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Homeschooled Kids are Just Fine
Block wrongly judges homeschoolers by the worst examples and ignores serious problems in schools.
by Ari Armstrong, Copyright © 2025
In his December 14 op-ed for the New York Times, Stefan Merrill Block, pitching his new book Homeschooled, paints the entire homeschooling community with a brush dipped in his personal resentments.
The headline for the piece (and I'm not sure whether Block or the newspaper selected it) is, "Home-Schooled Kids Are Not All Right." Obviously this is an absurdly biased headline. The Times would not in a million years publish the headline, "Public-School Kids Are Not All Right," based on some anecdotes of problems in schools. It would not publish the headline, "Muslims Are Not All Right," based on cases of some Muslims committing acts of terrorism, or "Christians Are Not All Right," based on cases of sexual abuse in some churches. But I guess homeschooling parents are acceptable punching bags for the Times.
Block says that his mother, under cover of homeschooling, treated him in ways that I'd call abusive; "She had me crawl whenever I was at home" when he was 12. Obviously such behavior is unacceptable and probably criminal.
Block promotes the organization Coalition for Responsible Home Education, which aims to impose severe restrictions on homeschoolers. Such controls are not needed for government to do its job investigating real cases of abuse and neglect, and they would disrupt healthy homeschooling practices that exist in the overwhelming majority of homeschooling homes.
Block writes, "An online project called 'Homeschooling's Invisible Children' has documented hundreds of heinous cases of children whose neglect and physical and sexual abuse ultimately resulted in their death." As I've pointed out, government already has the authority to investigate suspected cases of abuse and neglect. And my preliminary checks cause me to suspect that in many of the horrific outcomes blamed on homeschooling either don't involve actual, legal homeschooling or are more fundamentally the fault of government agents failing to act on available reports. Regardless, the answer is not to punish the overwhelming majority of responsible homeschool parents because of the crimes of a few. Hopefully in the future I'll have the time to investigate these matters more thoroughly.
I wrote up a short op-ed in reply to Block, then discovered that the New York Times does not accept op-eds in reply, then wrote a 200-word letter on the matter that the Times declined to publish. Following is a version of my op-ed.
Homeschooled Kids are Just Fine
I'm sorry that Stefan Merrill Block's mother mistreated him under cover of homeschooling ("Home-Schooled Kids Are Not All Right," Dec. 14, 2025). But one thing I'll teach my homeschooled son is that it is unfair and inaccurate to extrapolate to a large group based on a small number of anecdotes.
Block presumes that anything that can go wrong with homeschooling will go wrong and, conversely, that alternatives to homeschooling will function perfectly. Both presumptions are false.
Block shared his story; here's mine. As part of a vibrant secular homeschool community in Colorado, I have met dozens of homeschooling families, and generally the children are happy, well-adjusted, and academically on-track.
When my child was ready to enter kindergarten, we toured all the schools in our neighborhood. He wanted to homeschool instead, and I knew my wife and I had the resources to help him with that. Now, at age 10, he has solid math skills (we use the challenging Dimensions Math program from Singapore) and reads at an advanced level, as testing confirms. He also enjoys his once-a-week enrichment program provided by the district (Colorado leans into choice) and his many social events with friends.
The National Home Education Research Institute shows generally positive results.
Meanwhile, many public-school students struggle academically and emotionally; see, for example, New York's results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (or Colorado results) or the NYC Comptroller's Dec. 9 report on the mental-health crisis in schools. Bullying in schools is common, and news occasionally reports sexual assaults by staff.
When I attended public school, I was repeatedly physically assaulted in ninth grade by another student who stabbed me in the kidneys with his pencil (thankfully the eraser end).
Earlier, I had the misfortune of attending elementary school in Muleshoe, Texas, where staff routinely beat children with wooden boards, often behind thin partitions so other students could hear the whacks and the cries of pain.
Later, when I was in high school, a shocking number of students took illegal steroids and other drugs, and bullying and harassment of some students was common.
Recently my home district (Jefferson County) suffered multiple scandals involving alleged sexual assaults by school staff, and the Chief of Schools was investigated for child pornography (he subsequently killed himself). Such problems hardly are unique to my area.
Such anecdotes are not representative of public school, you say? I agree! If my child told me he wanted to attend local school, I'd be happy to send him. Similarly, Block's anecdotes are not representative of homeschooling.
Here is where Block and I agree: Government has a responsibility to protect children from abuse and neglect, and parents have a responsibility to provide their children with a basic education as part of decent care.
Crucially, government already has the authority to investigate suspected cases of neglect and abuse. And all of us have the ability to report suspected cases.
Beyond that, I favor a light regulatory approach. As a homeschool family in Colorado, we have to register with a school district, which may review our records at will and to which we must submit test results or an evaluation every other year, and we have to meet some basic requirements. I'm fine will all that.
Block's heavier-handed approach would harass decent homeschool parents and sometimes discourage homeschooling even when that's the best option for a child.
Block says that, rather than act only on suspected wrongdoing, government agents should instead proactively check on homeschooled kids. Besides misallocating scarce resources, that would be a civil liberties nightmare. Does Block think government also should do this for all children younger than school age, when many more parents unofficially "homeschool" by default? It seems rather that Block wishes to cast homeschoolers uniquely under a net of suspicion. That's discrimination.
It will not do to presume guilty homeschool parents or utopian schools. Homeschooling is a great option for many families, including mine, and parents have the right to pursue it free from onerous controls.