The Department of Education has entered the homeschooling debate after a liberal podcaster denounced homeschooling as a “crazy Christian problem” and “trickle down stupidity.” Jennifer Welch made the comments on her “I’ve Had It” podcast while responding to a caller describing frustrations with homeschooling. “What I have absolutely had it with is watching some of the stupidest people I went to school with decide they’re qualified to homeschool their children,” said the caller. It also came around the time of the shocking discovery of 16 kids aged 17 months to 18 years, packed into a sing room that was filled with garbage and feces. None of the kids had been enrolled in school and were reported as being homeschooled. This led to numerous op-eds describing the safety pitfalls of homeschooling and how it is used to perpetuate abuse.

“This is MAHA, this is trad wife, this is unvaxxed and unjacked and all that s–t. This is the worst worst worst. And this s–t is, America has a crazy Christian problem. We have a fundamental crazy Christian problem,” responded Welch. “I’m talking about the freaks of the mega church. I’m talking about the ones that have schools that are these crazy indoctrination factories. Hate academies. And then when that hit isn’t strong enough, they go to homeschooling, and I just think it’s a huge problem.”

The comments sparked immediate backlash from the homeschool community and conservatives. “I’m so sick of homeschoolers because they’re ‘weirdos’, they don’t believe that there are 90 different genders … no blue hair, and they actually believe in the Constitution,” said Glenn Beck. The Department of Education posted its own thoughts on X with a clip of Welch. “Homeschoolers, like the winner of the Presidential 1776 Award, have demonstrated their ability to succeed at the highest level time and time again,” the account stated. “The proven value of homeschooling should never be dismissed as ‘trickle-down stupidity.’ The only thing that is stupid is your ignorance.”

Welch has only doubled down on her comments. “The homeschooling that I was referring to is the crazy Christian homeschooling. It is trickle-down stupidity. You have to be dumber than a box of hot rocks to sit down with your kids and teach them that dinosaurs and man lived on the planet at the same time, that the Earth is 5,000 years old, and on and on,” she said. “But more than anything, the reason they’re melting down so much about this is because homeschooling is inherently patriarchal, and it is a huge push of the fascist project because it keeps women at home.” She called homeschooling a form of patriarchy, noting that 90% of the time the homeschooling parent is the mother. “You know they don’t want women to be out in the workforce to make their own money and have independence so they can divorce their piece of s–t, closet-case husbands when they find out. No, they want the women at home, dead-a– broke, homeschooling the kids. This is a patriarchal step of the fascist project.”

Homeschooling has continued to grow across the United States since the pandemic. A 2025 study published in the Peabody Journal of Education found homeschool students consistently score “well above the national average” in reading, language, math, social studies and science. They also do better on standardized tests. At a time when red flags are being raised about America’s growing lack of literacy in public schools, homeschooling offers a more hands-on and personalized approach. “Contrary to Jennifer Welch’s belief that homeschoolers ‘fear critical thinking more than anything on the planet,’ these women’s ignorant comments reflect an inability to practice the very thing they preach. Not once in their respective tirades did they cite any statistical evidence to back up their opinions – a skill they claim homeschoolers like myself are ‘incapable’ of practicing,” noted Meredith Godwin for Focus on the Family. “Welch and Sullivan’s faulty arguments against homeschooling are, as far as I can tell, based entirely on extreme stereotypes and their own harsh feelings, not facts.”