Homeschooling and Parental Rights Under Attack in California

The Acton Institute reported today, March 12, 2008, that the Appellate court in California has ruled against homeschooling in that state ignoring research that shows that not only is homeschooling as good as public schooling but actually gets better outcomes. Here is a brief snippet of the article on the Acton web site:

Declaring that “parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” the Second District Court of Appeal for the state of California recently issued a ruling that effectively bans families from homeschooling their children and threatens parents with criminal penalties for daring to do so. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association (HDSLA) this court decision has made “almost all forms of homeschooling in California” a violation of state law. Once again our judicial system moves to restrict religious and personal liberties, severely limit parental rights, and significantly increase the power, scope, and control of the state over our lives.

There are approximately 166,000 homeschooled children in California. With the stroke of a pen the appellate court criminalized the lawful educational choices of tens of thousands of innocent families across the state, subjected them to possible fines, and labeled their children as potential truants. This activist court chose to bypass the will of the people and legislated from the bench based on anecdotal evidence and its own clearly biased and subjective opinions about the constitutionality of parental rights and the quality of a homeschooled education. This decision attacks the freedom of parents to decide on the best educational environment for their children, restricts their religious rights to practice their faith without governmental interference, and violates their freedom to raise their offspring as they see fit without the ideological pollution and atheistic/leftist indoctrination so prevalent in our public school system.

As a parent who homeschooled his children from 1985 - 1993 and as a grandparent who has four grandchildren being homeschooled, I am distressed and alarmed at this move on the part of the appeals court in California. People who truly value freedom and democracy should fight against this move on the part of the government to force our children into government schooling.

Link: Homeschooling and Parental Rights Under Attack in California - The Acton Institute.