Homeschool News & Views

Issue 61, March 9, 2008

From Homeschool Helpers

In association with Pass It On Ministries

By Dan L. White

Listen to this article.

As has often happened recently, homeschooling has been in the news.

This time it wasn’t Huck’s army of homeschoolers who were making news. It was some of Hillary’s judges.

A California appeals court ruled that parents have to send their children to full time public or private schools, or if they are taught at home, the private tutor has to have credentials from the California education authorities.

This ruling will end homeschooling in California, if it stands. Homeschooling parents do not have the time or resources to go to college or back to college and get an education degree to be credentialed. Furthermore, homeschool parents are trying to escape the public education bureaucracy, not become an integral, credentialed part of it.

The court ruled by a 3 – 0 margin that the family in question is breaking the law by homeschooling. California does not really have a good law allowing homeschooling, so many homeschool families there operate as a satellite school under an association with a private school. Many families don’t even bother with that formality, just homeschool on their own, and have been left alone to do that. All the above are now technically criminals.

The court ruled that "California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children. Parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the provisions of these laws."

The court said, in quoting from a 1961 case, “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.”

Obviously the court believes that homeschooling does not train children in good citizenship and patriotism.

That’s an ironic twist. Most homeschoolers are conservatives. Public school supporters tend to be liberals. The United States military is staffed overwhelmingly by conservatives. They consider it their duty to support their country in that way. The conservatives volunteer to fight the wars. The liberals volunteer to lead the protests. The court implies that homeschoolers are not patriotic, when it is the liberals who are less patriotic.

The court said that even operating as a satellite school of a private school does not meet state education law. If parents homeschool as they have been doing, they can be prosecuted as criminals.

California Governor Schwarznegger said the judges’ decision “stinks.” Or as an Austrian born German speaker might say it: “schtinks.”

A formal statement by the governor stated: “Every California child deserves a quality education and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don't protect parents' rights then, as elected officials, we will.”

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction said he supported a parent’s right to choose the education for their children, which is a bit of a surprise.

By the end of this week, homeschool families were picketing the offices of the state education department in Sacramento. The Home School Legal Defense Association started an online petition to get the court to limit their ruling to only this one case. As of now, about 150,000 have signed the petition, and HSLDA is getting so much attention that they had to change their internet homepage to handle the traffic. However, most of the protesters are not going to be in California, and liberals don’t tend to care about the will of the people, anyway, unless there is an election involved.

The HSLDA web site says, “A California Court of Appeal recently decided that homeschooling is illegal in California unless a parent is a certified teacher.

The case arose in a confidential juvenile court proceeding. The family was represented by court-appointed attorneys and HSLDA did not become aware of the case until the Court of Appeal case was published on February 28, 2008.

The Court could have restricted its decision to the facts before it, but instead, it issued a broad ruling that effectively outlaws home education in California. The Court also certified its decision for publication, which means that the decision can now be cited as legal authority by all other courts in California.”

Assuming that those judges are intelligent people – not wise, but intelligent – they totally knew what they were doing when they criminalized homeschooling. It is doubtful they will be swayed by a petition from people they consider criminals.

James Dobson of Focus on the Family, a long standing opponent of liberalism, changed his radio program schedule this week to comment on the California judges’ decree. He said, “What has occurred is yet another egregious decision handed down by a California appeals court that strikes at the very heart and soul of families and their children. The court has assaulted parental rights again and this time with a sledgehammer.”

In the past, Dobson has called for judges who act in an imperial manner to be impeached. That call produced no results.

Dobson has previously advised Christian parents in California to get their children out of the public schools. He often has radio programs favorable to homeschooling. Now by judicial decree, homeschooling, a prime means of escaping the public schools, is illegal in California.

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, regretted that the courts under the US system wound up with so much power. That was not his intention. It took about a century and a half for that to really have an effect, but now the judges have radically changed the whole country, and are radically altering it.

Some people say that this particular family had it coming, and that they were deficient as parents and educators. The court then used this case, which wasn’t originally about homeschooling at all, to set the basis for outlawing all teaching in California that is not done by state credentialed teachers. The court reasoned that these kids have to get into a real school, where they can get a good education.

What a sham.

In 2005, California tests indicated that 47% of their fourth grader government school students were proficient in reading. That means that more than half of their fourth graders were not judged proficient in reading.

Can you let that sink in?

The state education people said that more than half of their fourth graders were not proficient in reading, by their own flimsy test standards.

Furthermore, the federal test standards said that only 21% of California fourth graders were proficient in reading. Only about 1 in 5 public school students can read as they should. 4 out of 5 can’t.

In math, in 2005 California said that 50% of their fourth graders were proficient. The federal test said that only 29% were. Please don’t tell these stats to any California public school students. You’ll only confuse them.

Where is the uproar? Where are the lawsuits? Why doesn’t a judge do something?

If you had a homeschool family who only had one child out of five who could read at the expected grade level, there would be such a self righteous uproar. Take those children away from that family! Put them in a public school where they can get a good education!

Yet the whole California public school system is like that.

This information comes from the Policy Analysis for California Education. In spite of the No Child Left Behind Act and greatly increased funding and attention, California public schools have not really improved in the last 5 years.

The judges’ ruling criminalizing homeschooling was praised by the state's largest teachers union. One of their leaders said, “We’re happy. We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers.”

So the left wing teachers’ union is happy. More students will be captured by them, at great expense to the taxpayers.

This also brings to mind an election held a few years ago in California to strip the government schools of their monopoly status. Christians who supported private education joined with public school liberals to defeat that referendum. Their reasoning was that if government funding was diverted from the public schools, then the government would try to control all education. Well, guess what? They’re trying to control it, anyway.