The flames lick at your feet as you back into the corner, fire consuming your room. Just before you give up hope, the door gives way to a firefighter’s axe. He races into the smoky hellscape, throws you across his shoulders, and carries you to safety.
In that moment, do you care where your savior went to high school?
Of course not. You care about strength, skills, and experience — not schooling.
Yet this April, 22-year-old Andrew Coates was rejected by the Fremont Fire Department just because he was homeschooled.
As a volunteer for the Cedar Bluffs Fire Department and a state-licensed EMT, you’d think that Coates would be more than qualified for the job. Jennifer McDuffee, the HR director for Fremont, Nebraska, apparently disagreed.
When she was asked to defend her decision before the Civil Service Commission, McDuffee argued that it’s a “standard understanding” that when someone asks for a high school diploma or GED, they want an accredited diploma.
They later quietly adjusted this job description, suggesting that perhaps it wasn’t as standard of an understanding as they had thought.
Would you send your kids to public school in 2026?
The Commission ultimately refused to overturn McDuffee’s rejection of the aspiring firefighter. This is all the more suspect when you realize that McDuffee was the Commission secretary. She was a part of the same ruling body tasked with reviewing her work.
A strange conflict of interest to be sure, but not nearly as strange as rejecting someone from a job simply because the word “homeschool” is on their diploma.
Homeschoolers generally score 15 to 25 percentile points above the public school average on standardized tests regardless of parental education or household income.
Regarding social and emotional development, 64 percent of studies show homeschool students perform better than those in conventional schools. They are also more politically tolerant than other students.
“I feel the city of Fremont’s really missing out here,” Cedar Bluffs Fire Chief Chris Lichtenberg remarked.
He saw with his own two eyes what the data implies: homeschoolers are very valuable employees.
That is why Lichtenberg firmly concluded that “because of his home schooling, you guys are discriminating against him.”
This is not an isolated error; it’s how the institutions operate.
The system is designed to funnel children into the indoctrination stations we call public schools.
Opponents of educational freedom don’t need to ban homeschooling. They simply need to construct a system of credentialism where homeschoolers are barred from public service, higher education, and other such opportunities.
This, by the way, is how the Left will ban homeschooling.
They won’t draft a piece of legislation that says “homeschooling is illegal” they will just create a world where you can’t get a job or go to college if you are homeschooled.
They will force parents’ hands. https://t.co/76ZJnPKOMw
— Amy Curtis (@RantyAmyCurtis) September 21, 2026
The American education system has been infected with leftist ideology. It labels itself as a neutral ground while censoring traditional views on marriage, creation, and morality, replacing them with critical race theory, Marxism, and secularism.
As soon as you attempt to abandon this institution, however, society begins working against you. In the same way that liberal employers created COVID vaccine pressure, public employers are only rewarding the subjects of taxpayer-funded brainwashing.
By turning public institutions into career gatekeepers, they force parents back into standard educational systems.
This is just another way to discriminate against families who choose not to send their kids to the public indoctrination camps.
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