Thanks to Edi for pointing me to Parade Magazine’s June 1st Intelligence Report. It contains a few paragraphs about homeschooling, including an attention getting quote from Richard Kahlenberg, author and Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation. He says the recent California court decision requiring teaching credentials for homeschooling parents “pits those who believe parental rights are paramount against those who place a premium on well-educated citizens.”
Kahlenberg’s quote, at first glance, appears to demonstrate the false dilemma fallacy. The quote assumes that people who value parental rights are necessarily opposed to people who value well-educated citizens. As worded, there are no other options than the mutual exclusivity of parental rights and education. One of the two must subject itself to the other. The realm of the impossible includes a parental rights advocates who simultaneously favors well-educated citizens, and a person who is a parental rights advocate precisely because they are well-educated.
This quote comes from a man with significant credentials. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and cum laude from Harvard Law School. He has published several books, including some about education, which have been praised by Slate, Harvard Educational Review, the New York Times, and so on. He’s a think tank fellow and legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator. I find it implausible that he would be oblivious to basic logical arguments, unaware of sound philosophy relating to parental rights, or uninformed about the above average performance of home-educated people.
Absent other data, I might think he misspoke, but a quick review of his work reveals the truth about Kahlenberg’s bias: government is best. His statement, though fallacious in reality, simply demonstrates his fantastic faith, not his flawed sense of logic. His religion lies in the supremacy of government and its wisdom for all of mankind, especially parents and children. He believes government is god and that a good education must include the adoption of that view.
To Kahlenberg, it’s obvious that parental rights advocates are necessarily opposed to well-educated citizens because well educated citizens know that government has all the rights and parents are allowed theirs only at the pleasure of the government. Kahlenberg believes you can’t be well educated and favor parental rights at the same time. It is this definition of education that allows us to see the truth.
Kahlenberg’s quote isn’t a mistake, and it isn’t logical fallacy. It is rhetorical jihad against parents who choose not to indoctrinate their children with government-is-god propaganda.
V-