Frank Meyer, Elsie Meyer and the Quest for School Choice

As Daniel Flynn shows in The Man Who Invented Conservatism, the unlikely life of Frank Meyer offers insight into the Communist Party, the founding of National Review, and what Meyer called “fusionism.” For readers of all persuasions, the “Homeschool” chapter could prove the most significant.

“Perhaps no other issue,” Flynn notes, “even Communism, ignited Meyer as education did.” Meyer decried the “totalitarian implications” of  government education and found it rife with “gobbledygook.” The teachers “no longer studied the subjects they taught and presented themselves as partners facilitating learning rather than classroom authorities transmitting established methods and truth.” (RELATED: The Organizer of Victory: Frank S. Meyer)

Frank and Elsie Meyer paid taxes to support the system, but “could not entrust the cultivation of the most precious fruits of their union to the state.” So after kindergarten, they homeschooled their children, John and Eugene. With her background in literature at Radcliffe, Elsie taught English and geography. Frank taught algebra, and the couple brought in tutors for French, science, and so forth.

The children did well in their Woodstock home, but as Flynn notes, the state of New York “did not always tolerate” the arrangement. A “flustered social worker” told Elsie she had not received permission to keep her children home. She responded with a “libertarian roar.”

“You need my permission to do anything with my children,” Elsie told the social worker. “I don’t need yours.” Elsie was right about that, but “other authorities looked askance upon the unusual arrangement beyond grade school and into college.”

John averaged above 700 on college boards, but Princeton sought to have John interviewed by a psychiatrist. Princeton eventually relented but “made further requests that Frank found onerous and unnecessary.” Just so parents know, homeschooled John Meyer became an attorney, a kind of “fifth columnist” for Frank inside the federal leviathan. Homeschooled Eugene Meyer helped found the influential Federalist Society, and in time became its president.

Frank Meyer passed away in 1972, and in 1983, the A Nation at Risk report contended that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.” If the 1950s offered “gobbledygook,” readers have to wonder what Frank would say about the “junkthought” now forced on children and, in some states, hidden from their parents.

Long before the lockdowns of the COVID pandemic, many parents discovered the advantages of homeschooling. But as with the Meyers, their tax dollars continue to support the government monopoly system, in which money must trickle down through layers of bureaucracy before reaching the classroom. (RELATED: For Too Many in Education, Charlie Kirk’s Assassin Is Exactly the Type of Person They Are Trying to Create)

The government and the teacher cartels believe they have a right to perpetuate this failed system for all time. They don’t, but at some point, parents’ right to choice seems to have been cancelled.

Congress should tap the insight of Frank Meyer and deconstruct government monopoly education, a vast collective farm of mediocrity and failure. With the fervor of Elsie Meyer, parents should demand a system in which the dollars follow the scholars, a GI Bill for K-12 students. (RELATED: Linda McMahon Body-Slams Woke Classrooms)

Parents don’t need the state to tell them what’s best for their children. Putting parents in charge will help restore the nation’s fortunes moving forward.

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Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.