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March 06, 2008
Tremors Hit California Homeschoolers
If anyone is inclined to doubt that the rights of families and the power of the states will increasingly clash, or that what type of judges are appointed to our courts isn't important, this news from California should make him rethink matters. Homeschooling families are rightly alarmed. You just know that in many backrooms and behind closed doors certain officials of the state have for years complained about those darn homeschoolers and how they've managed to shield their children from the power of state educators.
This is not to dismiss public school education (several of my children have public school educations, as do I), but I will say that if I were forced for some reason to leave a first-grader in the custody of a classroom full of k-12 students and I had the choice of leaving him with homeschooled students or in public school, you know where I'd take my chances.
Posted by James M. Kushiner at 03:24 PM | Permalink
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Everything within the State, everything for the State, nothing outside the State.
Where might the Governator have heard that one before?
Posted by: labrialumn | Mar 6, 2008 4:15:12 PM
Everything within the State, everything for the State, nothing outside the State.
Where might the Governator have heard that one before?
Posted by: labrialumn | Mar 6, 2008 4:15:58 PM
It's important to note the glee of the teacher's union in this article. One reason it's so hard to be credentialed in California is the power of the union. CTA wants to be the gate-keeper for everything your kids are taught before college. It's a closed-shop at its worst.
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 6, 2008 5:14:51 PM
Here's the full text of the court's opinion: http://www.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0208%2FB192878
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 6, 2008 5:48:19 PM
Something still tells me that Mike Farris and HSLDA are going to eat this case for breakfast . . .
Posted by: maggie | Mar 6, 2008 5:52:16 PM
My favorite quote, regarding credentials:
“What’s best for a child is to be taught by a credentialed teacher.”
Posted by: jquinby | Mar 6, 2008 7:37:56 PM
Not everyone thinks this is a complete loss for CA homeschoolers. From the Ace of Spades blog (caution: posts other than this may have salty language).
The short version: The LA Times got it wrong in the first sentence of their article. Parents without teaching credentials can still educate their children at home under the various exemptions to mandatory public school enrollment provided in § 48220 et seq. of the Cal. Ed. Code. The parents in this case lost because they claimed that the students were enrolled in a charter school and that with minimal supervision from the school, the children were free to skip classes so the mother could teach them at home. There is no basis in law for that argument. If only the parents had attempted to homeschool their kids in one of the statutorily prescribed methods, they would have prevailed.
Posted by: Occasus | Mar 6, 2008 11:44:22 PM
Go here and sign this petition to help this family!
https://www2.hslda.org/Registrations/DepublishingCaliforniaCourtDecision/?RedirectCompleted=true
Posted by: chris | Mar 7, 2008 11:54:44 AM
"Parents without teaching credentials can still educate their children at home under the various exemptions to mandatory public school enrollment provided in § 48220 et seq. of the Cal. Ed. Code."
This is discussed in the text of the decision at page 6. In fact under Section 48220 et seq. of the CEC, exemption from attendance at public schools is allowed only in two cases: if the child is enrolled in a qualified private school, or if the child is taught at home by a credentialed teacher. The fact of the matter is that the state has been somewhat lax in enforcing these provisions to date. But there are forces at work here that seek stricter enforcement of the law.
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 7, 2008 12:44:21 PM
Is it time for all Christians with children to evacuate California?
The new brown shirts (with the same sexual perversion as the old brown shirts) thumb their noses at God forgetting that they live on a major strike-slip fault, and volcanically active region (Mono Lake, the Three Sisters)
Posted by: labrialumn | Mar 7, 2008 4:30:33 PM
This ruling is not a threat to homeschooling or private schools. It is a clearly a case of possibly abusive, under-educated parents keeping their children from those who would detect the poor condition of the children, as clearly identified in the beginning of the court opinion. True, this might at some time be used as fodder against non-public education. But in this particular case, it was simply abuse of the home-schooling exception. In this case, there needed to be intervention in the situation for the health and development of the children, as an objectively necessary step for the sake of the children of an abusive home. In this way, parents' rights are not paramount. They must not endanger their children (although this might be the keyword in the real struggle over home-schooling).
But to sound the alarm of nationwide (or even statewide) panic for the future of home-schooling because of this particular situation is crying "wolf" unnecessarily, at least prematurely. And to march off to war with this family as the "poster-child" would only prove the need (from the State's perspective) for stricter guidelines, since it really just provides an example of what can go wrong with home-schooling.
No my friends, home-school to your hearts' content. Bring your children up in God's Laws, without the message that homo-sexuality is ok, that extra-marital sex is normal, and with Christian Church-borne morality.
"God bless the whole world, no exceptions."
Posted by: Steve K | Mar 7, 2008 6:44:24 PM
We lawyers have an old adage: "Hard cases make bad law." That may be the case here. But the focus of the case is on home schooling, not parental abuse (which may of course go on completely outside the context of schooling, at home or elsewhere). Don't be too surprised, then, to learn that more and more activities in connection with home schooling wind up being characterized by the authorities as "abuse."
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 7, 2008 7:00:30 PM
There was a happily fair-minded story on this on NPR News this evening. They actually let some homeschoolers talk! And they used the term "chilling"! Also--though this is likely colored by my point of view--the head of the teachers' union came off sounding like a real doofus.
Steve K., you're right that it's not a threat to private schools, but as Bill R. said, it seems likely to have consequences outside this particular case's scope for homeschoolers. Historically, there's a developed pattern for unreasonable homeschooling restriction being pushed under the aegis of preventing child abuse. That doesn't mean that some regulations aren't necessary for that very purpose; some certainly are. However, it seems that abuse prevention is the regularly the stick used to beat homeschooling in general. Witness the recent goings-on in Germany.
And if teachers' unions really cared about preventing child abuse, the best thing they could do is disband themselves.
Posted by: Ethan C. | Mar 7, 2008 8:11:00 PM
>And if teachers' unions really cared about preventing child abuse, the best thing they could do is disband themselves.
I wish that fit on a bumper sticker...
Posted by: David Gray | Mar 7, 2008 8:16:31 PM
I'm a little puzzled why the kids lawyer turned abuse into a home-schooling issue. Did the abuse charges fall flat? If so this smacks of legal gimmickry.
As I live in California this is of interest to me. My own daughter (I started posting here almost two years ago now as I compare children's ages!) will have to enter school in two years if this snow balls. I was hoping to handle most of elementary school at home. This might move me to pick up a teaching cert in the process.
BTW, I was going to link to the old CBEST test samples (the test for the cert) but its Java based now and appears to be broken. It is laughably bad and borders on "what is 2 + 2" style questions. I had looked at in the past in the hope of getting a cert as a retirement plan if programming ever started to bore me.
Posted by: Nick | Mar 7, 2008 9:00:06 PM
I wish that fit on a bumper sticker
How's this?
Prevent Child Abuse
Destroy the Teachers Union
Posted by: Christopher Hathaway | Mar 9, 2008 4:47:34 PM
I wish that fit on a bumper sticker
How's this?
Prevent Child Abuse
Destroy the Teachers Union
Posted by: Christopher Hathaway | Mar 9, 2008 4:47:55 PM
Home schooling is illegal in California. Most home schoolers are Christians and all they know to do is fearmonger. Just look at this as an example!
http://www.cftie.org/2007/12/sb-777-will-per.html
Posted by: Larry | Mar 9, 2008 11:04:07 PM
Home schooling is illegal in California. Most home schoolers are Christians and all they know to do is fearmonger. Just look at this as an example!
http://www.cftie.org/2007/12/sb-777-will-per.html
Posted by: Larry | Mar 9, 2008 11:04:25 PM
>>This ruling is not a threat to homeschooling or private schools. It is a clearly a case of possibly abusive, under-educated parents keeping their children from those who would detect the poor condition of the children, as clearly identified in the beginning of the court opinion. <<
As a homeschooler, I'm glad that the whole thing seems to be a storm in a teacup. The usual way around the "private school or credentialed teacher" requirement for homeschoolers in CA is to file an affidavit designating the home as a "private school" with a parent as teacher. Private school teachers do not have to be credentialed. This method has withstood previous legal scrutiny. CA has fairly relaxed homeschooling requirements on the whole and, unlike Colorado for example, does not mandate standardized testing of homeschooled students.
Posted by: Francesca | Mar 10, 2008 9:23:07 AM
The California Second District Court of Appeal seems to be willing to reconsider this terrible decision:
http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000006947.cfm]
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 27, 2008 4:52:36 PM
Delete the closing bracket from the link, above. Sorry!
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 27, 2008 4:55:02 PM
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