The Home Schooling

Movement and the

Struggle for Democratic
Education
SARAH RIEGEL

A
s a growing movement in education, home schooling
is something parents choose for any number of rea-
sons: from a desire to protect children from school
bullying to a belief that it allows for greater academic
achievement than traditional schooling. For many people,
however, their reasons for advocating home schooling go
beyond its perceived academic benefits to an explicitly polit-
ical justification. In this view, traditional institutional educa-
tion is a socially corrosive institution, while widespread home
schooling is seen as a vehicle for building a healthier society.
As home schooling advocate Matt Hem puts it:

Government schooling is the explicit attempt to coerce people into

accepting their appropriate place in hierarchical, industrial capital-
ism ... Behind the sordid liberal-conservative debate about how
much cash to allocate to public schools is a system that nurtures
the worst in humanity and simultaneously suppresses individuality
and real community . . . Opposition to public schooling is being
manifested in a plethora of ways, the most compelling of which are
those explicitly and entirely rejecting schools and schooling as a
construct ... Deschooling, however, is not only about children; it
is about people, individuals, families, and communities taking con-
trol of the direction and shape of their lives'!

Proponents of home schooling thus view this approach to

education as a means of cultivating new, more democratic,
forms of political practice.

Studies in Political Economy 65, Summer 2001 91

Studies in Political Economy

This type of argument is not a new one in the philosophy

of education. It was very influential in the 1960s and 1970s
and resulted in experiments with alternatives like open class-
rooms and free schools based on child-centred theories of
education.? While those experiments were largely abandoned
by the 1980s, another alternative that emerged from the same
period, home schooling, continues to grow. Brian Ray esti-
mates the number of home schooled children in Canada for
the 1993-94 school year at 14,000, based on those registered
with provincial education authorities. More recent Canadian
estimates suggest that "about 1 percent" of the Canadian
school-aged population are home schooled. In the United
States, a recent estimate places the number of home school-
ing children as high as 1.7 million. All estimates agree that the
number is rising rapidly in both countries.3
While the majority of home schoolers in North America
are religious conservatives who "oppose the secular orienta-
tion of public education and clearly state their dislike of secu-
lar humanism, values clarification, the teaching of evolution,
and the perceived anti-religious atmosphere of the public
schools," it would be a mistake to assume that this movement
is one solely found on the religious right.' A vocal minority
within the home schooling movement roots its reasons for
home schooling in the radical critique of public schools first
articulated in the 1960s.They see it as a democratic form of
pedagogy, one that, if practiced more widely, could contribute
to democratization of education and society.
The question must be raised, then, what are the wider
implications of the growth of home schooling? Can it be part
of a wider counter-hegemonic struggle with the potential for
making not only education, but society, more democratic?
Would widespread home schooling, or, more radically, a com-
plete end to compulsory institutional education, be a vehicle
for collective liberation?
Unfortunately, the existing literature on home schooling
provides little critical analysis of the political aspects of the
movement. Most academic studies of home schooling have
focused on questions about the academic performance or
socialization of home schooled children and adolescents or on
developing profiles of the "typical" home schooling family>
While these are certainly important questions, they do not

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 RiegeVHome Schooling

offer much guidance in determining the democratic potential

of the movement. What is necessary therefore is an examina-
tion of the home schooling movement with particular focus on
questions of democracy and political struggles.
This paper seeks to address these questions through an
examination of the theory and practice of home schooling and
with a foregrounding of their implications for democratic
struggle.c In particular, I will examine the arguments of Ivan
Illich and John Holt, who offer the most sustained theoretical
exploration of the political ramifications of home schooling
and build the strongest philosophical case for it. I will argue
that the movement cannot be a tool of democratic struggle,
because despite the best intentions of home schoolers, both
the theory and practice of home schooling ultimately rest on
anti-political and anti-democratic assumptions. This paper
will reassert the central role of universal public education in
democratic movement. The best strategy for progressives
concerned with the hegemonic content of education is thus
to work to revitalize and reform public education, not to
abandon it in favor of home schooling.

The Practice of Home Schooling in North America If home

schooling were seen as strictly a pedagogical movement, it
would be easy to dismiss concerns about its political content
as insignificant. However, there are good reasons for viewing
it as a social movement with real political import. Home
schoolers have been aggressive in pursuing political and legal
changes and have formed interest and support groups to fur-
ther these ends. Frequently, they see their decision to home
school as an expression of their desire for certain social
changes, and they engage in recruitment or encouragement
of other families." As well, home schooling is often linked to
public school reform, particularly movements for increased
parental control in the form of vouchers and charter schools.s
Most important, education itself is inherently political.
Seemingly sterile debates about pedagogy and curriculum
have wider political significance. Education provides the
most explicit means possible in a democracy for attempting
to give shape to the future society, and so visions of how that
society should look are invariably incorporated into views of
how contemporary schooling should work.

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Studies in Political Economy

Because home schooling as a movement opposes public

schools, or at least the current organization and curriculum
of public schools, it shares this political nature. It should thus
be seen as a social movement with political implications. In
order to determine what these implications are, it is neces-
sary to look more closely at how this movement can be
defined.
A helpful starting point is the distinction drawn by Jane
Van Galen between ideologues and pedagogues. The for-
mer, who have come to dominate the movement, are pri-
marily religious conservatives whose objection is not to
institutional education per se, but rather to the content
taught in the public schools. The pedagogues, on the other
hand, are parents who "share a respect for their children's
intellect and creativity and a belief that children learn best
when pedagogy taps into the child's innate desire to learn."?
While ideologues tend to replicate the disciplined atmo-
sphere of school at home and frequently rely on pre-pack-
aged curricula, pedagogues are seen to practice a more
child-centred and informal instructional style. Early home
schoolers tended to be pedagogues. During the 1980s and
1990s, however, the growth in conservative, religious home
schoolers quickly outnumbered these parents.w Although
Van Galen's classification may oversimplify the reasons for
home schooling, it is useful for the purposes of this paper
because it allows us to isolate the most ostensibly progres-
sive elements of the home schooling movement and critically
analyze their discourse.
The rest of this paper will focus on the pedagogues and
their arguments against compulsory public schooling.
Although the pedagogues make up a smaller portion of the
home schooling movement than the ideologues, and are not
as well organized, they are more important for the purposes
of this paper. While the religious right as represented by the
ideologues is unlikely to be viewed as a source of democrati-
zation of education, the pedagogues, on the surface at least,
appear to have a strong case. I will argue that, although they
appear far more democratic than the ideologues, and no
doubt their intentions are good, in the long run even these
arguments for home schooling cannot form the basis for
collective democratic struggle)!

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 Riegel/Home Schooling

Pedagogues and the Theoretical Arguments for Home

Schooling Two authors stand out as key theoretical starting
points for the non-Christian home schooling movement:
Ivan Illich and his theory of "deschooling" and John Holt,
who developed the theory of "unschooling." Illich's writings
attracted a brief flurry of attention in the early 1970s, but are
less cited now. Holt is probably less well-known outside the
home schooling community, but his writings and the maga-
zine he founded, Growing Without Schooling, are much
more influential within the movement. Most contemporary
progressive home schooling advocates reference Holt rather
than Illich. Nonetheless, Illich provides a good starting point
as one of the first high-profile opponents of institutional
education, and as a more explicitly political thinker com-
pared to Holt. I will briefly summarize his arguments before
turning to Holt. Then I will put forth my criticism of these
arguments.

Ivan Illich and "Deschooling" Illich's theory of deschooling

grows out of a comprehensive rejection of bureaucratic insti-
tutions, which, he argues, reduce the scope for independent
thought and action by fostering dependence on others.
Modem bureaucracies inevitably create a situation where:

Rich and poor alike depend on schoolsand hospitalswhichguide

their lives, form their world view, and define for them what is
legitimate and what is not. Both view doctoring oneself as irre-
sponsible, learning on one's own as unreliable, and community
organization, when not paid for by those in authority, as a form
of aggression or subversion. For both groups the reliance on
institutional treatment renders independent accomplishment
suspect ... Welfare bureaucracies claim a professional,political,
and financial monopoly over the social imagination, setting
standards of what is valuable and what is feasible.I?

While this affects everyone in society, Illich contends that

it is most damaging to the poor, because "[t]he increasing
reliance on institutional care adds a new dimension to their
helplessness: psychological impotence, the inability to fend
for themselves."13 Illich views the growth of the social wel-
fare state as akin to the arms race, with ever-increasing

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Studies in Political Economy

expenditures creating more apparent needs, and thus, more

demands for resources.t-
At the root of this spiral of consumption and alienation,
Illich believes, lies the school. It is in the school where people
are first socialized into bureaucracy and develop the need for
more institutions. This begins with the definition of education
as an institutional process:

School initiates, too, the Myth of Unending Consumption. This

modem myth is grounded in the belief that process inevitably
produces something of value and, therefore, production neces-
sarily produces demand ... The existence of schools produces the
demand for schooling. Once we have learned to need school, all
our activities tend to take the shape of client relationships to
other specialized institutions . . . Once a man or woman has
accepted the need for school, he or she is easy prey for other
institutions. Once young people have allowed their imaginations
to be formed by curricular instruction, they are conditioned to
institutional planning of every sort. "Instruction" smothers the
horizon of their imaginations.i>

The results are alienation and a stifling of the imagination.

Illich places institutions on a right/left spectrum, with coer-
cive institutions on the right which manipulate people, while
convivial institutions on the left facilitate community and
individual growth,16 Not surprisingly, Illich sees schools at the
far right of the spectrum because they crush individuality
through the hidden curriculum:

Now young people are prealienated by schools that isolate them

while they pretend to be both producers and consumers of their own
knowledge, which is conceived of as a commodity put on the market
in school. School makes alienation preparatory to life, thus depriving
education of reality and work of creativity. School prepares for alien-
ating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught.
Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to grow in
independence; they no longer find relatedness attractive, and close
themselves off to the surprises which life offers when it is not prede-
termined by institutional definition ... The New World Church is the
knowledge industry, both purveyor of opium and the workbench
during an increasing number of years of an individual's life.l?

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 RiegellHome Schooling

Not only do schools have debilitating social effects, Illich

argues, they do not do a good job of educating people. He
contends that compulsory schooling delimits instruction
according to age rather than interest or desire to learn. It
gives teachers untrammelled power over students, in which
they govern by fear and intimidation rather than shared
interests. Even when students express an interest in learning
about a particular subject, prerequisites force them to gain
certification in irrelevant material before pursuing their
interest. Illich argues that, in fact, people learn the important
things in life outside of formal schooling.tf Rather than being
about education, formal schooling is about gaining creden-
tials, ensuring that "you can not be a legitimate citizen or
doctor unless you are a graduate. "19
For Illich, then, the necessary first step in creating a more
humane society is the disestablishment of schooling, or
"deschooling." The minimal criteria for de schooling include
the denial of professional status or certification to teachers,
the prohibition of compulsory attendance at school, the pro-
hibition of any limits on access to work or education on the
basis of prior attendance, and the transfer of all tax funds pre-
viously used for schools to individuals.w
Illich is aware of the risks inherent in deschooling, notably
that institutional socialization might just be transferred to pri-
vate sector institutions with equally dehumanizing results. To
prevent this, deschooling has to be viewed in terms of individ-
ual rights and responsibilities. Illich envisions a world where
access to learning is not limited to formal institutions. People
with particular skills should be encouraged to share them with
others. Tools should be readily available and technology
should be transparent, with anyone able to learn easily to
manipulate it. He advocates the development of "learning
webs" where people with particular interests can be matched
with others who share their interests in, for example, discussing
a particular book.21 For Illich, this would create a more demo-
cratic world, where outcomes would be based on merit and not
credentials, and where people would develop as autonomous
beings who were capable of shaping their own lives.
Although his arguments about abolishing compulsory
schooling resonate in contemporary home schooling dis-
course, Illich himself did not become directly involved in the

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Studies in Political Economy

movement, However, John Holt, who was influenced in part

by Illich, moved beyond general arguments for deschooling
into specific advocacy of home schooling.

John Holt and "Unschooling" While Ivan Illich's interest in

deschooling developed out of a wide-ranging critique of mod-
ern society, John Holt came to similar conclusions from the
opposite direction. A former public school teacher, Holt's
theory grew out of pedagogical concerns and the belief that
schools as presently organized are not conducive to learning.
For Illich, the political justification for deschooling is fore-
grounded; for Holt, the political aspect is less readily appar-
ent than the pedagogical, but it is nonetheless always present.
Like Illich, Holt believes that elimination of compulsory
schooling is necessary for the building of a more humane
society.
The starting point for John Holt's pedagogical theory, and
by extension his political theory, is his belief that "[e]very
child, without exception, has an innate and unquenchable
drive to understand the world in which he lives and to gain
freedom and competence in it. "22 Holt contends that any
attempt to regulate or control this drive stifles Ieaming.a' He
argues for a completely child-centred model of education:

The learner, child or adult, his experience, his interests, his con-
cerns, his wonders, his hopes and fears, his likes and dislikes, the
things he is good at, must always be at the center of his learning.
He can move out into the world only from where he already is in
it ... But we have to start from here, the particular individual of
each and every child we work with.24

From his initial concern about the failure of public schools

to teach children well, Holt moves on into a more wide-rang-
ing critique of the social effects of compulsory schooling. He
contends that schools are essentially jails for children, set up
not to educate but rather to keep children under control and
out of the way of adults.> The result is that a student learns
that:

The school is not on his side; that it is working not for him, but
for the community and the state; that it is not interested in him

98
 Riegel/Home Schooling

except as he serves its purposes; and that among all the reasons
for which the adults in schools do things, his happiness, health,
and growth are by far the least important. He has probably also
learned that most of the adults in the school do not tell him the
truth and indeed are not allowed to-unless they are willing to
run the risk of being fired, which most of them are not. They are
not independent and responsible persons, free to say what they
think, feel, believe, or to do what seems reasonable and right.
They are employees and spokesmen, telling the children whatev-
er the school administration, the school board, the community, or
the legislature want the children to be told.26

As a result, Holt argues, children learn to be passive, to

avoid work, to be competitive, and to defer to authority.27
Further, schools sort children through tracking into winners
and losers and indoctrinate them into blind patriotism and
consumerism.28 Holt argues, "Learn to obey the Principal
now, and you will obey the President later. "29 He contends
that traditional education produces quiescent souls unsuited
for autonomous and active life, "What this all boils down to
is, are we trying to raise sheep - timid, docile, easily driven or
led - or free men? If what we want is sheep, our schools are
perfect as they are. If what we want is free men, we'd better
start making some big changes.t'w
Education for Holt has to be self-driven and chosen. He
argues that any attempt to shape someone's thoughts in a par-
ticular way is a violation of the fundamental right to free
thought:

Next to the right to life itself, the most fundamental of all human
rights is the right to control our own minds and thoughts. That
means, the right to decide for ourselves how we will explore the
world around us, think about our own and other persons' experi-
ences, and find and make the meaning of our own lives. Whoever
takes that right away from us, as the educators do, attacks the
very center of our being and does us a most profound and lasting
injury. He tells us, in effect, that we cannot be trusted even to
think, that for all our lives we must depend on others to tell us
the meaning of our world and our lives, and that any meaning we
make for ourselves, out of our own experience, has no value ...
My concern is not to improve "education" but to do away with it,

99

L_
Studies in Political Economy

to end the ugly and antihuman business of people-shaping and let

people shape themselves.s!

The difficulty of putting such an individualist approach to

education into practice in a typical public school class is
apparent, so Holt seeks alternative venues.
Initially, Holt supported the establishment of independent
free schools and alternative schools, which were flourishing
in the early 1970s. Holt contended that free schools could
lead by example and create demands for similar learning
environments in public schools. Later, however, Holt argued
that free schools never spread as far as many had hoped and
that existing free schools were compromised by federal fund-
ing for alternative education and ended up spending most of
their time trying to meet bureaucratic mandates.v
Rather than seeking alternative arrangements within the
school system, then, Holt advocates an end to compulsory
education. He argues that if children are not forced to attend
school, they will only go when and if the school provides them
with the learning that they want, in an enjoyable fashion.
Schools would thus become more like public libraries,
resources that could be drawn upon at will.33Like Illich, Holt
questions the use of schooling to gain credentials, although he
does not go so far as to argue that credentials should be dis-
pensed with altogether. Rather, he argues for increased use of
equivalency tests and credit for "real world" experience.v
Holt contends that learning, as a natural process, should
not be separated from the rest of life. Children are best left to
learn from their surroundings. For that reason, Holt advo-
cates home schooling, or, more precisely, "unschooling"
which he sees as socially and pedagogically superior to formal
instruction:

To parents I say, above all else, don't let your home become some
terrible miniature copy of the school. No lesson plans! No
quizzes! No tests! No report cards! Even leaving your children
alone would be better; at least they could figure out some things
on their own. Live together, as well as you can; enjoy life togeth-
er, as much as you can. Ask questions to find out something
about the world itself, not to find out whether or not someone
knowsit.35

100

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 RiegellHome Schooling

As noted, Holt is more restrained than Illich about making

claims for the political spin-offs of unschooling. He argues
that through the growth of unschooling, real changes can
occur, especially through the breaking of the monopoly of
knowledge he believes the schools hold:

Schools like to say they create and spread knowledge. It would

be closer to the truth to say that they collect and hoard knowl-
edge, corner the market on it if they can, so that they can sell it
at the highest possible price. That's why they want everyone to
believe that only what is learned in school is worth anything. But
this idea, as much as any other, freezes the class structure of soci-
ety and locks the poor into poverty-s

For Holt then, it is clear, the growth of unschooling will

contribute to a more equitable, democratic society. He sees
unschooling as letting children grow up emotionally and
socially healthier than schooled children, and thus better able
to contribute to their communities. This theme, along with
the belief that unschooling is more "natural," attracts many
political progressives to home schooling.

Home schooling as democratic education? Home schooling

advocates make bold assertions about the democratic nature
of their theories, but these cannot be borne out in practice.
They rest on theoretically impoverished ideas about the rela-
tion between the individual and the community, between
means and ends, and between education and democracy.
Moreover, on closer examination of their theories it becomes
clear that key ideas like unschooling are essentially incoher-
ent. For these reasons, it is clear that home schooling has lim-
ited potential for extending and increasing democracy,
whether in the education system or society at large.

Self and Community When the arguments for deschooling,

unschooling, and home schooling are broken down to first
principles, it becomes clear that despite their declared radical
democratic intent, they are in fact classical liberal or libertar-
ian arguments. Thus, they run the risk described by Benjamin
Barber of contributing to a situation where:

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Studies in Political Economy

An excess of liberalism has undone democratic institutions: for

what little democracy we have had in the West has been repeat-
edly compromised by the liberal institutions with which it has
been undergirded and the liberal philosophy from which its
theory and practice have been derived.37

At the heart of the educational theory of the above

authors is a radically atomistic view of the self. Pedagogy, and
by extension politics, is seen as properly shaped by the indi-
vidual with only the individual's goals and needs taken into
account. The belief is that through unconstrained self-explo-
ration and self-development, children will grow up as better
human beings more suited to participation in a democracy.
The difficulty with this view is that, by postulating untram-
melled self-development as necessary for democracy, it ulti-
mately undercuts the community which is necessary for
democracy, or for that matter, self-development. This point
has been made on many occasions by numerous social
thinkers, but it is perhaps best stated by Charles Taylor in his
essay, "Atomism." In response to ultra-liberal thinkers like
Robert Nozick, who assert that individual rights must always
be prior to society or the common good, Taylor argues that
rights make no sense outside of some social framework.
Indeed, it is only because we live in a society and thus hold
certain morals and values, namely that others are human and
thus worthy of our inherent respect, that the notion of "right"
can exist.38 Most important for the purposes of this paper,
Taylor contends that the continued existence of society is con-
tingent upon the existence and health of certain institutions:

[T]he free individual or autonomous moral agent can only achieve

and maintain his identity in a certain type of culture, some of
whose facets and activities I have briefly referred to. But these and
others of the same significance do not come into existence sponta-
neously each successive instant. They are carried on in institutions
and associations which require stability and continuity and fre-
quently also support from society as a whole - almost always the
moral support of being commonly recognized as important, but
frequently also considerable material support. These bearers of
our culture include museums, symphony orchestras, universities,
laboratories, political parties, law courts, representative assemblies,

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 RiegellHome Schooling

newspapers, publishing houses, television stations, and so on ...

Thus the requirement of a living and varied culture is also the
requirement of a complex and integrated society, which is willing
and able to support all these institutions.w

By arguing for a radically individualist conception of edu-

cation, home schooling advocates undercut community and
these necessary institutions. They either take community for
granted, as something that is self-replicating, or they see it as
something negative, something which unduly constrains indi-
viduals. However, without some sort of common educational
experience, it is unclear how a community can possibly devel-
op and maintain the "inter-subjective meanings" that are
crucial to its survival.w
And while other public institutions, such as libraries, muse-
ums, or parks have a crucial educative role and should be well-
funded and supported for their role in developing community,
ultimately there is no substitute for the school. It is, as
Benjamin Barber notes, the only institution which is both pub-
lic and compulsory, and thus provides the best venue for the
community to try to influence the young and develop in them
a shared subjectivity-i Obviously, there is no perfect one-to-
one relationship between schooling and education. Anyone
who has spent time in a classroom as a teacher or a student is
aware that attendance in class is no guarantee that an individ-
ual will retain or be able to use the information from the class.
However, by the same token, the odds are certainly better that
the individual will learn the material by attending class than by
not attending class. While no doubt some people can be suc-
cessful autodidacts, most will not. If it can be agreed that there
is some base of knowledge and skills necessary for the contin-
uance of society, it would seem then that society should have
an interest in creating the conditions in which it is most likely ,
that young people will gain these skills and knowledge. There
is as of yet no suitable replacement for compulsory schooling
to fulfill this function.e
While Holt tends to gloss over questions of community,
Illich does deal with this issue. As his supporters have argued,
his conception of "convivial institutions" represents an
attempt to theorize institutions which foster community bet-
ter than existing ones.43 Ultimately, however, Illich's notion of

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Studies in Political Economy

community seems overly voluntarist and thus likely to fail in

the long run without major changes to society that go far
beyond schools.
Illich's stress on self-reliance and his contractarian view of
education still puts the individual first and foremost. His
notion of "learning webs" which connect people interested in
studying particular subjects or issues is intended to be seen as
a radically democratic approach to the dissemination of
knowledge. This gives it a certain attractiveness, but it is not
clear that it actually would go beyond existing educational
institutions in terms of fostering communities.
The key idea in Illich's learning webs is that they are vol-
untary and do not involve certified knowledge. But can
these voluntary communities can be sustained in the sense
Taylor insists communities must be? I would argue that they
cannot be, for the reason that, in such ultraliberal commu-
nities, the costs of the "exit" option are sufficiently low to
make that option preferable to "voice."44 If schooling is
compulsory, there is more incentive to try to fix what is
wrong with it than to simply exit. This seems like the heart
of what democracy should be, a collective project where cit-
izens try to create institutions that work for everyone. What
is proposed instead by Illich and Holt is what Carl Boggs
calls "antipolitics," a retreat from participation and the pub-
lic sphere and a focus on individual, as opposed to social,
growth and development.s>
Whether through Holt's absence of community or Illich's
voluntary community, the arguments for home schooling or
deschooling severely restrict the development and continued
existence of important preconditions for democracy. While
the individual certainly has to have autonomy for democracy
to work, the totally free agent presented here is theoretically
and practically incompatible with democratic practice.

Means and Ends Both Holt and Illich attack public schools
for confusing process and outcome, for assuming that atten-
dance in a formal learning institution amounts to getting an
education. As discussed above, this is a largely valid criti-
cism, but the critics make the same mistake with respect to
democracy and the education of children. Their assumption
seems to be that if children are educated in a superficially

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 RiegeVHome Schooling

"free" and "democratic" fashion, they will grow up to be

democrats. This amounts to a serious confusion between
means and ends.
The theory of unschooling seems to rest on an assumption
that children must have identical rights to adults, and thus to
force them to study something in which they are not interest-
ed is an unacceptable infringement of these rights. However,
this requires a leap of logic that cannot be found in most lib-
eral political theory. The assumption in liberal theory is that
children do not yet possess the capacity to fully appreciate
the results of their decisions, so they do not possess the same
rights as adults.w Thus children do not have the "right" to
sign legal contracts or enter into sexual relationships with
adults. It would seem logical that, the consequences of poor
educational decisions being as great as the consequences of
these other examples, society has an interest in restricting the
range of educational choices available to children until they
are competent to choose for themselves.
For John Holt, society can have no legitimate interest in this
realm. He contends that it is a violation of fundamental rights
to direct someone's thought in a particular direction. Taken at
face value, however, this dictate eliminates the possibility of all
learning aside from direct observation of phenomena. There
can be no other meaning of teaching, or for that matter, of
communication beyond the most banal. In response to this,
Holt backs away from his absolutist position and retorts that it
is acceptable to guide a student in a certain way if the student
consented willingly to this and truly wanted to learn what the
teacher is explaining. However, it is unacceptable to direct the
student toward ends chosen by someone other than him or
herself.'?
Here Holt commits an error familiar to anyone acquaint-
ed with the liberal/communitarian debate: by contending that
he is neutral about preferences, he in fact declaring the supe-
riority of certain preferences.ss Namely, Holt privileges
autonomy above all else. One of the major problems with
public schools, according to Holt, is that they create con-
formists. When he asks the rhetorical question of whether
"we" prefer to raise "sheep" or "free men," he is in fact con-
tending that there is some "we" that has a legitimate interest
in raising "free men." Presumedly, the child who prefers to

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Studies in Political Economy

grow up a sheep is suffering from some HoItian variation on

false consciousness.
This attitude can be seen in Holt's responses to his critics.
He argues that most adults reject his views on education
because they have unpleasant jobs themselves and thus they:

Actively distrust and dislike most children, even their own, and
quite especially their own ... In a nutshell, people whose lives are
hard, boring, painful, meaningless - people who suffer - tend to
resent those who seem to suffer less than they do, and will make
them suffer if they can. People who feel themselves in chains,
with no hope of ever getting them off, want to put chains on
everyone else.49

Holt's apparent pity for these wage slaves hardly conceals

his condescension towards them. He clearly feels that their
goals for the education of their children are wrong and mis-
guided, if not downright pathological. The problem with
public schools, then, is not that they seek to shape children's
consciousness, but that they seek to shape children's con-
sciousness in the wrong ways. Unschooling, on the other
hand, shapes their consciousness in the proper way, so that
they become the autonomous individuals so envied by the
nine-to-fivers.
It is here that unschooling falls apart. Although it may
allow for children's particular interests to be better pursued
than public schooling, it is not primarily about the rights of
children to self-determination. Rather, it is about the rights of
parents to raise their children as they, rather than the state,
see fit. In this, the progressive pedagogues are really no dif-
ferent than the conservative ideologues in their reasons for
home schooling. They seek to place education firmly in the
private rather than the public sphere. The result is what
Gutmann calls "the state of families," where all education is
the exclusive province of the family. While this may allow for
the protection of particularism, it does so at the expense of
community and raises the very real spectre of certain children
being taught to fear and hate difference.w No doubt all pro-
gressive home schoolers would find this abhorrent as well as
anti-democratic. However, if they stick to an absolutist posi-
tion about parental rights in education, this is unavoidable.

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 Riegel/Home Schooling

Moreover, if we accept that society as a whole has an inter-

est in the education of children, the issue of governance of
education becomes crucial.u Here the quasi-radical home
schoolers seem to share the assumption made by conserva-
tive school voucher advocates that the sum total of individu-
al preferences equals the common good. The market replaces
democratic control of education. 52 The full implications of
this will be discussed more fully below, but what should be
noted here is that this again reinforces the conservative, or
more precisely classical liberal, nature of home schooling.
Even in its most ostensibly radical form and albeit uninten-
tionally, it is philosophically allied with the anti-democratic
neo-liberal agenda. 53
The logical and philosophical inconsistency of unschooling
as a concept need not be fatal to home schooling as the basis
for democratic struggle, however, if it can be shown that chil-
dren educated in this way are somehow better suited to col-
lective struggles. So rather than assuming that children are
born bearing the rights of an adult, this position would accept
Barber's argument that because children are "born fragile,
born needy, born ignorant, born unformed, born weak, born
foolish, born unimaginative - born in chains" they "must be
taught liberty. "54 What matters now is how liberty is taught.
It is possible that unschooling might work in practice even if
it does not work in theory.
Here again we are faced with questions about what exact-
ly this position means. If it means that children cannot and
should not be forced to learn particular skills or subjects
before they are cognitively or psychologically ready, then it is
a sensible proposition, one which politicians who demand
ever more high-stakes standardized tests in public schools
ought to heed. It is fair to argue, however, that for the authors
discussed in this paper, it does mean more than this. In
essence, their belief is that the child's interests and prefer-
ences should always be at the core of any educational experi-
ence and that compulsion in education is always illegitimate.
This certainly has the appearance of a democratic approach
to education, but it is here where it is most apparent that the
means do not necessarily lead to the end. If anything, children
raised in such a way seem particularly unsuited for democrat-
ic deliberation. If a child has truly spent his or her youth being

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Studies in Political Economy

told that his or her interests are central and that whatever
one does not want to do one should not do, how can the child
avoid growing up anything other than narrowly self-centred
and representative of an individualism that "involves a cen-
tring on the self and a concomitant shutting out, or even
unawareness, of the greater issues and concerns that tran-
scend the self, be they religious, political, historical. As a
consequence, life is narrowed and flattened. "55This is hardly
fertile ground for a sense of community-mindedness and
understanding of the need for discussion and compromise
that attends democracy.
A similar argument that democratic education does not
have to be linked to political democracy can be found in the
writings of Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci vehemently criticizes
the 1923 education reforms of the Italian Fascist government
which moved Italian education in a child-centred direction.
For Gramsci, the formation of organic intellectuals had to be
based upon a disciplined education which gave the child a
strong knowledge of history and culture. Without this strong
knowledge, citizens are ill-suited to democracy and apt to fall
under the spell of emotional movements like fascism.56
The point here is not to suggest that home schoolers are all
secretly nascent fascists. Rather, this example should make it
clear that home schoolers have means and ends confused. A
freer education system does not lead directly to more politi-
cal democracy, and can in fact be harnessed to quite anti-
democratic ends. Rather, the understanding of the relation
between the form of education and the ends of education
needs to be seen dialectically, as is suggested by Barber.
There must always be a tension between freedom and com-
pulsion in education driven by the level of development of
the students. Part of "learning liberty" thus requires that stu-
dents not have totally free reign even when they want it,
while at other times they should take responsibility for their
education, even if they feel unsure.57
If this disconnect between means and ends is accepted, then
the case against public schooling collapses. Public schools will
be more or less democratic depending upon the ends they are
given. If they are enlisted in support of hyper-competitive cap-
italism, as Mike Harris would like, they will clearly be less
democratic. This is certainly a matter for concern. However,

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 Riegel/Home Schooling

the crucial fact about public schools is that they are subject,
however indirectly, to democratic control. The possibility
always exists to use democratic mechanisms to change them,
whether through electing school trustees or electing a new
provincial government. In an entirely private system of educa-
tion, this capacity is lost entirely.

Conclusion: Democracy and the Public Schools In their

attacks on the public schools, home schooling advocates, as
well as many academic critics of education, focus on the
negative aspects of the system. As a result, they come to the
conclusion that the system is irredeemably broken and down-
right harmful to children. Although their criticisms do shed
light on some of the more regrettable features of public
education, they miss the fact that public schools, like many
public institutions in a capitalist economy, are inherently
contradictory institutions. While for some students schools
are alienating and reinforce inequality, for others schools have
unquestionably been a source of inspiration and social mobil-
ity. Elizabeth Kelly summarizes this contradiction well when
she writes that:

Schools socialize the young; the process generally entails inculcat-

ing passive consent to the social, political, and economic structures
of late capitalism, many of which are fundamentally antidemocrat-
ic. On the other hand, schools have traditionally been among the
most democratically permeable of our institutions. More people
have access to schools than to any other public institutions; schools
thus represent significant spaces where critical thinking can be
developed (and where autonomous public spheres may be created
or expanded).58

The challenge is how we go about building the progressive,

democratic side of public schooling while reducing the capi-
talist hegemonic side. The home schooling strategy, exiting
the system altogether, cannot achieve this. All it accomplish-
es is diminishing political and material support for the public
schools. If anything, this will only make the schools worse. It
has been shown that school districts with the most limited
resources are those which are most likely to accept "dona-
tions" of supplies from corporations, more often than not

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Studies in Political Economy

accompanied by advertisements aimed at the captive student

audience.w
Once their own children have left the system, what incen-
tive remains for home schooling parents to fight these corpo-
rate encroachments on behalf of the remaining public school
students? More pointedly, why should they care? If they no
longer see a stake in the institution, and given the radically
individualistic view of education that undergirds their own
choices it is likely they will not, there is little chance that
these parents will actively engage in attempts to change the
schools. This is a particular shame because these parents
through their choices have demonstrated a concern for and
interest in education that is all too often lacking in public
schools. Their energy and ideas represent a potential source
of progressive change, if it is used as part of democratic
struggle within the system, rather than an anti-political with-
drawal from the system.
While we should not over-emphasize the receptivity to
change in schools, they are especially permeable institutions.
The religious right has gained extraordinary power over pub-
lic school systems in the US and British Columbia by cam-
paigns to gain control of local school boards.6o There is no
reason the left could not wage a similar struggle. Even in set-
tings like Ontario, where local school boards have been
stripped of much of their power, alternative institutions can
be sources of agitation for progressive change. The parent
councils at individual schools mandated by the Harris gov-
ernment, although too new for a full assessment of their influ-
ence, could potentially counter-balance some of the negative
policies of the government. Finally, movements that have
sprung up in many US states opposing standardized testing
show that the public can be rallied to the cause of the democ-
ratization of education.st
These examples show that the possibility does exist for
progressives to influence education in positive ways through
democratic struggle. It seems far better to increase this sort of
work than to advocate a solution-home schooling-which
even its most ardent supporters have to admit is likely to be
suitable or possible for a small minority of children. It seems
particularly unlikely to help those students who are arguably
worst served by public schools, namely students who come

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 RiegellHome Schooling

from backgrounds marked by poverty and abuse. It is a

potential source of individual liberation for the already priv-
ileged, but as a source of collective liberation it falls short. It
risks exacerbating the tendency towards "parentocracy,"
where a child's educational outcomes have more to do with
his or her parents' status and education than the child's own
ability and work.62This is a dangerous situation, for, as David
F. Larabee notes, "even though we can exit from public
schools as a private good, we cannot exit from public schools
as a public good we can remove our children from urban
public schools but we cannot escape having to live with the
social and personal consequences of the public school system
we have left behind."63
Public schools have greater potential for collective lib-
eration, but by and large they have been failing at this
task. Some of these problems are clearly beyond the scope
of the schools to fix, because they rest in the economy or
society. As long as public schooling is situated in a capi-
talist economy, it will not be able to completely overcome
the inequality, the debasement of culture, and the voca-
tionalism and instrumentalism inherent to the system.
However, to say then that we should wait until the end of
capitalism to fix the schools, is a serious abdication of
responsibility.
The first step in real school reform is for everyone, not just
those with children of school age, to see education as a rele-
vant issue. As has been argued above, education is crucial to
democracy and community. Thus, the whole community has
a legitimate interest in the schools, and a responsibility to be
informed and active. This also means contesting proposals for
school vouchers or other forms of expanded privatization of
education, which seek to replace democratic control of
schools with the market.
Second, there has to be a public commitment to adequate
and equitable funding of schools so that all students have
access to necessary resources. Education viewed as solely a
private good leads to the view that responsibility for funding
education is also private. If the community has a legitimate
interest in schools, it also has a responsibility to pay for these
schools. As well, social welfare spending retrenchment has
to be stopped and reversed, as lack of adequate resources

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Studies in Political Economy

outside of school continues to hamper the performance of

many children in school.e-
Third, the school reform agenda has to be recovered from
the narrow vocationalism that largely defines it in North
America. Current trends seek to subordinate schools even
more to the needs of capitalism than before, as school reform
has become a popular solution to perceived competitive
weaknesses.e> While vocational concerns can never be absent
from public schooling, nor should they be, when they define
the limits of education the result is an impoverishment of the
knowledge and critical consciousness necessary for demo-
cratic citizenship.w
Fourth, in line with the reassertion of the value of a
broad, humanistic education, there should be high stan-
dards for learning. The left has largely ceded this issue to
the right, due to the absolutely unimpeachable desire to
avoid privileging racist, sexist or classist knowledge as well
as a correct rejection of the overly narrow standardized
notions of "accountability" promoted by the right. What is
necessary is to continue to work for the incorporation of dif-
ferent perspectives into education, as well as advocating
accountability through more holistic, multi-faceted forms of
assessment.
Finally, although the educational philosophies of Illich and
Holt may be flawed, the types of criticisms they raise need to
be taken seriously as part of school reform. These arguments
are rooted in the negative experiences that far too many stu-
dents have had in schools. Although there are no simple
answers, the internal organization of schools should take into
account as much as possible the needs of individual students
so that more students experience education as a positive
rather than negative part of their lives.
This is crucial because, as Gramsci argues, counter-hege-
monic struggle is impossible without rigorous criticism of the
existing culture. This in turn is only possible with a deep
understanding of the culture, an appreciation of its strengths
and recognition of its failures.67This is only possible if a high-
quality education is recognized as both an individual right
and a social good. The key to the creation of a more demo-
cratic world is better public education, not the abandonment
of this system in the name of some libertarian utopia.

ttl
 Riegel/Home Schooling

Notes

1. Matt Hem, "Kids, Community, and Self-Design: An Introduction," In

Matt Hem, (ed.), Deschooling Our Lives (Gabriola Island, BC: New
Society Publishers, 1996), pp.1-3.
2. Some private free schools, most notably Summerhill in the United
Kingdom and Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts have survived to
the present. Joel Spring, American Education: An Introduction to Social
and Political Aspects 5th Edition (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1991),
pp. 217-20. For Canadian perspectives on free schools, see also Douglas
Myers, "Where Have All the Free Schools Gone?" In Douglas Myers,
(ed.), The Failure of Education Reform in Canada (Toronto:
McClelland & Stewart, 1973), pp. 75-94 and Bob Davis, What Our High
Schools Could Be (Toronto: Garamond and Our Schools/Our Selves,
1990), pp. 41-96.
3. Brian D. Ray, A Nationwide Study of Horne Education in Canada: Family
Characteristics, Student Achievement, and Other Topics (Salem, OR:
National Home Education Research Institute, 1994), p. 2; Karl Bunday,
Learn in Freedom http://learninfreedom.org/sidlifCanadamsc.html;
Mike Farris, "Homeschooling in the 21st Century: Prepare Now for the
Opportunities Ahead." Interview by Charles Burger, Homeschooling
Today 8/3 (1999), p. 13. See also Gord McLaughlin, "The Blackboard
Kitchen Catches On," National Post (12 March 1999), reprinted at
http://www.ontariohomeschool.orgINP.html.
4. Maralee Mayberry, "Characteristics and Attitudes of Families Who
Home School," Education and Urban Society 21/1 (1988), p. 37.
5. Examples include Kariane Weiner and Kevin Weiner, "Contextualizing
Homeschooling Data: A Response to Rudner" Education Policy
Analysis Archives 7/13 (1999) http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n13.html;
Brian D. Ray, "Home Schools: A Synthesis of Research on
Characteristics and Learner Outcomes" Education and Urban Society
2111 (1988).
6. Although the fusion of politics and pedagogy makes it impossible to
avoid completely discussion of the relative academic merits of home
schooling versus public schooling, I want to stress that my primary con-
cern is with the political merits. The question of academic performance
is well-discussed in the literature by authors with more expertise in aca-
demic assessment and measurement than the current author.
7. James G. Cibulka, "State Regulation of Home Schooling: A Policy
Analysis." In Jane Van Galen and Mary Anne Pitman, (eds.), Horne
Schooling: Political, Historical, and Pedagogical Perspectives (Norwood,
NJ: Ablex, 1991), pp. 104-5; J. Gary Knowles, Stacey E. Marlow, and
James A. Muchmore, "From Pedagogy to Ideology: Origins and Phases
of Home Education in the United States, 1970-1990." American Journal
of Education 100/2 (1992), pp. 205-07.
8. Cibulka, "State Regulation ... ," pp. 117-18.
9. Jane Van Galen, "Ideology, Curriculum, and Pedagogy in Home
Education" Education and Urban Society. 21/1 (1988), p. 55. See also
Jane Van Galen, "Ideologues and Pedagogues: Parents Who Teach Their
Children at Home" in Van Galen and Pitman, Horne Schooling, 1991.
10. Knowles et aI., pp. 225.
11. This is not to argue that the greatest threat to public education is this
admittedly small group of home schooling parents. However, public
schools, like most other public institutions, are facing a challenge to

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Studies in Political Economy

their very legitimacy from neo-liberals and religious conservatives.

Home schooling, even when undertaken for the "right" reasons, adds
firepower to this challenge, and detracts from attempts to reorganize
schools internally on more democratic lines.
12. Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), pp. 3-4.
13. Ibid., p. 4.
14. Ibid., p. 85-86.
15. Ibid., p. 55-56.
16. Ibid., p. 79.
17. Ibid., pp. 67-68.
18. Ibid., p. 42.
19. Ivan Illich, "The Deschooled Society." In Peter Buckman, (ed.),
Education Without Schools. (London: Souvenir, 1973), p. 10. Emphasis
in the original.
20. Illich, "The Deschooled Society," p. 13; Ivan Illich, "After Deschooling,
What?" In Alan Gartner, Colin Greer, and Frank Riessman, (eds).,
After Deschooling, What? (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 19.
21. Illich, "The Deschooled Society," pp. 15-17; Illich, Deschooling Society,
pp.108-50.
22. John Holt, The Underachieving School (New York: Pitman, 1969), p. 3.
23. John Holt, "An Interview With John Holt," interview by Marlene
Anne Bumgarmer. In Anne Pedersen and Peggy O'Mara, (eds.),
Schooling at Home: Parents, Kids, and Learning (Santa Fe: John Muir
Publications, 1990), p. 32.
24. John Holt, What Do I Do Monday? (New York: Dutton, 1970), 37.
Emphasis in the Original.
25. Holt, The Underachieving School, pp. 71-73.
26. John Holt, Freedom and Beyond (New York: Dutton, 1972), p. 78.
27. Holt, The Underachieving School, pp. 18-19.
28. Holt, Freedom and Beyond, pp. 250-51.
29. John Holt, Instead of Education (New York: Dutton, 1976), p. 169.
30. Holt, The Underachieving School, p. 34.
31. Ibid., p. 4.
32. Holt, What Do I Do Monday?, pp. 299-301; Holt, Instead of Education,
pp.140-41.
33. Holt, Freedom and Beyond, pp. 244-46.
34. Holt, Instead of Education, pp. 191-95.
35. Holt, Teach Your Own, p. 229.
36. Ibid., p. 72.
37. Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New
Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. xix.
38. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books,
1974), ix; Charles Taylor, "Atomism," in Philosophy and the Human
Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985), pp. 191-95.
39. Taylor, "Atomism," pp. 205-06.
40. Charles Taylor, "Interpretation and the Sciences of Man," in
Philosophy and the Human Sciences, pp. 38-40.
41. Benjamin Barber, An Aristocracy of Everyone: The Politics of
Education and the Future of America (New York: Ballantine Books,
1992), pp. 14-15.
42. It should be noted that, to say that schooling has to be compulsory in
no way entails that the internal dynamics of the classroom have to be
teacher-centred and rooted in coercion and control.

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 Riegel/Home Schooling

43. Raymond Allan Morrow and Carlos Alberto Torres, Social Theory and
Education (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), pp. 225-33.
44. Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp.
218-19. A fascinating research project would be to study participation
in Internet mailing lists or newsgroups to see if these voluntary forums
can foster community and education in the way suggested by Iliich.
45. Carl Boggs, The End of Politics: Corporate Power and theDecline of the
Public Sphere (New York: Guilford, 2000).
46. Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 200.
47. Holt, Instead of Education, pp. 4-5.
48. Ronald Beiner, What's the Matter with Liberalism? (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1992), pp. 23-25.
49. Holt, Teach Your Own, p. 4.
50. Amy Gutmann, Democratic Education (Princeton: Princeton
University Press), pp. 28-33.
51. Ibid., p. 3.
52. For instance, voucher advocates Chubb and Moe relentlessly attack
"democratic control" of schools because it means that "citizens every-
where ... have a legitimate hand in governing each and every public
school." John Chubb and Terry Moe, Politics, Markets and America's
Schools (Washington: Brookings, 1990), p. 30.
53. Susan Douglas Franzosa, "The Best and Wisest Parent: A Critique of
John Holt's Philosophy of Education," In Van Galen and Pitman, p.
123. For a detailed discussion of the congruence between radical and
neo-liberal views of educational governance, see Peter S. Hlebowitsh,
Radical Curriculum Theory Reconsidered: A Historical Approach (New
York: Teachers College Press, 1993), pp. 94-16.
54. Barber, An Aristocracy of Everyone, p. 4.
55. Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity (Concord, ON: Anansi,
1991), p. 14.
56. Harold Entwistle, Antonio Gramsci: Conservative Schooling for
Radical Politics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), pp. 82-84.
57. Barber, An Aristocracy of Everyone, p. 125-26.
58. Elizabeth A. Kelly, Education, Democracy, & Public Knowledge
(Boulder: Westview, 1995), p. 6.
59. Erika Shaker, "Youth News Network and the Commercial Carpet-
Bombing of the Classroom," Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Education Monitor 3/4 (Fall 1999), pp. VIII-IX.
60. On the right and grassroots education activism, see Barbara Miner,
"Splits on the Right: What do They Mean for Education?" Rethinking
Schools 10/3 (1996), pp. 14-15 and the guide to conservative parent
activism in Connaught Coyne Marshner, Blackboard Tyranny (New
Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1978), pp. 158-263.
61. On the contradictory nature of school councils and parental involve-
ment, see Kirsten Kozolanka, "Will you Walk into my Parlour? Said a
Spider to a Fly: Parent Participation and School Councils," Our
Schools/Our Selves 47 (1996). Anti-testing movements have emerged in
a number of states. For a sampling, see Linda McCants Pendleton,
"High-Voltage Protests," Rethinking Schools 13/4 (1999).
62. Phillip Brown, "The 'Third Wave': Education and the Ideology of
Parentocracy," British Journal of Sociology of Education 11/1 (1990).
63. David F. Larabee, "No Exit: Public Education as an Inescapably Public
Good," In Larry Cuban and Dorothy Shipps, (eds.), Reconstructing the

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Studies in Political Economy

Common Good in Education (Stanford: Stanford University Press,

2(00), pp. 112-13.
64. Kelly, Education, Democracy ... pp. 125-26.
65. See, for example, National Commission on Excellence in Education, A
Nation at Risk (Washington DC: US Department of Education, 1983),
pp.3-4.
66. Victor Soucek, "Public Education and the Post-Fordist Accumulation
Regime: A Case Study of Australia (Parts One and Two)," Interchange
26/2 (1995).
67. Antonio Gramsci, "Socialism and Culture," In Richard Bellamy, (ed.),
Pre-Prison Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994),
pp.l0-12.

116