In an MSNBC opinion column Friday, columnist Anthea Butler warned about homeschooling being a “project” of evangelicals’ “war against public schools,” one that also has “inidious” racist roots. Butler began her piece by mentioning actor Kirk Cameron’s documentary “The Homeschool Awakening” and how it shows that staunch conservatives are planning to launch an assault against public schools.
’Public education has become public enemy No. 1,’ the actor Kirk Cameron opines in a promotion for ‘The Homeschool Awakening,’ his documentary scheduled to hit theaters in June,” she stated, adding, “as Cameron’s quote indicates, this latest project of conservative evangelical education is another salvo in the ongoing evangelical war against public schools.”
“It should come as no surprise that evangelicals, fundamentalists and other religious conservatives have fought against public education since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education,” Butler continued, framing this far-right, Christian “war” against public schools in a racial light.
She asserted, “The prospect of integrated schools led to the creation of many ‘segregation academies,’ private schools designed to keep African American children and undesirable immigrant groups away from white children. But there was another, more insidious way to circumvent integration: homeschooling.”