Home schooling unlawful, says California court
Allie Martin and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow - 3/6/2008 10:20:00 AM
A three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeal has determined parents in that state have no legal right to home school. A Christian attorney in Sacramento says unless the ruling is reversed, literally thousands of students in the Golden State will be subject to criminal sanctions. [Webcast Link]
California Justice H. Walter Croskey has stated in an opinion that “parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program.” The opinion was issued in the case of one family who enrolled their daughter in Sunland Christian School, a private home-schooling program based in Sylmar.
The ruling reverses an earlier opinion from a Superior Court that found that “parents have a constitutional right to school their children in their own home.” But in his reversal, Croskey refers to the “ruse of enrolling [children] in a private school and then letting them stay home and be taught by a non-credentialed parent.”
I’m British (aka Limey) so this isn’t of any real concern to me (except that many US developments “hit” us a few years down the line ... thanks for creationism BTW guys ) but my view generally is that formal schooling (with other children in the region) is a good thing as it tends to broaden perspectives, that home schooling should be allowed but as a last resort (perhaps mandated by a court or similar).
Yes, home schooling is an interesting and controversial phenomenon here. Some parents use it simply because the schools available are terrible quality or unsafe, but the vast majority do so to avoid ideological contamination of their kids, usually because of their extreme religious or political ideologies. I personally feel parents are rarely qualified to teach kids above about the middle grades and that it does a social and intellectual diservice to the children, but I’m not entirely convinced outlawing it is right either. In any case, given the popularity of the idea and the widespread suspicion of government here, I’d be surprised if the decision stands.
Agreed, Kyu. From the little I’ve read on home schooling, it’s almost entirely done by religious extremists of one form or another who want to keep their children from any hint of a secularist upbringing, but who either don’t agree with any of the mainline religious schools in their area or don’t want to pay for them. I also don’t think that it’s healthy for kids to be isolated from their peers during their early years. Part of any education simply has to be learning about differences of opinion, and one does not do that if one is kept away from schools, radio and TV, as many of these families are reputed to do. It’s not psychologically healthy and it’s certainly not socially or politically advisable. There may be isolated cases in which everything is great and it’s the right decision, but it should not be allowed under any and every circumstance.
Agreed with Brennen as well that the decision will be overturned, however.
First, the reach of the decision may not be as clear-cut as it has been presented either in the news or by the unnamed Christian legal source.
Second, homeschoolers have addressed the concern of isolating kids from their peers by networking with other homeschoolers (homeschooled kids get together in groups for various learning activities).
The homeschooled kids I know have excelled in college and on standardized tests, and I would argue that isolating kids from their parents will only rarely be more damaging than isolating kids from their peers.
I should add that the homeschooled kids I know also have neighborhood friendships.
Government schools already enjoy a considerable degree of monopolistic positioning. Consider the issue as one touching the freedom of conscience and see if you don’t view the issue with greater sympathy for homeschoolers.
Yes, I also know a homeschooled woman who is quite intelligent and well-adjusted. If it’s done right, and if networking with other homeschoolers is available and acted upon, then (assuming the parents are really up to teaching all the necessary subjects, which is a big assumption) there is nothing obviously wrong with it. The problem is the likelihood of abuse. How regulated are these homeschools? Is there any monitoring of the parents to be sure that the kids are learning all they should be, and as well as they should be? Is there any monitoring to be sure that the kids have access to these homeschool networks, and that they are taking advantage of them?
I should add that the homeschooled kids I know also have neighborhood friendships.
And I’ll add that a homeschooled kid I know (he’s eight) had a panic attack when he saw me smoking a cigarette. He probably thought I was the devil himself.
Yes, I also know a homeschooled woman who is quite intelligent and well-adjusted. If it’s done right, and if networking with other homeschoolers is available and acted upon, then (assuming the parents are really up to teaching all the necessary subjects, which is a big assumption) there is nothing obviously wrong with it. The problem is the likelihood of abuse. How regulated are these homeschools?
I’d be curious first to see statistics regarding a comparison of abuse between public schools and homeschoolers. I see no reason to place homeschoolers immediately on the defensive if public schools do not have a better record.
Is there any monitoring of the parents to be sure that the kids are learning all they should be, and as well as they should be?
You get enough complaints about standardized testing just in the public school realm, don’t you?
Is there any monitoring to be sure that the kids have access to these homeschool networks, and that they are taking advantage of them?
There’s probably just as much monitoring for that as there is for public school monitoring of bullying and social ostracization. Again, it seems unfair to put homeschooling on the defensive given the manifest problems of the public school system.
And I’d still like to see some reflection on the issue of coercion of conscience.
I should add that the homeschooled kids I know also have neighborhood friendships.
And I’ll add that a homeschooled kid I know (he’s eight) had a panic attack when he saw me smoking a cigarette. He probably thought I was the devil himself.
... or maybe he’s just allergic to cigarette smoke.
Maybe. But maybe he has never seen anybody to smoke before. (Actually, that’s exactly what it is, as I later found out from his father.) I don’t really care how parents decide to educate their kids, but the science seems to be clear on the fact that we are who we are due to our genes (about 50%) and the rest we get from our peers (not our parents!). The parents are doing a great disadvantage to their children, as they will one day grow up, and realize that the world, their world, not their parents’, is very different from what they were taught (e.i. people smoking cigarettes; not that smoking is anything admirable).
Maybe. But maybe he has never seen anybody to smoke before. (Actually, that’s exactly what it is, as I later found out from his father.)
Apparently they don’t have a working television in their home.
I don’t really care how parents decide to educate their kids, but the science seems to be clear on the fact that we are who we are due to our genes (about 50%) and the rest we get from our peers (not our parents!). The parents are doing a great disadvantage to their children, as they will one day grow up, and realize that the world, their world, not their parents, is very different from what they were taught (e.i. people smoking cigarettes; not that smoking is anything admirable).
Don’t you think that if cloistered homeschooling were the norm that science would find that parents would predominantly occupy the role of peers in such a study?
Your argument is an implicit application of the naturalistic fallacy, I would say ("great disadvantage").
Maybe. But maybe he has never seen anybody to smoke before. (Actually, that’s exactly what it is, as I later found out from his father.)
Apparently they don’t have a working television in their home.
Bingo! That’s exactly the case. How did you know?
Bryan - 11 March 2008 10:59 AM
Don’t you think that if cloistered homeschooling were the norm that science would find that parents would predominantly occupy the role of peers in such a study?
That’s exactly what these parents are doing: occupying (or at least trying to) the role of the peers. The problem is that parents can’t simply prepare their kids for the future based on their outdated view of what is “in”, as the society is constantly evolving; ABBA is really not hip anymore. The communists tried this in economics with their 5-year plan, and we all know how that ended.
I home-school my daughter in Alaska. We have a local public school, but I choose to keep my daughter home. I make critical thinking an important part of our day. My pre-teen daughter is now learning the fundamentals of logical thinking in preparation for a later formal logic class that she will be taking in a couple of years. Do we do it for reasons of religion? No. I do it because we want to follow a “classical” liberal arts approach, including a study of Latin, history, classic literature, astronomy, etc. We teach the parts of speech (as opposed to the whole language approach used in our local schools) and multiplication tables (no calculators allowed for arithmetic). The social aspect of homeschooling is important to us, but we keep it separate from academics. My daughter is in Girl Scouts and 4-H. She took music lessons in the community for years. She goes to local events. She swims at the high school pool every week with a co-op that consists of people of varying age ranges. One thing that I notice about her (and her home-schooled friends) is that she is more open to varied age-groups than our neighbors. She is more open to differences in gender, race, and development. For 3 years, her main playmate was an autistic boy and she never ridiculed or bullied him. I monitor the bus stop at my house each morning, and I hear the children at it making fun of kids who are different on a daily basis. I’ve had to intercede on behalf of a child that I was accompanying to the bus. I’ve also had to guard the kids against a full grown bull moose this week, but that’s a different topic.
I don’t understand our country’s bias against home-schooling. In our own history, many children were home-schooled with great success. A number of our US presidents were home-schooled. Many important inventors were home-schooled. Every group of people will have those on the fringe: the child abusers, the religious fanatics. My experience with home-schooling families has been such that most or all that I have met have their children’s best interest at heart and are not abusive or repressive.
I’m curious to know: do you think our public schools should exist to protect kids from abusive parents? Do we automatically assume that home schooling families are doing so to isolate or abuse their children? Most news articles that I’ve seen of late are slanted against home schooling for that purpose. I do feel like we are discriminated against in my local community. Our first girl scout troop was through a school and the children were down-right mean to my daughter. I have personally had to deal with more hatred directed at our family due to the fact that we home-school than due to the fact that we’re non-religious.
Incidentally, my daughter hasn’t seen very many people with dark skin. Even in our local public school, there are very few blacks. She has spent much time with Alaska natives, and is actively interested in the local cultures and history. I take care to discuss differences with her and try to find her playmates of varying ethic and religious backgrounds. She’s gone through almost her whole life without knowing any dark skinned people personally, yet the other day she got really mad when we began to discuss the various reasons for the Civil War. She got angry at our country’s early treatment of blacks. She was quite passionate about it. I think that just because you aren’t personally exposed to something (like black skin or cigarette smoking), you can still be educated on it. I don’t expose my daughter to smoking, but we’ve talked about cigarette use and its effects on the body, why her grandparents smoke, etc. Meeting a child that has a panic attack due to seeing a cigarette is a reflection on the parents and not on home-schooling in general.
Perhaps I’m being too wordy. I have a tendency to type too much when I decide to come out of lurkdom.
Under-reporting of child abuse cases in Home School environments is no surprise given that 3rd party intervention is less likely due to the lack of interaction with people outside the home. This is not to say that a public or private school will guarantee that such cases will be revealed to the proper authorities or that once reported that a reasonable conclusion will follow.
It does seem likely to me that abusers would consider a home school environment as a means of covering the abuse.
There is also some question as to whether there is any constitutional right to homeschooling, unless the very same conditions quoted in this case are met, regardless of the outcome of this recent case.
enrollment and attendance in a public full-time day school is required by California law for minor children unless (1) the child is enrolled in a private full-time day school and actually attends that private school, (2) the child is tutored by a person holding a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught, or (3) one of the other few statutory exemptions to compulsory public school attendance (Ed. Code, § 48220 et seq.) applies to the child.
Because the parents in this case have not demonstrated that any of these exemptions apply to their children, we will grant the petition for extraordinary writ.
As for the likelihood that religious content is a motivation of homeschoolers, there is no doubt. Entire industries have been created to address this audience.
Will your daughter know what it feels like to get a D- instead of an F because, even though she didn’t know the answer, she figured out that a nice smile or a humble expression might do the trick? Latin and history are great, but when applying for a new job one might find it helpful help to know how and how much to smile at the right time.
Will your daughter know what it feels like to get a D- instead of an F because, even though she didn’t know the answer, she figured out that a nice smile or a humble expression might do the trick? Latin and history are great, but when applying for a new job one might find it helpful help to know how and how much to smile at the right time.
Hahahahah! Ah, your question made me laugh out loud! I’ve never had the experience of smiling my way out of a bad grade. I was a shy girl and never learned how to manipulate people like that. I’m not sure there’s a way to teach that, and I question the ethics of doing so. 4-H does a great deal of public speaking and debate. Girl Scouts does a great deal of community service. I don’t think that we’re lacking in any critical social skills yet, at least not at the tender age of ten. In middle or high school, she’s probably going to a private prep school and she can learn skills that we lack then.
I think the point I’m trying to make is that diversity is good. What works for one person may not work for another. We enjoy home schooling. We make use of all kinds of resources, including local talent (ie. tutors), individual classes in specific topics, home correspondence materials, online classes, and our own life experience. I don’t remember my own public education as being quite so diverse when I was a kid.
I’m not sure there’s a way to teach that, and I question the ethics of doing so.
Right. There isn’t. That’s why we need to experience it in real life. All of us. Even the shy and moral ones.
Look, Teresa, I don’t know if you’re doing any harm home-schooling your child, but in my opinion she wouldn’t be any worse off if she instead attended a regular school. As long as you and your daughter both enjoy it, that’s all that matters. She is, after all, your child.
) but my view generally is that formal schooling (with other children in the region) is a good thing as it tends to broaden perspectives, that home schooling should be allowed but as a last resort (perhaps mandated by a court or similar).
