Seen in the San Francisco Chronicle:
A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.[...]
[T]he appeals court said state law has been clear since at least 1953, when another appellate court rejected a challenge by homeschooling parents to California’s compulsory education statutes. Those statutes require children ages 6 to 18 to attend a full-time day school, either public or private, or to be instructed by a tutor who holds a state credential for the child’s grade level.
“California courts have held that … parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children,” Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. “Parents have a legal duty to see to their children’s schooling under the provisions of these laws.”[...]
“A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare,” the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.
Even though I am uncomfortable with the motivations of at least one stereotype of a typical homeschooler, I find this ruling rather disturbing on several grounds.
First, given how bad some public schools can be (especially if a student has special needs or is gifted), I’d be very concerned if a parent didn’t have as a fallback option the ability to homeschool his/her children. If the best option available is homeschooling, and if some reasonable minimum standard of education and a common curriculum are being verfiably met, then virtually nothing should be held aside as an avenue for a parent to provide the best education they can for a child.
Second, I have from time to time considered becoming a teacher. The low pay and the amount of B.S. required in getting fully credentialed have been the factors that have kept me from heading down that path. To require that everyone who teaches a child be encumbered with that B.S. is very troubling to me.
Third, on general principle, I object to unnecessary intrusions of the government into citizens’ private lives. It seems to me that part of that includes accepting that parents have broad latitude in deciding how they will raise their kids. I may disagree with some of the choices they make…but I’m OK with that, within reason, if it means that the same lassiez-faire attitude is adopted about how I might raise my hypothetical/future kids.
And finally, while the attitude is understandable especially given the era in which it was formulated, that last quoted paragraph above just seems creepy to me. A public education should not have as a primary purpose the indoctrination of possibly blind loyalty to the state. It should be limited to providing a common base from which a child can eventually become a productive member of society.
Presumably a part of such an education would involve exposure to quite a bit of information about our country’s government, history, and society…the good and the bad. If done right, I’d like to believe that a child would come to appreciate the U.S., have a healthy respect for its advantages, an awareness of the blemishes in our past, and have some opinion about the pros and cons of different ways we can move forward.
But the state’s promulgation of loyalty and patriotism indoctrination seems just a little too totalitarian for my tastes.