Liberal Judge Susan Crawford’s Husband Promotes Lawfare Against Homeschool Families
For too long education experts have failed Wisconsin students. Too often the political left focuses on advancing a progressive narrative instead of simply teaching the basics. Recently, Wisconsin Gov. (and former education superintendent) Tony Evers proposed replacing mothers with “inseminated persons” in state law. Now, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford is running for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Throughout her career she has proudly advanced progressive causes. So it should come as no surprise that her husband, Shawn F. Peters, wrote a controversial book on homeschooling recommending the removal of parents’ right to homeschool their children in Wisconsin by using novel litigation tactics.
Wisconsin voters deserve to know whether Judge Crawford supports her husband’s extreme views on homeschooling. Should any litigation come before her that advances her husband’s extreme legal claims, will she be able to objectively consider the arguments? According to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction statistics, “home-based” education continues to grow in popularity. While only 966 students were homeschooled during the 1984-85 academic year (0.10 percent), during the 2023-24 academic year almost 30,000 students (3.04 percent) benefited from a homeschool environment.
Book Proposes IQ Tests for Parents
It’s important to understand the arguments advocated by Judge Crawford’s husband. Peters co-wrote Homeschooling: The History & Philosophy Of A Controversial Practice with James G. Dwyer in 2019. Throughout the book, both authors take shots at “religious conservatives” and argue a “large percentage of homeschooling is objectively bad.” They knock homeschooling as instilling misinformation and bad habits and values.
In reality, they should be more concerned about public school outcomes. The most recent national test scores show only 31 percent of Wisconsin students are proficient in reading. Homeschooled students, in repeated studies, typically score at the 65th to 80th percentile on nationally standardized achievement tests, which is 15 to 30 points higher, on average, than public school students, who average in the 50th percentile.
The authors’ solution is to only allow homeschool parents to control their children’s education if they consent to IQ tests to determine if the parents are qualified. In addition, they would require standardized testing and assessments of homeschooled students. They argue governments should enforce serious consequences if children do not make sufficient progress and the “state should revoke the parent’s qualification to homeschool and mandate that the child attend a regular school.” Nearly all public school teachers have government teaching certificates, while only about 10 percent of homeschool parents have ever received any accreditation, yet homeschool students consistently outperform public-school students.
The authors even go so far as to suggest that homeschool parents teach their children to demonize opponents, completely ignoring the many documented examples of viewpoint discrimination that has taken place against conservatives in public school settings. They even absurdly claim “the current regime of nonoversight inflicts particular harm on girls.” This is indeed absurd when one considers the “harm” experienced by biological girls over the last four years as many have been forced to share locker rooms, bathrooms, and athletic fields/courts with biological boys. In one particularly obscene example, 14-year-old girls were forced to share locker room space with an 18-year-old male.
Suing Homeschool Parents
But the most egregious part of the book focuses on the authors’ legal recommendations, including “using litigation to force legislative action.” Suing homeschool parents to force a desired outcome represents lawfare at its worst. They argue “the state’s empowerment of parents to keep their children out of school, with no meaningful effort to ensure that the children still receive an adequate education and are not subject to maltreatment, effectively denies some children important state benefits that other children receive.”
Parents choose homeschooling for any number of reasons, something the authors fail to grasp. Parents choose to homeschool due to dissatisfaction with the academic instruction available in a traditional school setting or the desire to provide faith-based education. Parents can tailor instruction and curriculum to each student’s unique strengths, limitations, interests, and learning styles. Whatever the reasons, parents have a right to choose how to best educate their kids.
As with any segment of society, there will be bad actors. But almost every mom or dad at home is motivated to help their children overcome any learning challenge and wants their kids to excel and thrive. The families we know that homeschool provide loving environments that provide many opportunities for kids to grow and learn — yes, even the girls. Progressives like Judge Crawford’s husband would be better served working to improve failing public schools rather than attacking the home-based education setting relied on by almost 30,000 Wisconsin kids.
Jake Curtis serves as general counsel at the Institute for Reforming Government and Matt Batzel serves as executive director of American Majority. Both are homeschool fathers who reside in Grafton and Cedar Grove, Wisconsin, respectively.
