No Right to Home School
Filed under: Civil Liberties, Education, Parenting, liberalism — marc moore on March 6, 2008 @ 6:17 pm CET
Michelle Malkin has this story about a California court that has issued an outrageously harsh - and grotesquely incorrect - indictment against the practice of home-schooling.
From the LA Times:
“Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey
in a Feb. 28 opinion signed by the two other members of the district court. “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.”
“Parent education and counseling”?? Sounds suspiciously like a force-fed indoctrination into the state’s vision of PC multiculturalism. Suppose a parent refuses to attend. Is he or she looking at jail time as a result?
That’s unconstitutional, Judge Croskey, as is the very idea of penalizing parent for refusing to participate in a system that they find morally repugnant.
As Michelle says, there’s a rank smell about this ruling, coming as it does on the heels of a Christian rebellion in the state over SB 777, a new law signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger.
SB 777, or the California Student Civil Rights Act, requires “nondiscrimination” against sexual orientation, as well as other characteristics. Opponents take that to mean favorable teaching about homosexuality, bisexuality, gender identity and any and every other form of sexual expression for which there is an advocate.
…
It isn’t just the sexual re-programming. That’s symbolic of a larger problem. The government schools want to shape a child’s mind in ways that reflect a mostly liberal, humanistic worldview. This has implications for a child’s understanding of economics, foreign policy, American history and the size and purpose of government, in addition to what once were known as “traditional values.”
This month the jack-booted thugs of liberalism came for civil rights in California.
For all their hot-headed, anti-Bush rhetoric decrying the loss of freedoms due to the administration’s expansion of national security surveillance programs, so-called progressives are all for sweeping limitations on individual liberties when it suits their various agendas.
But we already knew that.
Some California parents will fight back, but here’s a good chance that no one in power will do anything to stop the curtailment of personal freedom in that state.
The question is: When the liberal fascists come to your state or country, what will you do?
1 C Stanley
March 6, 2008 @ 6:31 pm CETAmazing that some liberals can find in the Constitution the right to abort one’s offspring, but not the right to educate them if one decides not to abort.
2 Kevin H
March 6, 2008 @ 7:11 pm CETEqually odd that conservatives can rail about the right to abort being nowhere explicitly in the constitution, but imagine the law requiring children to be taught by credentialed teachers just doesn’t apply to them!
People are funny.
3 Claudia
March 6, 2008 @ 7:21 pm CETInteresting, San Francisco, liberal stronghold, has a vibrant homeschooling community. And many of them have nothing to do with religion. I homeschooled briefly, before migrating to Spain. I did so not out of fear of my parents of indoctrination, but because the education system was awful, and my parents thought (with a lot of encouragement from me) that I could as easily learn those subjects at home.
I’ll never forget the hostility I received from the school district as I said I was going to home-school and that I wanted to know the obligatory material and evaluation process. They didn’t even want to consider the prospect of me not going to the lousy high school I was enrolled in, and it was only because I was informed by other homeschoolers that I couldn’t be forced back to school that I resisted their refusals.
I understand the insecurity of people who feel that homeschooling risks the child-socialization process and exposes children to the risk of being indoctrinated into extremism (keep in mind it’s not just Christians, extremist Muslims could do this and teach their boys to be martyrs and their girls nothing at all). I think there MUST be a monitoring and evaluation system that regularly checks up on children and ensures that they are healthy, both physically and mentally, and progressing at least at the level in accordance to their grade.
4 Jason
March 6, 2008 @ 7:22 pm CETI would have a lot more sympathy for the "credentialed teachers" idea if not for the fact that teacher credentials often mean nothing. Some "credentialed teachers" know nothing about the subjects they teach and others have been found to be unable even to read at a high school level.
Truth is that "teacher credentials" are often nothing more than a fig leaf for union control of a state-run educational monopoly.
Oh. By the way. Home-schooled children frequently and massively exceed the performance of students from state-run schools. That this is treated by the teachers’ unions and legislators as irrelevant is a clear statement of where their priorities REALLY lie.
5 Jay_C
March 6, 2008 @ 7:25 pm CET"Oh. By the way. Home-schooled children frequently and massively exceed the performance of students from state-run schools. That this is treated by the teachers’ unions and legislators as irrelevant is a clear statement of where their priorities REALLY lie."
Wow, stop the presses…I actually found something that Jason and Ron Paul agree on :)
6 Jason
March 6, 2008 @ 7:29 pm CETEvery system I am aware of puts checks on any such risks. Home-schooled children are frequently enrolled in community activity organizations that provide interaction and socialization. Many states require such parallel enrollments. They aren’t locked up in their homes 24/7. For example, in the debate community where I used to coach, we always saw a healthy contingent of home-schooled children at tournaments with public school students. (Those students performed consistently above average even among the already academically above-average pool of debaters.)
Also, home schooled children are subject to state competency testing just like public school children. It is simply not possible to use home-schooling as a shield behind which a fundamentalist could intentionally withhold education as you suggest.
And anyway, before a court could legitimately find that home-schooling required reform, they would have to find in point of fact that the risks you cite were occurring. Unless that factual record has been established (and I have heard nothing of it), the move by the court to constrain or abolish home schooling is not based on actual deficiencies in the home schools but rather a threat to the state/union-controlled monopoly.
In short, the court action here appears clearly to be in the service of special interests (unions and educational bureaucracies), not students. I challenge the critics of home schooling to dig up FACTS to support their allegations.
7 Claudia
March 6, 2008 @ 7:41 pm CETJason, I think you may have mistaken the tone of my comment. I wasn’t arguing against home schooling, quite the contrary. I wouldn’t have home-schooled if I thought it was a terrible idea. I do think that there has to be a monitoring process but I don’t see why school enrollment should be obligatory. Giving your child an education should be obligatory, but the method should be up to you.
As for standardized tests, yes of course I knew of them, I learned all about them when I left High School. But that actually brings up a topic I think is very worthwhile. The refusal of school districts and governments to acknowledge that home schooling exists and is just another option makes for very poor evaluation systems in some places. The California standard test for high schoolers was, in a word, pathetic. I could have passed it in 6th grade, it was basically reading comprehension and basic math, nothing more. It was literally just two of the three Rs. If home schooling were acknowledged and recognized, much better systems could be set up, with dedicated offices to the effect, in order to make the education of home schoolers better. Maybe other states already have such systems, I don’t know.
8 Jason
March 6, 2008 @ 7:52 pm CETNo, Claudia, it is clear that you are sympathetic to home-schooling. My comments were directed towards its critics, like those running the table in California and the one who posted a snotty and content-free comment early in this thread.
The fact that the standardized tests set such a low bar is evidence of how BAD the state/union monopoly is. That is the most they will accept and even then they often fail to achieve it. The reasons could not be more obvious — a massive array of regulations and limitations on teachers and administrators that blatantly prioritize job protection above effectiveness. And every attempt at reform is met with a well-funded counterattack from the teacher’s unions and their wholly-bought political surrogates.
The one thing that is certain is that the home-schoolers are the only ones without an economic interest in corrupting the system. They receive no state subsidy, no preferential treatment, nothing. Yet, to some, they are the ONLY ones who are treated as suspect in the educational debate.
9 sashal
March 6, 2008 @ 8:31 pm CETI don’t really have to add much to this discussion but to say that I completely agree with Jason.
The only thing I have to add. How come the American judge could have come up with such an insane socialistic decision.
Does "ghost of communism roams" in USA too ?
10 E. Sanchez
March 6, 2008 @ 9:27 pm CETI home schooled my daughter during her kindergarten year. The following year she attended private school, where she tested at 4th grade reading level. My ability as her educator may have had nothing to do with her skills, and certainly there were times when I did encounter difficulties teaching my daughter. However, through the program facilitating her home school, I had access to a trained and certified teacher to help me. Not only was this teacher available via phone and internet, we met frequently to discuss my daughter’s progress. My choice to home school my daughter has to do with safety. When this state can guarantee the safety of my children as they go off to school, perhaps law makers may have of a right to dictate my qualifications.
11 Eric
March 6, 2008 @ 9:47 pm CET"Opponents take that to mean favorable teaching about homosexuality, bisexuality, gender identity and any and every other form of sexual expression for which there is an advocate."
These "opponents" are reading a lot more into the bill than is actually there.
12 Peter Dixon
March 6, 2008 @ 10:29 pm CETAs homeschoolers in California, we are directly affected by this outrageous ruling. Our response is simple, GET OUT OF CALIFORNIA. We have the skills that easily gets us into 6-figure salaries, but I refuse to pay any more taxes to this facist regime. My resume is already out and I’m already working with recruiters in other states where my first amendment rights are respected. So, "HASTA LA VISTA CALIFORNIA"
13 Sunniemom
March 7, 2008 @ 10:25 pm CETWait, Peter- Just take a moment to picture the 160,000+ homeschoolers in CA showing up at their respective but desperately overcrowded public schools. Then add those students in private and charter schools being taught by non-credentialed teachers. Then laugh hysterically.
Judge Croskey is forgetting that he doesn’t have ‘the right’ to grab a cup of coffee and an Egg McMuffin on the way to the office either. Civics 101.