OPINION: Kerry McDonald - Back to School? “No Thanks” Say Millions of New Homeschooling Parents

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 Sunday, July 19, 2020 - 18:03
OPINION: Kerry McDonald - Back to School? “No Thanks” Say Millions of New Homeschooling Parents

Next month marks the beginning of the 2020/2021 academic year in several US states, and pressure is mounting to reopen schools even as the COVID-19 pandemic persists. Florida, for example, is now considered the nation’s No. 1 hot spot for the virus; yet on Monday, the state’s education commissioner issued an executive order mandating that all Florida schools open in August with in-person learning and their full suite of student services.

Many parents are balking at back-to-school, choosing instead to homeschool their children this fall.

Gratefully, this virus seems to be sparing most children, and prominent medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics have urged schools to reopen this fall with in-person learning. For some parents, fear of the virus itself is a primary consideration in delaying a child’s return to school, especially if the child has direct contact with individuals who are most vulnerable to COVID-19’s worst effects.

But for many parents, it’s not the virus they are avoiding by keeping their children home—it’s the response to the virus.

Read more at FEE Daily. 

 

Kerry McDonald, an adjunct scholar at The Cato Institute, and the senior education fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education. is author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Traditional Classroom. She lives with her husband, and four children in Cambridge, Mass