Posted on 03/07/2008 6:36:30 PM PST by GVnana
(03-07) 13:37 PST SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised today to ensure that parents have the right to homeschool their children, after a state appeals court ruling severely restricted the practice in California.
"Every California child deserves a quality education and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children," the governor said in a statement. "Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don't protect parents' rights then, as elected officials, we will."
An estimated 166,000 children are homeschooled across the state.
The ruling by the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles said all children ages 6 to 18 must attend public or private school full-time until graduation from high school or be tutored at home by a credentialed teacher.
The Southern California case stemmed from a child welfare dispute involving the children of Phillip and Mary Long of Lynwood (Los Angeles County). The couple's eight children have been home-schooled by Mary Long, who holds no teaching credential. The children were also enrolled in a private school through an independent study program, which included quarterly home visits. Although the case did not involve the question of the children's truancy, the court decision broadly addressed the legality of homeschooling in California while specifically ruling that the Long family's situation violated state law.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
People don't give children enough credit. My son completed a fully-accredited, college-prep, high school curriculum by the age of 16. Kids can get through high school perfectly well on a reading, drilling, doing basis by following a checklist.
It's really a miracle to watch a kid follow their natural love of learning instead of sqandering their youth and enthusiasm in the public warehouses.
I love statements like this, because they manifest the professional educator's worldview that learning only takes place in school. I've found that most (worthwhile) learning takes place anywhere BUT in school.
I learned to hate school while going to school, and I became far too cynical. I have barely recovered from the experience, and I graduated from HS in 1980.
Isn't that the truth.
Perhaps you have a reading comprehension problem.
No. I merely used that as an example of curriculums available for benefit of a poster from Texas.
However, there are state laws on the books about basic curriculum requirements...
Six months later, O'Connell took over as state schools chief and opted for a hands-off approach, directing homeschooling families to the forms required to create a private school and telling local districts that truancy was their issue.
Thanks for posting. I remember this. Heard a radio interview with O'Connell yesterday saying his department had no opposition to home schooling and was not a participant in the case.
In post 9 e-s commented on how this ruling is a few days old. The thread is about Arnold’s comments. It’s not merely another thread in the same topic like I’ve pinged several times already.
“I love statements like this, because they manifest the professional educator’s worldview that learning only takes place in school.”
That isn’t their point at all. The real message is that real learning must be conducted under the auspices of a professionally trained and unionized school teacher. This is the classic union tactic of restricting the supply of labor in order to drive up wages.
What I love is the teacher union mantra that ‘we must increase teacher salaries to attract better teachers’. I have a series of questions when I hear this:
-What will you do with the present inadequate teachers when you get the new and better teachers? After all, if the old teachers are inadequate, why keep them?
The usual response is ‘who said the present teachers are inadequate’? And, the answer is ‘You did when you said you needed to pay more to get better teachers’.
Another response is ‘if we pay them more then they will teach better.’ And, my response is ‘do you mean the ones you have now could be better teachers if they would just try harder and work to their full potential? Do you get rewarded with pay raises when your boss thinks you’re not working to your full potential?’
You can have all sorts of fun with questions like this.
We have homeschooled our seven children. I have a doctorate, but not in anything you are likely to think certifies me as a teacher. Neither my wife or I are “credentialed” in the government's or NEA’ opinion, but we are credentialed by the One who led us to home school and has blessed our children (three grown and away from home; two married -— ALL serving the Lord) with uncountable blessings.
Correct principles trump credentials any day of the school year.
No. I think they have to know where to find the knowledge and encourage the student to do the same.
Furthermore, I think "credentials" are highly overrated.
I have no degree in history, although I am a perpetual student of it. My son was reading college level history and government texts when he was 12 years old (home schooled), and could teach me many things. That boy now speaks and writes Chinese and Mongolian.
There are no known certified geniuses in our blood line that we know about. My wife taught all seven of our children to read by age four using Samuel Blumenfeld’s Alphaphonics course. We kept telling them that if they majored in reading and learned to read fluently and widely when they are young, they could teach themselves anything on which a book is written. They have all believed us, are great readers, and self-starters, self-teaching and self-motivated.
That's what teaching is all about, and parents who understand that, with or without credentials, are far ahead of the NEA, the public schools in general, and that stupid court in L.A.
The credentialed public school teachers in California are not producing self-starters for students. The kids can't read!
“THE FIRST SCHOOL TEACHERS WERE NURSES, I BELIEVE. I WONDER IF THEY HAD THE CORRECT CREDENTIALS?”
Wow, go Arnie!
Who cares? People with functional brains should support his position rather than Bushing him for it.
We’re not going to get any real political reform in California until the public employee’s unions are brought under control.
Just out of curiosity, who appointed the members of this appeals court? Was it Gov. Schwarzenegger?
The real problem is the teacher’s unions. We have the same problem here in alabama.
A few years ago, the local liberal newspaper printed an article on the 2nd most powerful man in the state capital. This man wasn’t the vice-govenor, the secretary of state, or the speaker of the house or the president of the senate. It was the president of the Alabma Teachers Association.
This article explain how this man was accorded a reserved seat in the senate balcony (all other seats were not reserved), how the senate would not go into session unless this man was in his seat, and how he would signal to the memeber of the senate how to vote.
Needless to say, here in alabam we are constantly bombarded with propaganda about how we need to raise taxes to improve the schools by paying higher salaries to get better teachers. That’s why I love my series of questions. They totally confound those who want to raise taxes to increase teacher’s salaries.
Isn’t this lady one of those he terminated decades ago?
Right, because it plain for anyone to see what a superior job the army of "credentialed" teaches in the government schools are doing.
And those boorish home schoolers, winning spelling bee's and geography bee's and such. HA! What, do they think "teaching" is about reading and writing and useless crap like that? Get serious people. It's about creating good little worker bees to labor for the glory of the greater good.
How are we going to accomplish that with people who haven't been to government approved "education collages" to get their indoctri...ah teaching credentials.
Ignorant rubes.
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