Homeschool News & Views
Issue 52, January 6, 2008
From Homeschool Helpers
Greetings. This is Dan
White with Homeschool Helpers.
Mike Huckabee
came from nowhere to win the Iowa Republican presidential caucus.
What does that have to do
with homeschooling?
The homeschoolers in Iowa
helped him do that.
From the Seattle Times,
Jan. 1, 2008, a few days before the caucus:
Huckabee's name is no longer a mystery to
Iowa's Republican voters, in large part because of an extensive network of
home-schoolers… who have helped lift his underfunded campaign from obscurity to the front of a
crowded field. Opinion polls show his haphazard
approach is trumping the studied strategy of Mitt Romney, who invested millions
only to be shunned by many religious conservatives…,
who see the former Baptist preacher from Hope, Ark., as their champion.
Mitt Romney put about
seventeen million of his own money into the Iowa campaign, plus contributions
from others. He outspent Huckabee on advertising by a five to one margin but Huckabee still won by a sizable margin. That’s a big danger
sign for Romney, because money often buys elections.
“While early attention focused on Romney and other
better-known and better-funded opponents, home-schoolers
rallied to Huckabee's cause, attracted by his faith,
his politics and his decision to appoint a home-school proponent to the
Arkansas board of education. They tapped
a web of community and church groups who share common conservative interests,
blasting them with e-mails and passing along the word about Huckabee
in social settings.
It was the endorsement by prominent national
home-school advocate Michael Farris that helped propel Huckabee
to a surprising second-place finish in the Iowa straw poll in August. And it was the twin
sons of a home-school advocate in Oregon who helped put Huckabee
in touch with television tough guy Chuck Norris, who has appeared with him on
the campaign trail.
Home-schoolers also could
prove to be a powerful force on caucus night.
By one estimate, about 9,000 Iowa children are home-schooled. Their parents could form a sizable portion of the 80,000
or so Republicans expected to show up Jan. 3.”
It seems that
homeschoolers generally run about two to three per cent of the student
population, which is not a very high proportion. The public schools may have about as many
kids on Ritalin as there are homeschoolers.
But Ritalin kids don’t do much. Homeschool kids and parents – families -- do.
“Home-school parents tend to be heavily involved
in community activities, from the arts to conservation, giving them wide
circles of potential allies, said [one homeschool mom].
By the end of September, the campaign had finally
raised its first million dollars -- a benchmark total, yet barely pocket change
in present-day presidential politics.
Things picked up in October, especially after Huckabee's
enthusiastic reception at the Values Voters Summit in Washington.”
At the Value Voters Debate, the question was asked, “What do
you intend to do to counteract the homosexual agenda?” Candidates Cox and Tancredo answered that
they would support school choice and home schooling. Huckabee did not
give that as his answer, and Romney and McCain did not even show up at the
conservative summit, nor did any of the Democrats. Another questioner asked if the candidates
would support school choice with tax credit programs, and all the participating
Republican candidates answered yes.
From CNSNEWS.com, January
3, 2008 –
“I'm probably one of
the few candidates you have ever seen that has the recommendation of (a
National Education Association) chapter, but also has the strong national
recommendation of homeschoolers," former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee [said] in an interview.
As Arkansas governor, Huckabee
reduced regulations on homeschooling and appointed a homeschooling mother to
the state board of education.
But he also consistently opposed school-choice
programs that included private schools. When a
commission he appointed recommended Arkansas give all parents a voucher equal
to the per-pupil cost of educating a child in the local public schools, he
instantly rejected the proposal. He also opposed
President Bush's initial plan to give children in failing federally funded
public schools a voucher redeemable at private or religious schools.
At a December press conference, the Concord
Monitor reported, the president of the New Hampshire chapter of the National
Education Association "lauded Huckabee's
opposition to school vouchers" and announced that the state union was
endorsing him.
Huckabee told me that while he opposed
vouchers in Arkansas and federal mandates for vouchers, he supports states and
local school districts that implement them. "What
I don't want to do is to have the federal government coming down and telling
all 50 states here is how you are going to fund education, here is what
vouchers are going to look like," he said. "Because
in some states, for example mine, it would be very problematic to create a
statewide voucher system when most of our schools are rural, they're small,
they are miles from another school, the economies of scale simply wouldn't
necessarily make it that easy to implement a widespread voucher system. But if local districts wished to do it, if states wish to
do it, I think that's fine. It goes back to the basic
concept that this is a state's decision."
Conservatives, I suspect, will find some of Huckabee's reservations about vouchers more persuasive than
others. He cites a compelling argument from Christian
school administrators, for example, who told him they fear that "once you
take government money, you take government control." He
once told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, on the other hand, that vouchers
should be off the table in Arkansas until "the public schools are up to
snuff."
In his interview…, however, Huckabee
did offer an alternative route to school choice for parents who don't want to
send their children to public schools. "I think
that we ought to have tax credits for a family whose decision is to put their
children in an alternative environment. And that is
something that I would support," he said. "It's
an empowering method to families."
Huckabee has a
strong record of trying to bring the public schools “up to snuff,” as he calls
it. He said that a voucher program
should not be put in place in Arkansas until the public schools are up to snuff. In fact,
that is never going to happen. Again,
Milt Friedman’s comment: “The public
schools don’t work because socialism doesn’t work.” Huckabee’s comment
is like saying that Cuba should not have a free market until the communist
system there is perfect.
Like most Baptist ministers, Huckabee does not seem to understand that the problem with
the public schools is the public schools.
If the United States had a tax supported church
which competed with their donation supported churches, would these ministers
then support freedom of religion? Would
they want the US to get out of religious education?
I think
so. But somehow
they do not oppose using a Christian’s taxes to support teaching a form of Baalism in the government schools.
Whatever the case, a number
of Christian homeschoolers worked for Huckabee in
Iowa, including getting him a celebrity endorsement from Chuck Norris, a TV
star from years past.
Reading again from the
Seattle Times article:
“For Norris' boost, Huckabee
can thank Brett and Alex Harris, 19-year-old twins and sons of an Oregon
home-school activist named Gregg Harris. They started blogs to promote Huckabee and had
the idea of sending e-mails to prominent conservatives, urging them to get
behind the former Arkansas governor.
One of the e-mails from the Portland pair was read to Norris, who climbed aboard.
The candidate and the actor cut an ad that aired in
Iowa last month, in which Norris explained his support for Huckabee
and Huckabee quoted several of the humorous sayings
about Norris' toughness that have become an Internet phenomenon. Sample: "There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live."
The ad, which began running Nov. 19, drew laughs,
attention and more money. The campaign followed with a
spot that makes a direct appeal to conservative faith, flashing "Christian
Leader" on the screen in large letters.”
“…Huckabee supporters are
debating whether his from-the-ground-up Iowa model can work in the rest of the
country. Last weekend, he attended a rally in South
Carolina sponsored in part by home-schoolers...”
“Home-schoolers organize
in every state," Farris said, "so the ability to build fast networks
in every state is very realistic.”
Michael
Farris is the founder of Home School Legal Defense Association and has
personally endorsed Huckabee. HSLDA is a tax exempt charity which cannot endorse political
candidates, but an individual who works for that organization can. I expect in the
future the liberals will change that and not allow anyone who is at all
associated with such an organization to become involved politically. HSLDA opposed the Arkansas homeschooling law
of 1999, which Huckabee signed and did not oppose,
where Arkansas became the first and only state in the country to change its law
to be more restrictive of homeschooling.
I am not mentioning Huckabee
and homeschoolers to endorse any candidate.
There were homeschool families in Iowa who supported other candidates,
and there are homeschoolers who vigorously oppose Huckabee. The country will change direction only if the
hearts of its people change, not because of a change in politicians. Even a great leader like King Josiah of
Judah, who was willing to
stand against all evil, could not stop the moral slide of the people and the
country’s ultimate destruction. As in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, which
was taken over by homosexuals, the churches are not
changing the culture. The culture is
changing the churches.
I mention this about Iowa to note the activities of
homeschoolers. The liberal lie is that
homeschoolers are withdrawn, reclusive, and un-socialized -- too sheltered to ever participate in normal affairs. The opposite is true. I have seen it in
simple things like 4-H meetings. The
homeschoolers are bold and active, participating and leading. The public school kids usually hold back,
afraid that if they stand up they will get shot down
or made fun of. Over
and over I see homeschool grads starting their own businesses, trying
things that most public school kids would not dare. Homeschool students and grads
seek to make the world around them a better place, by working in their churches
and communities, trying to serve God and others.
And that’s what happened in Iowa. This was even mentioned on Meet The Press, a TV news analysis show. Before the caucus a
commentator on Meet The Press said that Huckabee’s
surge was helped by the homeschoolers.
An article in the nationwide newspaper USA Today noted the same thing.
Already the homeschoolers,
still very small in number, are helping determine the president of the United
States. What can they do in the future,
as they grow in number and become more involved?
Since homeschoolers are
such a big factor in Huckabee’s campaign, he needs to
note that and support freedom of education in America.