Posted on 03/10/2008 4:22:15 AM PDT by Man50D
A ruling by a California appeals court that parents "do not have a constitutional right to home-school their children" drew harsh criticism from religious conservatives on Friday, one of whom said the decision makes tens of thousands of parents into criminals - "the equivalent to drug dealers or pick-pockets."
"The court is guilty of an imperious assault on the rights of parents," James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, said in a press release responding to a three-judge panel from the 2nd District Court of Appeals, which ruled on Feb. 28 that parents without teaching credentials cannot home-school their children.
"How dare these judges have the audacity to label tens of thousands of parents as criminals - the equivalent to drug dealers or pick-pockets - because they want to raise and educate their children according to their deeply held values?" Dobson asked.
At the center of the case is a Southern California couple, Phillip and Mary Long of Lynwood, who home-schooled their children through a program at the Sunland Christian School in Sylmar. The family came to the attention of Los Angeles County social workers when one of the children claimed the father was physically abusive.
The workers then learned that all eight children in the family were home-schooled, and an attorney representing the two youngest children asked the Juvenile Dependency Court to order that they be enrolled in public or private school to protect their well-being.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Get them into “real schools” where they can be “socialized,” not educated, and bullied into being “tolerant” of anything that opposes traditional Judeo-Christian values.
Oh, and while they’re there, make sure they take the “legal” drugs that will curb their anti-social little impulses to think for themselves.
The marxists won this one. You can be sure Massachusetts and New Jersey will be next.
Home school kids score higher on ACT and SAT than public school kids and they win the national spelling bee, too.
Wow, the 2nd circuit judges need too be ousted by WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY! Maybe Bill O’Riley will stir up some public outrage and humiliate these communist brainless wonders, like he does with judges that go easy on child molesters. I wonder if those A$$bags could provide proof that PUBLIC SCHOOLS are not only constitutional but mandatory.
I’ve seen that claim before - do you have a link that shows that?
Before we go off in the direction of defending these parents, shouldn't we first find out in some detail how it happened that this family came to the attention of LA County social workers in the first place?
I am all for a parents right to choose but I would like to know the truth.
But the case before the judges "involved one couple - the ruling should have been confined to that one couple, not used to punish an entire class of people...
From the Ace of Spade Blog:
The outrage over this case is based on a completely manufactured premise. Parents without teaching credentials can still educate their children at home under the various exemptions to mandatory public school enrollment provided in § 48220 et seq. of the Cal. Ed. Code. The parents in this case lost because they claimed that the students were enrolled in a charter school and that with minimal supervision from the school, the children were free to skip classes so the mother could teach them at home. There is no basis in law for that argument. If only the parents had attempted to homeschool their kids in one of the statutorily prescribed methods, they would have prevailed.
The parents in the case can and should be punished for whatever abuse they committed, however, the judge’s ruling, which I have read, finds that there is no right to homeschool in California and will be a dangerous precedent.
Several people who actually homeschool in California have stated on previous threads that this ruling WILL affect them or others they know. Many homeschoolers in CA have used an “umbrella school” structure for years just like this family did. The judge just ruled that inadmissable and his ruling could be used as precedent to further erode homeschoolers’ rights.
The HSLDA is concerned about this ruling, so I am too.
I just want to make sure that we have all of the facts in order to defend these parents(and the right to home schooling for everyone who wants to take on this responsibility) when this terrible decision is challenged. Every FRer should know by now that the standards for us are much higher than for the radical left.
I would like someone like Bill O’Reilly to carry the water on this one since he has a larger audience than FR. This is also a case which should go to the U.S. Supreme Court before Hillary or Obama get their hands on it.
ping
If the gov't does not have an explicit right to force children into its schools (which it does not), then California does not have the Constitutional right to make this ruling.
This ruling is a loser from both directions.
I agree with you,,BUT,,,This judge did NOT confine his remarks ONLY to this family!
Did you read his report. I did. He comments are globally directed at **every** homeschooler in the state!
It doesn't matter what the academic credentials are for homeschooling. That's merely a red herring. If the authorities really cared about achievement, don't you think they would actually be improving the public schools?
They're not doing that, so that means they don't really care. What they *do* care about is indoctrination and getting your children away from the family so they can teach them what they want, and avoid the inconvenience of an educated populace.
That doesn’t matter - they aren’t being indoctrinated into communism and the gay agenda.
“Assault on Family” - that’s the whole freekin’ point of the leftist agenda! I’m surprised anyone is surprised by this.
And, to me, overturning this decision doesn’t make it go away,
as it is expository of the leftist agenda as a whole.
This judge saw this one couple as an opening to punish a whole class of people that are circumventing the leftist agenda.
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