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THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF HOME SCHOOLING

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AWAY WITH ALL TEACHERS: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF HOME SCHOOLING Michael W. Apple University of Wisconsin, Madison This document is available at: http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/resources/Apple.Away.Tchrs/Apple.Away.rtf1 If one of the marks of the growing acceptance of ideological changes is their positive presentation in the popular media, then home schooling has clearly found a place in our consciousness. It has been discussed in the national press, on television and radio, and in widely circulated magazines. Its usual presentation is that of a savior, a truly compelling alternative to a public school system that is presented as a failure. While the presentation of public schools as simply failures is deeply problematic,1 it is the largely unqualified support of home schooling that concerns me here. I am considerably less sanguine. Data on home schooling are not always accurate and are often difficult to compile. However, a sense of the extent of home schooling can be found in the fact that the National Home Education Research Institute has estimated that as of the 1997-1998 school year, there were 1.5 million children being home schooled in the United States. The Institute also has suggested that there has been a growth of 15% annually in these numbers since 1990. While these data are produced by an organization that is one of the strongest supporters of home schooling, even given the possible inflation of these figures it is clear that this is a considerable number of students.2 1 It is important that we remember that public schools were and are a victory. They constituted a gain for the majority of people who were denied access to advancement and to valued cultural capital in a stratified society. This is not to claim that the public school did not and does not have differential effects. Indeed, I have devoted many books to uncovering the connections between formal education and the recreation of inequalities (see, for example, Apple 1990; 1995). Rather, it is to say that public schooling is a site of conflict, but one that also has been a site of major victories by popular groups (Reese, 1986). Indeed, conservatives would not be so angry at schools if public schools has not had a number of progressive tendencies cemented in them. 2 For further information on the National Home Education Research Institute and on its2 In a relatively short article, I cannot deal at length with all of the many issues that could be raised about the home schooling movement. I want to ask a number of critical questions about the dangers associated with it. While it is quite probable that some specific children and families will gain from home schooling, my concerns are larger. They are connected to the more extensive restructuring of this society that I believe is quite dangerous and to the manner in which our very sense of public responsibility is withering in ways that will lead to even further social inequalities. In order to illuminate these dangers, I shall have to do a number of things: situate home schooling within the larger movement that provides much of its impetus; suggest its connections with other protectionist impulses; connect it to the history of and concerns about the growth of activist government; and, finally, point to how it may actually hurt many other students who are not home schooled. At the very outset of this article, let me state as clearly as I can that any parents who care so much about the educational experiences of their children that they actively seek to be deeply involved are to be applauded, not chastised or simply dismissed. Let me also say that it is important not to stereotype individuals who reject public schooling3 as unthinking promoters of ideological forms that are so deeply threatening that they are--automatically--to be seen as beyond the pale of legitimate concerns. Indeed, as I have demonstrated in Cultural Politics and Education (Apple 1996), there are complicated reasons behind the growth of anti-school sentiments. As I showed there, there are elements of "good" sense as well as bad "sense" in such beliefs. All too many school systems are overly bureaucratic, are apt not to listen carefully to parents' or community concerns, or act in overly defensive ways when questions are asked about data on home schooling, see the following website: <http://www.nheri.org> 3 In the United States, the term “public” schooling refers only to those schools that are organized, funded, and controlled by the state. All other schools are considered “private” or “religious”.3what and whose knowledge is considered "official." In some ways, these kinds of criticisms are similar across the political spectrum, with both left and right often making similar claims about the politics of recognition (see Fraser 1997). Indeed, these very kinds of criticisms have led many progressive and activist educators to build more community-based and responsive models of curriculum and teaching in public schools (Apple and Beane 1995; 1999). This said, however, it is still important to realize that while the intentions of critics such as home schoolers may be meritorious, the effects of their actions may be less so. While there are many home schoolers who have not made their decision based on religious convictions, a large proportion have (see Detwiler 1999 and Ray 1999). In this essay, I shall focus largely on this group, in part because it constitutes some of the most committed parents and in part because ideologically it raises a number of important issues. Many home schoolers are guided by what they believe are biblical understandings of the family, gender relationships, legitimate knowledge, the importance of "tradition," the role of government, and the economy (Detwiler 1999 and Kintz 1997).4 They constitute part of what I have called the "conservative restoration" in which a tense alliance has been built among various segments of "the public" in favor of particular policies in education and the larger social world. Let me place this in its larger context. 4 In part, the attractiveness of home schooling among religiously motivated parents is also due to a structural difference between schools in the United States and those in many other nations. Historically, although at times mythical, the separation between state-supported schooling and an officially defined state religion has been a distinctive feature of


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