A GOP-backed bill in the Ohio legislature would allow just that.
“House Bill 11 would provide up to $1.1 billion in state funding for homeschooled children and students at non-chartered private schools,” and the recipients could include a couple who may be paid state school money “for spreading neo-Nazi propaganda to children,” Raw Story reported on Monday, March 13, 2023 (read story here).
The bill also blocks “any new oversight over homeschooling regulations, which are so lenient that … the Lawrences weren’t breaking any rules by pledging to teach children to ‘become wonderful Nazis,’” Raw Story said.
Republicans have embraced charter schools and homeschooling, and across the country are trying to steer state education funding away from public schools to private education. Their motives aren’t mysterious; in the South especially, it’s a way to re-segregate K-12 education. They also want to control what children are taught (you won’t go wrong by reading this as conservative indoctrination).
They don’t necessarily want to raise a generation of “wonderful Nazis,” but in Ohio at least, that may be acceptable collateral damage. And even if it’s not, and the bill is revised to require some sort of accreditation, the entire concept of homeschooling is fraught. Few parents are trained or qualified to teach, and properly supervising them is very labor-intensive at great cost to taxpayers
K-12 public schools have, broadly speaking, served our country well. They’ve produced generations of Americans capable of leading the world in technology, progress, and innovation; building the world’s most prosperous economy; and winning wars when necessary. We’re a superpower because we have an educated population.
Where there are extra resources for education — and there are never enough — they should be put to use improving the schools we have, not steering students away from a proper education, which they will need to succeed in adult life.
Photo below: Is this where you want your school taxes to go?
