In a normal circumstance the courts should have no say at whether the parents should home school their children, but in the event of a divorce or a child custody case the courts are called on to determine the best interests of the child regardless of the wishes of the parents.
I suppose that where the father insists on the girl going to public school and the mother insisting on homeschooling her that the judge could order the child cut in half so that one half could go to public school and the other half could be homeschooled, but unfortunately that would have had to have been done at the embryonic stage in order to be successful.
This is not really a freedom of religion issue, this is a selfish parents dispute where the child is a pawn in a divorce proceeding.
If I were the judge and I was convinced that the child was being homeschooled by a bitter wife who had a vendetta against her husband and the husband had requested the child be sent to public school then I don't think I would have ruled differently. While certainly a public school environment is not spiritually friendly, neither is being indoctrinated 24 hours a day by a vengeful mother a very spiritually friendly environment either. The child will eventually grow to hate her father because her mother has taught her to do so, or hate her mother for hating her father.
So without the option of cutting the child in half, the judge had to make a decision that was going to make someone mad. And she did.
Without the whole story, you are making very telling judgments of your own.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2326201/posts
and she is now living with her mother who has been homeschooling the child since first grade. As part of the schooling, the young girl has been attending supplemental public school classes.
The girl is not being indoctrinated 24x7; she is being exposed to the public school environment already.
From the article.
We don't learn a lot, but it seems the mom is manipulating the child against the father who does not share the mom's religious beliefs. We don't know if the father is a Christian as well.
What would we be saying if the mom is Pentecostal and the father is Roman Catholic?
And the child always loses.
At least in this case the father is trying to be a part of the child's life. I've seen posts on this thread suggesting the mom should just pack up and leave with the child. What about the father? Shouldn't the courts be encouraging a relationship between father and daughter?