Child Advocacy Program of Harvard Law School To Hold Homeschooling Summit: Problems, Politics, and Prospects for Reform

According to the Child Advocacy Program of Harvard Law School’s website, they will convene leaders in education and child welfare policy, legislators and legislative staff, academics, and policy advocates, to discuss child rights in connection with homeschooling in the United States.

The focus will be on problems of educational deprivation and child maltreatment that too often occur under the guise of homeschooling, in a legal environment of minimal or no oversight.

Experts will lead conversations about the available empirical evidence, the current regulatory environment, proposals for legal reform, and strategies for effecting such reform.

There is no registration fee for this event.

This event is private and by invitation-only. 

Closer to the event, proposed reading materials will be sent to attendees. In the meantime, to learn more about homeschooling and child rights see the following:

• Elizabeth Bartholet, Homeschooling: Parent Rights Absolutism vs. Child Rights to Education & Protection, Forthcoming, Arizona Law Review, Vol. 62 No.1 2020.
• James G. Dwyer and Shawn F. Peters, Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice (2019).
• Milton Gaither, Homeschool: An American History (2nd ed., 2017).  
• The Wiley Handbook of Home Education (Milton Gaither ed., 2016).  
  
• Robert Kunzman, Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling (2010).  
• Robert Kunzman and Milton Gaither, Homeschooling: A Comprehensive Survey of the Research, 2 OTHER EDUC.: J. EDUC. ALTERNATIVES 4 (2013).

The schedule will begin the evening of Thursday, June 18, and run through the end of the day Friday, June 19. For the most up-to-date Homeschooling Summit agenda, click here.

This event is sponsored by Harvard Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, in cooperation with the Academy on Violence and Abuse, the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, the Institute for Human Services, the New York Foundling, the William & Mary Bill of Rights Institute, and the Zero Abuse Project.

Speakers

Featured speakers will include:

Attorney John Affeldt (Public Advocates),

Prof. Elizabeth Bartholet (Harvard Law School),

Dr. Rachel Coleman (Coalition for Responsible Home Education),

Prof. James Dwyer (William & Mary School of Law),

Sarah Healy Eagan (Office of the Child Advocate, State of Connecticut),

Samantha Field (Coalition for Responsible Home Education),

Prof. Milton Gaither (Messiah College),

Dr. Barbara Knox (The Children’s Hospital at Providence and Medical Director, Alaska Child Abuse Response and Evaluation Services),

Prof. Robert Kunzman (Indiana University and International Center for Home Education Research),

Carmen Longoria-Green (Coalition for Responsible Home Education),

Dr. Chelsea McCracken (Coalition for Responsible Home Education and Dixie State University),

Prof. Michael Rebell (Columbia University),

Prof. Rob Reich (Stanford University),

Prof. Jeffrey Shulman (Georgetown Law),

Victor Vieth (Zero Abuse Project), and

Prof. Emily Zackin (Johns Hopkins University).

The schedule will begin the evening of Thursday, June 18, and run through the end of the day Friday, June 19.

Related: Harvard Professor Calls For Ban On Homeschooling, Responses Emerge