Homeschooling Threatened
[email protected]
I would like to pass along some urgent information.
The Democratic Party has now aligned itself squarely against
homeschooling and parental rights. The Democratic National
Committee's website (www.dnc.org), endorsed by Al Gore, attacks
Republican Presidential nominee George W. Bush for being "soft" on
homeschooling. That same website parrots
the agenda of the NEA, the nation's biggest teachers' union,
insisting that all teachers of all children should be required to
possess state certification.
That requirement would KILL homeschooling.
It renews the threat of HR 6, which homeschoolers helped to kill in
1994. That bill would have required the same thing -- state
certification. That means, unless you spend many thousands of
dollars and several years taking courses in how to teach, you will
not be able to teach your child at home. That bill passed through the
House Education Committee with every Democrat voting for it, and
every Republican voting against it. George Miller (D-Cal), then
chairman of that committee, will become its chairman again if
the Democrats win control of the House, and has vowed to reintroduce
the bill. This time, the Democrats would not be facing the imminent
disaster they faced in the 1994 elections, when Bill Clinton was at
his lowest in popularity. They will have little to fear.
IT IS DISHEARTENING TO ME THAT A MAJOR POLITICAL PARTY IN THE UNITED
STATES SHOULD SO BLITHELY ATTACK THE FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOM OF THE
FAMILY.
It is disheartening, but not surprising. I teach at an American
college; I know the left very well. The Democratic Party is now
wholly controlled by the left -- by people who believe that the
state, not the family, is the basic institution of society.
* That is why the left wants taxpayer-financed daycare. Former
feminist, Elizabeth Genovese warns that public funded daycare is the
next arena of assault on the traditional family, and will make it
more and more difficult for tax-strapped families to keep the mother
in the home, and more and more economically enticing to leave
children with others.
* That is why the left wants to destroy the Boy Scouts. President
Clinton's Justice Department recently decided to examine whether the
Boy Scouts should be banned from National Parks, because of their
refusal to admit homosexual scoutmasters. Homosexuals do not mince
words when they assert that the
traditional family, and traditional manhood and womanhood, must be
overcome.
* That is why they despise homeschooling. John Taylor Gatto has
written a long article on the fight one small Vermont village waged
to keep open the last one-room, public schoolhouse in the state. The
powerful Vermont chapter of the NEA crushed them. When the left
cannot abide even a traditional PUBLIC
school, what makes us think they will be friendlier with us
homeschoolers? To a tyrant any deviation from conformity, no matter
how apparently small, is a threat that must be wiped out.
We homeschoolers have for a Presidential candidate the governor of
the most homeschooling-friendly state in the country, opposed by a
party that has cast its lot with:
* the NEA
* the feminists, who despise the traditional family
* nationalized curricula designed to teach children what they
should believe
NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE COMPLACENT. NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO SAY, "I
DON'T UNDERSTAND POLITICS!" When will we get another opportunity
like the present? And if we sit on our hands, what right will we
have to complain, when Hillary Clinton, who once compared the
traditional family to SLAVERY, sits on the Supreme Court, as she will
surely do, should Mr. Gore be elected?
And so I urge you, contact your friends and relatives in other states
-- those who are friendly to homeschooling. Ask them to consider,
this year, whether the freedom of the family is worth preserving.
This election will be close! Of course you must vote as your
conscience dictates. But I pray that you will think of homeschooling
as a touchstone -- as a way of telling what the two parties, and the
two Presidential nominees, stand for.
Yours,
Tony Esolen
State Coordinator, Rhode Island Guild of Home Teachers
The Democratic Party has now aligned itself squarely against
homeschooling and parental rights. The Democratic National
Committee's website (www.dnc.org), endorsed by Al Gore, attacks
Republican Presidential nominee George W. Bush for being "soft" on
homeschooling. That same website parrots
the agenda of the NEA, the nation's biggest teachers' union,
insisting that all teachers of all children should be required to
possess state certification.
That requirement would KILL homeschooling.
It renews the threat of HR 6, which homeschoolers helped to kill in
1994. That bill would have required the same thing -- state
certification. That means, unless you spend many thousands of
dollars and several years taking courses in how to teach, you will
not be able to teach your child at home. That bill passed through the
House Education Committee with every Democrat voting for it, and
every Republican voting against it. George Miller (D-Cal), then
chairman of that committee, will become its chairman again if
the Democrats win control of the House, and has vowed to reintroduce
the bill. This time, the Democrats would not be facing the imminent
disaster they faced in the 1994 elections, when Bill Clinton was at
his lowest in popularity. They will have little to fear.
IT IS DISHEARTENING TO ME THAT A MAJOR POLITICAL PARTY IN THE UNITED
STATES SHOULD SO BLITHELY ATTACK THE FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOM OF THE
FAMILY.
It is disheartening, but not surprising. I teach at an American
college; I know the left very well. The Democratic Party is now
wholly controlled by the left -- by people who believe that the
state, not the family, is the basic institution of society.
* That is why the left wants taxpayer-financed daycare. Former
feminist, Elizabeth Genovese warns that public funded daycare is the
next arena of assault on the traditional family, and will make it
more and more difficult for tax-strapped families to keep the mother
in the home, and more and more economically enticing to leave
children with others.
* That is why the left wants to destroy the Boy Scouts. President
Clinton's Justice Department recently decided to examine whether the
Boy Scouts should be banned from National Parks, because of their
refusal to admit homosexual scoutmasters. Homosexuals do not mince
words when they assert that the
traditional family, and traditional manhood and womanhood, must be
overcome.
* That is why they despise homeschooling. John Taylor Gatto has
written a long article on the fight one small Vermont village waged
to keep open the last one-room, public schoolhouse in the state. The
powerful Vermont chapter of the NEA crushed them. When the left
cannot abide even a traditional PUBLIC
school, what makes us think they will be friendlier with us
homeschoolers? To a tyrant any deviation from conformity, no matter
how apparently small, is a threat that must be wiped out.
We homeschoolers have for a Presidential candidate the governor of
the most homeschooling-friendly state in the country, opposed by a
party that has cast its lot with:
* the NEA
* the feminists, who despise the traditional family
* nationalized curricula designed to teach children what they
should believe
NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE COMPLACENT. NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO SAY, "I
DON'T UNDERSTAND POLITICS!" When will we get another opportunity
like the present? And if we sit on our hands, what right will we
have to complain, when Hillary Clinton, who once compared the
traditional family to SLAVERY, sits on the Supreme Court, as she will
surely do, should Mr. Gore be elected?
And so I urge you, contact your friends and relatives in other states
-- those who are friendly to homeschooling. Ask them to consider,
this year, whether the freedom of the family is worth preserving.
This election will be close! Of course you must vote as your
conscience dictates. But I pray that you will think of homeschooling
as a touchstone -- as a way of telling what the two parties, and the
two Presidential nominees, stand for.
Yours,
Tony Esolen
State Coordinator, Rhode Island Guild of Home Teachers