Thursday, March 27, 2008
Home schooling in jeopardy
Linda Whitlock
Recent columns
- Seeing racism where it's not
- Sanford could still be a hero
- Skeptics or traitors?
- School freedom is elusive
From the RoundTable blog
A February decision of a California appeals court rocked home schoolers in that state and put home schoolers throughout the nation on notice.
In a child welfare case, a juvenile court refused to order the parents in question to send their children to a public or private school. As justification, the court cited the parents' constitutional right to home school their children. The appeals court was asked to decide only if "the trial court's refusal ... was an abuse of discretion." It concluded instead that parents have no constitutional right to home school their kids at all.
Based on its interpretation of the California compulsory education law, the appeals court further concluded that all school-age children must attend either a public or private full-time day school or be taught by a state-credentialed tutor. Since few home schoolers hold state teaching credentials, the court's decision effectively outlaws home schooling, at least within the court's jurisdiction.
The court's interpretation of the law didn't faze Jack O'Connell, California's superintendent of public instruction. "California Department of Education policy will not change in any way as a result of this ruling," O'Connell said in a statement issued March 11. "Parents still have the right to home school in our state."
Even before O'Connell issued his statement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger blasted the court's decision. "This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts," Schwarzenegger declared, "and if the courts don't protect parents' rights, then, as elected officials, we will."
Forgive California home schoolers if they don't feel reassured. The appeals court ruling applies only in California. But if it survives an appeal to the California Supreme Court (and possibly, the U.S. Supreme Court), you can bet it won't be long before other states are pressured into reconsidering their home schooling laws.
Many public educators still harbor a deep distrust of home schoolers, if for no other reason because home education, even more than private education, threatens the hegemony of the education establishment.
"Throughout the 20th century," writes Diane Ravitch in "Left Back," her excellent book on the history of education reform, "progressives claimed ... schools had the power and responsibility to reconstruct society." Following John Dewey's lead, they considered shaping the moral and social values of students of greater significance than imparting knowledge.
Twenty-first century educators haven't abandoned that goal. The intense push to influence student attitudes toward sexual behavior, particularly homosexuality, is just one example of their continued efforts to create societal change through the schools. That the attitudes and values promoted by educators are often at odds with the values of parents is no deterrence.
Since home education subverts the utopian ambitions of public education, the teachers' unions and state departments of education would be only too happy to have a legal precedent for reining in home schoolers.
The courts seem willing to oblige.
Last year, a federal district court in Massachusetts ruled parents have no constitutional right to opt their kids out of a public school curriculum that violates their religious or moral values. In January, a federal appeals panel dismissed an appeal, so, for now, the ruling stands.
Both the California and the Massachusetts rulings speak to parents' constitutional rights. If the rulings aren't overturned, the two decisions together could establish precedents that would put home schooling parents in a Catch-22. The one would force many parents to send their kids back to public schools. The other would then ensure they have no say over what their kids are taught. If you don't home school, these two decisions may not worry you. But they should. In a free society, parents have a fundamental right to educate their children according to their own beliefs and values. If we cede that right to the state, not only will we lose our children, ultimately we'll lose our free society, as well.
Whitlock, a Roanoke Times columnist, is an adjunct English professor who lives in Salem.
