutional right to represent yourself usurped by a lobbying group with a personal agenda. You seem unable to understand that your right to vote has been stolen by a professional lobbyist. Are you proposing we dispense with elections all together and replace them with lobbyists?
I also find the emotions you ascribe to me odd. As far as I know you don’t know me so either you are psychic or you are transferring your emotional outburst to me. Personal attacks solve nothing and say so much more about you than me. BTW, your ability to judge my religious beliefs is amazing.
Even HSLDA doesn’t hide behind ‘you hate me because I’m a Christian’ anymore. Time to move on and find a better attack phrase. Let me make it clear – I don’t ‘hate’ anyone, especially those I don’t know. I DO DEEPLY RESENT it when someone takes away my right to represent myself and assumes I agree with their agenda. It’s arrogant, prideful and self-serving.
On those numbers- HSLDA refuses to disclose how many members they have. However, they have been known to contradict themselves when it comes to membership figures. I believe they are afraid someone will figure out they really aren’t as big as they say they are, otherwise they would be more forthcoming about how many members there are. According to their website they have 80,000 members. I have no idea how they count members so, for the sake of argument, I will accept 80,000.
I do have to wonder why you are asking me to justify those numbers. Why don’t you simply ask HSLDA? I’ll explain them to you being as you seem to find it easier to attack me than (ironically) seek the truth from the source.
In a 1994 magazine article Michael Farris estimated “that there are between 700,000 and a million children currently being schooled at home by 250,000 to 300,000 families. Michael Farris’ group has 38,000 members who pay $100 in dues each year.†(Grover G. Norquist, “Home Ruleâ€, American Spectator Magazine, Vol. 27, Issue 6, June 1994, page 52.) Using these figures, HSLDA represents between 12% and 15% of the homeschooling population.
In an article Michael Farris wrote about the H.R. 6 incident, he stated, “By the evening of February 16, 1994, ‘Urgent Alert’ letters had been mailed to HSLDA’s entire membership list of 37,000 families.†(Michael P Farris, Freedom Works: Ask the Home Schoolers from Robert Holland’s book: Not With My Child You Don’t, Richmond VA: Chesapeake Capital Services, 1995 page 10-17.) However, Christopher Klicka indicates “HSLDA contacted homeschoolers from around the local area to descend upon the HSLDA offices in order to stuff the mailings to 40,000 members.†(Christopher Klicka, Home Schooling: the Right Choice, Gresham OR: Noble House, 1995, page 401.)
In 1995, Michael Farris testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Constitution. He introduced himself as president of the ‘largest home schooling organization in the nation representing over 51,000 families.†(“Committee on the Judiciary, Testimony of Michael Farris, Home School Legal Defense Association, Subcommittee on the Constitution, US House of Representatives, October 26, 1995â€.) However, HSLDA claimed to welcome its 50,000-member family on September 10, 1996. (“Meet Member No. 50,000†Home School Court Report, Vol. 12, no. 6, Nov/Dec 96 p.21.) I do not know if Mr. Farris was under oath when he testified.
According to HSLDA, “There were an estimated 1,700,000 to 2,100,000 children (grades K-12) home educated during 2002-2003 in the United States. (Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., Facts on Homeschoooling).
IF you divide each of those numbers by 2.5 children to get an average you get 1,700,000 equaling 680,000 families and 2,100,000 equaling 840,000 families.
10% of 680,000 is 68,000 families
20% of 680,000 is 136,000 families
10% of 840,000 is 84,000 families
20% of 840,000 is 128,000 families
There are the numbers you requested. However, they are irrelevant – even if HSLDA represented 95% of all homeschoolers that would still not give them to right to take away my right to represent myself. That’s the concept you seem to be missing while fiddling with minutiae. You seem so wrapped up in attacking me that you are completely missing the point. It’s not about me; it’s about each homeschool parent representing himself or herself. It’s about participating in our government instead of permitting lobbyists to do it for us.
http://homeschoolingislegal.info/represent.asp
excellent link, Valerie. Thanks.
Please, have no illusions – I am certainly not jealous of HSLDA. Frantic? If you truly knew me, you’d know that unless there is blood involved, not much gets to me. Nor do I have any desire to compete with HSLDA. I simply believe it is up to each of us to represent ourselves and it’s wrong for ANYONE to take that away from me. Or you.
M-M
After receiving several personal inquiries about this post via email, I logged on and read the original post and all the comments. For the record, to those still wondering, I agree completely with Mary’s good post and with her excellent last reply.
Cynthia, I too would like to say thank you for writing to your representatives. When I was working with our legislature many years ago we were told that a letter written to a legislator was considered equal to ten phone calls from other constituents; needless to say, I’ve taken to writing instead of calling them ever since!
Helen
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Helen Hegener, Publisher
Home Education Magazine