Homeschooling Is Legal Again in California
Jacob Sullum | August 12, 2008, 6:22pm
Last week a California appeals court reversed a February ruling that said state law permits homeschooling only by credentialed teachers. In the earlier ruling, noted here by Katherine Mangu-Ward, the Court of Appeal for the 2nd Appellate District concluded that the legislature had deliberately removed an exemption for homeschooled children from California's compulsory education law in 1929 and had never reinstated it. The decision alarmed tens of thousands of Californians who thought they had the state's approval in teaching their children at home. In last week's ruling, the court reconsidered, finding that the legislature had implicitly endorsed homeschools by exempting them from various regulatory requirements. "While the Legislature has never acted to expressly supersede" appeals court decisions that said a homeschool did not qualify as a "private full-time day school," the three-judge panel said, "it has acted as though home schooling is, in fact, permitted in California."
Here is a PDF of the ruling, which an attorney representing homeschoolers called "a great victory for homeschool freedom."
tarran | August 12, 2008, 9:38pm | #
MNG,
You probably don't realize this, but the purpose of compulsory state education was not originally intended to provide children with education they needed to be productive citizens. Nor has it ever really served that purpose.
Generally, it has been intended for religious indoctrination.
Here in Massachusetts, the schools were instituted to teach the official state version of Protestantism. In the late 19th century the vast majority of support for the echeme came from people who were fearful of unassimilated immigrants, particularly the Catholics.
Compulsory public schooling is always intended to provide a useful tool for politically powerful elites to indoctrinate the children of the masses in a manner that suits them.
The notion that public schools permit an educated populace which inturn improves the functioning of democracies is about as accurate as George Bush's claim that the violent occupation of Iraq and suppression of private enterprise there was "liberation".
Rather, we can see that the opposite is true, long gone are the days when there would be substantive debates on monetary policy or political theory. Andy why should there be? The vast majority of people, having been fed state approved courses on history believe the now thoroughly debunked myth that unregulated capitalism caused the great depression and that FDR's New Deal followed by World War II rescued us from it. The vast majority of people have been taught the Benthamite rule that the government grants freedoms.
The Bush family, the Roosevelt family, the Taft Family, the Rockefeller family, the Kennedy family et al can sit content. The masses will continue to slave away to keep them in champagne, and to even be grateful for the chains of bondage. All courtesy of compulsory state approved schooling.
Mr. Nice Guy | August 13, 2008, 11:11am | #
"there are limits derivable from natural law"
Well, I think natural law is nonsense for that matter.
But let's assume its existence for a second: what about the natural right of the kid to not have decisions made for him by his parent that will negatively impact him for the rest of his life? I'll hope that you don't think the kid "belongs" to the parent like an article of property, few think that these days. If a parent makes the decisions for a child "in trust" as described above, then why not have society step in when the trustee is doing an unreasonable job in fulfilling his duties? We do it with trusts all the time. That's all that parens patrie is about.
You guys are long on rights, but that gets people not too far I would argue, because there can be a consideration of rights on both sides of this issue. There is the "right" of the parent to make decisions concerning their child's upbringing, the "right" of society to make sure children aren't raised to be stupid, or nuts, and the "right" of the child to have the decision maker in their life make decisions that won't fuck their lives up before they get to the age to make their own choices...
"I assume we will fire all teachers/close all schools that fail to reach that base level of competence, right?"
We should do what we can to improve the quality teachers, of course though we must take into account employment contracts, even those that have been negotiated through collective bargaining. I mean, you value contracts, right? Well, when you take the bait frm conservative groups and bitch about those "teachers unions" screwing everything up, just remember that the schools "put up" with what they do because they have, well, a fucking contract with the teachers. And from what I've seen on H&R libertarians have some massive hard ons for contracts freely entered, so I'm not sure what your beef is...
squarooticus | August 13, 2008, 1:00pm | #
Sure, but you have arbitrarily decided upon which set of principles count as natural laws and which do not...then claimed that those who include a different set in the equation are making ad hoc, arbitrary decisions.
False. If you can come up with one or two sentences describing all of what is considered "wrong" by most people, and then derive your (heretofore ad hoc) conclusions from it, I will bow to your superior intellect.
IOW: there's a reason why libertarians have latched onto the non-aggression principle, and it isn't out of convenience.
Above you defined denial of food as abuse, does this mean that children have a positive right to compel their parents to provide food?
I think it's more accurate to say that their parents took upon that responsibility when they decided to have children. They effectively have a contract with their children to provide them food and shelter until they are old enough to fend for themselves. "Abuse" is (perhaps) an emotionally-charged shorthand for behavior in which the parents violate this contract.
Many believe that people have positive rights, such as the right to be educated just as you have a right as a child to be fed...
There's a long way from "food and shelter" to "leftist indoctrination in government schools" or even "education by a group of people the parent doesn't approve of"; it isn't even a gray area IMO.
FWIW, as I implied above, not all contracts are written in ink... but they are all restricted to two parties. Third parties, like government, do not come into the equation except as enforcers of pre-existing contracts. Furthermore, third parties may only insert themselves uninvited into a situation when one of the two parties is too weak to enforce his or her own rights; and even then, that third party's involvement is limited to enforcing the rights of the protectorate, not to punishing the other party.
Finally, that third party can't violate anyone else's rights in the process, which in particular means they can't tax to provide this service. That precludes government involvement.
The fact that I recognize the right of a child to unilaterally emancipate himself at any point he feels able to do so is a far more important point on which it appears you and I differ. I do not believe children are chattel or even pseudo-chattel until some legislatively-defined age of majority. They are, in fact, always endowed with a full set of rights but have no choice but to trade some freedom for protection early in life, at first because they don't know any better (i.e., this behavior is instinctive) and later because they are not capable of terminating the contract and surviving on their own despite perhaps a desire to do so.
Restricting children from terminating this contract once they desire to do so is an actual violation of rights, unlike a parent refusing to use his own resources to support organizations and beliefs he does not share.
