Perhaps a homeschooling family who is in accordance with California law should be the poster-child for this drive. From what I have been able to gather, the LA Times completely blew their analysis in the article where they said that homeschooling had been declared illegal.
Basically, the kids in this family were not registered to homeschool. They were enrolled in a charter school and were failing to attend, staying home for “home teaching” in lieu of going to class. That ran afoul of California homeschooling law.
From what I understand, the judge decided the case correctly. If excess words were thrown in to discourage or otherwise detract from legally homeschooling under California law, the censure is probably the appropriate level of “punishment”. But impeachment for following the actual law in question is a bit over the top, IMO.
***Basically, the kids in this family were not registered to homeschool. They were enrolled in a charter school and were failing to attend, staying home for “home teaching” in lieu of going to class. That ran afoul of California homeschooling law.****
I read that the judge’s decision said that Californians could teach their children ONLY if each one doing so had a teacher’s degree. Is that in addition to your above paragraph?
From what I understand, the judge decided the case correctly. If excess words were thrown in to discourage or otherwise detract from legally homeschooling under California law, the censure is probably the appropriate level of “punishment”. But impeachment for following the actual law in question is a bit over the top, IMO.
You should take a look at the actual ruling. The children were in fact enrolled in a private school - not a charter school. The private school visited the children periodically. This is the only means available under California law for children to be homeschooled unless they are tutored by certified teachers. The court took the rather radical point of view that any private school education had to take place in the school - so, for example, the court not only banned homeschooling under the typical exemption the way it is used by many people, but actually banned the kind of distance education provided by numerous schools, including among others Bill Bennett's K12 and Stanford University's EPGY - a program for gifted kids.
The court stood the Supreme Court precedents on their head, taking a case which stands for the freedom of parents to control the education of their children and citing only the part of it which, as background, indicates that the state government does has some legitimate right to regulate education. They ignored the important part that said "The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations."
Requiring all education to be provided by state certified teachers sounds like "forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only" to me.
This ruling is a classic case of a court going overboard, and should be reversed