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I’m a secular homeschool dad. Like most parents, I see the purpose of education as to help give our children the knowledge and skills they need to forge successful lives and to participate fruitfully in our broadly liberal democratic republic. That’s why we teach children reading, math, literature, science, history, and so on.
Many religious parents basically agree with my conception of education. Like me, they view education essentially in secular terms. They might also have their children participate in Protestant Sunday School, Catholic religious education, Hebrew school, Islamic school, Buddhist meditation, or the like, but they don’t see education in the main as having a fundamentally religious purpose.
Some religious parents, though, see education as about teaching their children the tenets of their religion and training their children to be followers of that religion. Even where a religious education overlaps in content with a secular education, the framing and emphasis is on religion. For example, a religious approach might see U.S. territorial expansion as divinely directed “Manifest Destiny.” In some cases, religious instruction outright contradicts key elements of a secular education, such as when religious parents teach their children young-earth Creationism rather than biological evolution.
Some ‘School Choice’ Advocates Want Religious Education
When I attended the January 27 School Choice Week rally at the state capitol, a substantial portion of the scheduled presentations were explicitly religious.
One homeschooled student read Psalm 1 about “the law of the Lord.” Students from a private Christian school recited John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity” (a document also of historical interest). One speaker praised the Elizabeth school district’s efforts to restrict library books, an effort arising largely from religious beliefs. Another speaker is starting a private school “grounded in faith, where children take a stand for God and Country.” Carriers of transgender-related ballot measures promoted by an explicitly religious organization were allowed to set up a table right up front (I don’t know whether the petitioners were formally invited).
The subtext of the rally, if not its explicit message, was that school choice can aid religious instruction.
However, school choice does not necessarily imply a commitment to using tax dollars (directly or indirectly) for religious instruction. Colorado long has had substantial school choice within the public system, which includes traditional neighborhood schools as well as public charter schools. Parents can apply to any public school they want, although admittance to a school outside one’s area depends on available space. Moreover, parents also have the option to homeschool or to send their children to private schools.
One can coherently hold (as I hold) that school choice in many contexts is good but that tax dollars should not subsidize religious instruction. In my view, forcing people to help finance religious instruction against their will violates their rights.
Some conservatives, though use the term “school choice” to imply something like vouchers, and they actively seek to redirect some public funds to religious instruction.
Christian Homeschool Group Promotes Faith-Based Education
The largest, best-organized homeschool group in Colorado is Christian Home Educators of Colorado, an organization that to this day (as of February 2) remains affiliated with a preacher who called for the death penalty for homosexuality, and that on its web site affirms its commitment to young-earth Creationism. To put the point mildly, CHEC does not reflect the beliefs even of many religious homeschoolers, much less of secular homeschoolers.
Interestingly, CHEC opposes “school choice” in the context of providing tax funds for religious instruction. A January 28 blog post from CHEC says, “CHEC and many other state Christian homeschooling organizations highly encourage parents NOT to accept government tax-payer funding for their families’ homeschools. Why? A true saying is, ‘What the government funds, it controls.’ Desiring and accepting government funding for homeschooling can end up limiting your family’s educational freedom to raise and disciple your children as you see fit.”
Strangely, then, on some policy issues I line up with CHEC, even though ideologically we are miles apart. Certainly, I support the rights of parents to provide religious instruction to their children, even though I think that’s a bad idea. (Presenting religion in the context of history, literature, and mythology is a lot different than attempting to indoctrinate children with sectarian religious beliefs. Obviously, parents have no right to abuse or neglect their children.)
CHEC’s Troubling Associations
Although I commend CHEC for not wanting government to finance its ideological commitments, I also fault CHEC for promoting some irresponsible ideas and individuals.
CHEC has announced its “Homeschool Day at the Capitol” event for April 9. The guest speaker is author Alex Newman.
The first red flag should have been that Newman writes for the crackpot conservative sites Epoch Times and WorldNetDaily. The second red flag should have been that Newman saw fit to include a praise quote for his 2024 book, Indoctrinating Our Children To Death: Government Schools’ War on Faith, Family, & Freedom—and How to Stop It, from the conspiracy monger Alex Jones. In 2022, juries found Jones liable for defamation regarding his false claims about the Sandy Hook school murders. Other praise quotes come from Kirk Cameron, Michael Flynn, Pete Hegseth (then of Fox News, now Secretary of War), and Trevor Loudon.
Unsurprisingly, Newman’s book is a conspiracy monger’s fever dream. Here is how Newman opens his Chapter 13, “The Sordid History and Deadly Consequences of ‘Sex Ed’ at School,” following a trigger warning:
“Very few people realize that the reason children today are being sexualized at school is because pedophiles sexually abused hundreds of children, then claimed that the victims enjoyed it. That’s a fact, and the documents prove it.”
Obviously some adults raping children is a real problem, as the “Epstein Files” and the various scandals within the Catholic Church and other organizations show. But here Newman is not claiming only that child rape is a real problem; he is suggesting that schools teach “sex ed” as a consequence of child rape. Obviously Newman does not and cannot provide evidence for any such ridiculous claim.
Newman claims, “In California, a top school district official defended teaching pedophilia to children because it’s one of a number of ‘different types of sexual orientation’ that ‘have existed in history.'” The endnote that Newman provides is to a Youtube video from Newman’s own Liberty Sentinel. On the video, an unidentified woman indeed claims that something, somewhere was taught about pedophilia based on its historical context. There is a grain of truth, then, to Newman’s claim, as there is to all effective conspiracy mongering. And parents reasonably could question the appropriateness of any content about the history of pedophilia in that context.
But Newman does not provide convincing evidence that any public school promoted pedophilia, much less that such is widespread. Newman’s “reporting” even earned its own Snopes critique.
Newman demonizes public schools (about which reasonable criticisms can be leveled) to promote explicitly Christian education. In his afterword, Newman writes, “The Bible offers virtually everything you really need to know about education. … Jesus should be the Lord of every single area of a Christian’s life, very much including everything in the family, work, business, entertainment, child rearing, and education realms. As God makes clear, there is no neutral ground—period. … An education will either be with God or against Him.”
On the same page that CHEC announces Newman as its guest speaker, it encourages homeschoolers to bring signs such as, “Make Homeschooling The New Normal.” It would help if CHEC would make even a minimal effort to distance itself from, rather than openly embrace, distinctly abnormal conspiracy mongers and theocrats.
Thankfully, CHEC’s stance is not typical of homeschoolers. And homeschoolers seeking secular resources easily can find them. Many homeschool parents, like many other parents, advocate and pursue a secular education for their children.
