‘A Homeschooler Against Huckabee’

by SK Johnson 10-23-07

Homeschooling made me what I am today. It opened me up to spectacular opportunities, and I discovered a culture of families and friends that is so refreshingly different than the rest of the world. Unlike the public school culture that I am also familiar with, I have friends that are not afraid to express who they are, who are not afraid to be mature, who are not afraid to develop their talents, who are not afraid to treat each other with respect, not afraid to appreciate each other’s differences, not afraid to bring all of their talents, work, and their entire beings to God. They are a special group of people, and a place where I have found the greatest friends I could ever ask for. I have been truly blessed, and I would not trade my homeschooling experience for anything else, no other school or type of education.
Some friends of mine that are homeschoolers, and homeschoolers nationwide that I have seen speaking out politically are leaning towards supporting Huckabee as their presidential candidate. Furthermore, one of my favorite organizations, the HSLDA (the Home School Legal Defense Organization) has endorsed Huckabee for president. As a homeschooler, why am I running a Duncan Hunter website and not supporting Mike Huckabee?

This required a lot of soul searching on my part. During the 2006 congressional election I was very concerned for homeschool rights at the prospect that democrats (including some specifically anti-homeschool democrats) stood to take leadership in the department of education were the democrats to take the house. Sadly the democrats did take the house, yet the good news is that home-schooling has remained relatively safe from what I can tell. But it was an important issue to me that kept me very engrossed and somewhat involved in the election, even to a point that I was supporting a senator I was not terribly thrilled about, in order to help keep the Republican majority.

So, why am I parting ways with the HSLDA, an organization that does brilliant work for something I see as so important and hold so dear, and actually opposing their position on this election?

There are two main reasons.

The first reason is that as a student I have been taught and raised to believe in many things. My support of home-schooling is a belief that I hold dear that I have developed over the years of my life. Yet I also believe in so many other things. When it comes to my political decisions, I am not a one issue person. I look at the whole candidate, at their entire record and at their entire platform. My personal principles that support my positions on homeschooling and homeschooling rights also dictate my positions on all political subjects. I believe in strong families, a strong America, strong education for everyone, a safe country, and etc… not just a strong educational system. My approach is holistic.

Mike Huckabee does not consistently support other issues that I find important and that I hold to on principle. He has given non-specific answers on immigration that sometimes indicate that he supports at least some form of amnesty and has supported importing foreign workers in the past.  Ann Couler has even said that Mike Huckabee makes George W. Bush look like Tom Tancredo. Huckabee’s stances on healthcare have been unclear and seem to indicate that he may support measures such as smoking bans and food content laws when he states, “We need to move from intervention to prevention in our health-care system.” He has been a staunch supporter of free trade expansion, which I am not always against, but the emphasis on free trade by many current and recent leaders (including Bill Clinton) has put us into some terrible situations, including a China that is close to owning our commerce and movement towards open border policies. I also find it important to realize that Huckabee said on network television that he would not do many things differently than George W. Bush. Don’t get me wrong, I am not an enemy of president Bush and support many things he has done, but there are a lot of things that could have been done much better. He could have done more for the economy, much more for immigration, more to fix the intelligence blunders of the Clinton administration, more to fix the bad trade policies of the Clinton administration, and handled the war differently. If Huckabee is not willing to stand up to those issues, I can not support him, because those issues have gone on too long without anything being done for them in this administration.

I also believe that Governor Huckabee is hiding his less-than-conservative plans. He mentions that he wants to do something about getting off of our foreign oil dependancy. I agree wholeheartedly, and that’s another important issue to me, but I desire a free market approach like Duncan Hunter has proposed. Huckabee has failed to give a plan. He has not outlined a conservative plan for healthcare (unlike Duncan Hunter who wants to open up sales of insurance across state lines to decrease costs); and he has still been unable to give a comprehensive answer to the critics who are confident he is not a fiscal conservative.

The other reason I do not support Huckabee as a homeschooler is that I believe that Huckabee being labeled as a “homeschool savior” is partially unfouded. To be clear, Mike Huckabee has supported several endeavors in his state to help homeschoolers and appointed the first homeschool parent to Arkansas’s board of education. This was a big step for homeschooling (I wonder how long she was on the board however, I have yet to hear anything about that). But oddly enough, not all of his actions and not even all of his words add up. Mike Huckabee has been against school choice and school vouchers and a big supporter of enlarging the educational system.

Yet, what does any of that have to do with support of homeschooling? Isn’t it logical for a supporter of homeschooling to be a supporter of public education as well so that all education can improve? I suppose that makes some sense, but that doesn’t add up to my positions. Let me explain. I believe that an overly enlarged department of education threatens the principles that homeschooling is based upon. As the schools grow, and offer more programs, and get more teachers, the schools become more consuming. Schools are given the right to be parental figures in students’ lives, but when they grow too large they come close to completely toppling the authority of parents. Parents often, in turn, allow themselves to become less involved in their children’s lives. I do not support homeschooling merely because I believe in homeschooling, but because I believe in the principles of strong families with parents in charge of their children’s education. This comes through smaller, choice oriented, school systems. Not more beuracracy, and not more of a growing behemoth that lives to take over children’s lives and take them away from their family’s teachings and values. That is the result of an overly-large public education system. Furthermore, the growth of public education pushes homeschoolers out of the public square. Unfortunately, many who work in public education (not all of them, but a lot of them) are against homeschooling and when the public school systems have more control over a community they restrict homeschooling abilities to be involved in community sports, activities, etc. Not to mention the growing problem of discrimination that the government’s school system commits against homeschoolers by forcing homeschoolers to achieve much higher grades and take more classes in order to graduate or to apply for government scholarship money that other students can have for lesser requirements. When the public education system gets big, homeschoolers become smaller. That is why we need a choice based education system that puts education in the hands of parents, and the educational system will grow around the needs of families like any free market system grows around the needs of the consumers.

So, will Huckabee stand up for what I believe needs to be done for a holistic change to our educational system and comprehensive defense of homeschooling? Not while he says things like “I send my kids to public schools and all other public officials should too” or when he greatly expands federal funding (creating many new taxes in order to do it) to public schools exponentially as he did as governor.

Don’t get me wrong. I hold Huckabee in much higher regard than many of the other current contenders. I like a lot of the things he has said and philosophies he takes on certain issues, particularly on separation of church and state and his explanation of being a Christian in politics. It may surprise you, but even though I have communicated some sharp criticisms of Mike Huckabee he is currently my second favorite candidate. Yet, I can’t throw my hat in with him because of and in spite of the main reason many of my own ‘people’ are supporting him.

This is a homeschooler against Huckabee.

I am a homeschooler for Duncan Hunter. Here are some things Duncan Hunter has done for education (from www.ontheissues.org)

• Make schools community-based with no mandated integration. (Sep 2007)
• Don’t impeach judges for decisions on legislature prayers. (Sep 2007)
• Present scientific facts that support creationism. (Sep 2007)
• Equal funds for abstinence as contraceptive-based education. (Sep 2007)
• Schools forfeit funds if they expose kids to gay propaganda. (Sep 2007)
• Supports vouchers & home schooling. (Sep 2007)
• Voted NO on allowing Courts to decide on “God” in Pledge of Allegiance. (Jul 2006)
• Voted NO on $84 million in grants for Black and Hispanic colleges. (Mar 2006)
• Voted YES on allowing school prayer during the War on Terror. (Nov 2001)
• Voted YES on requiring states to test students. (May 2001)
• Voted YES on allowing vouchers in DC schools. (Aug 1998)
• Voted YES on vouchers for private & parochial schools. (Nov 1997)
• Voted YES on giving federal aid only to schools allowing voluntary prayer. (Mar 1994)
• Rated 17% by the NEA, indicating anti-public education votes. (Dec 2003)
• Supports a Constitutional Amendment for school prayer. (May 1997)

Hunter signed the Contract with America: [As part of the Contract with America, within 100 days we pledge to bring to the House Floor the following bill]:

The Families Reinforcement Act:
Child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption, strengthening rights of parents in their children’s education, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly dependent care tax credit to reinforce the central role of families in American society.

“Regarding educational choice; home schooling; and the freedom of private and home education from federal regulation: I support taking the actions necessary to strengthen our public educational system and school vouchers are a great opportunity to provide students and their families with additional educational choices. A significant percentage of high school students have difficulty reading at a proficient level, test well below the international average in math and science, and lack basic knowledge in history. Clearly, parents have a reason to be concerned. Many Americans support innovative plans that address our current education shortcomings and I believe school vouchers are an effective way of achieving this goal.Taking into consideration that approximately 2 million children are taught at home, it is important that we make every effort to ensure these students have the same access and opportunities to federal benefits, such as financial aid, as those who attend public school.” -Duncan Hunter [Editor's note: Mike Huckabee's support of the public education bureaucracy has only added to the problem of keeping homeschoolers away from federal benefits. He's paying the ones who are hurting homeschoolers]

Sorry Huck, I’m with the Hunter.