Only in California folks, only in California, though this was somewhat Union (teachers) inspired, so it could soon be used (by them) as an example in other states.
Headline is linked...
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.
The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming.
"At first, there was a sense of, 'No way,' " said homeschool parent Loren Mavromati, a resident of Redondo Beach (Los Angeles County) who is active with a homeschool association. "Then there was a little bit of fear. I think it has moved now into indignation."
The ruling arose from a child welfare dispute between the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and Philip and Mary Long of Lynwood, who have been homeschooling their eight children. Mary Long is their teacher, but holds no teaching credential.
The parents said they also enrolled their children in Sunland Christian School, a private religious academy in Sylmar (Los Angeles County), which considers the Long children part of its independent study program and visits the home about four times a year.
The Second District Court of Appeal ruled that California law requires parents to send their children to full-time public or private schools or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home.
Now, please note that I'm actually somewhat in favor of No Child Left Behind and the type of standards that are supposed to be mandated via that act. I think it's a good idea to know that the people that are teaching children are capable of, well, teaching children. It is good to know that they should be competetent at their job and should be able to meet some minimum set of standards that would tell the world that they are capable of doing the job of a teacher.
What I'm not in favor of is applying the standards of such act with reckless disregard for the rights of parents. If a parent wants to homeschool and believes that they can do a better job than 'professional' teachers in public schools (or private schools for that matter) can, they should have the right to do that. Their children might be required to show competency by passing state mandated tests administered in a neutral site, but otherwise leave the parent(s) alone.
What I'd love to see come of this stupid decision (yes, it is a stupid decision, but in California, I'm not sure I'd expect anything different) is that the parents that are homeschooling join the homeschooling associations and all of them work together to get the vast majority of parents certified as teachers. Better yet would be that those newly certified teachers would run off and apply for jobs and push the unionized teachers out of the system and out of work.
At a bare minimum, if the state believes that these parents need to be certified, they need to make the certification process as inexpensive as possible and provide plenty of opportunity for the parents to become certified as painlessly as possible. Hopefully the homeschooling association(s) will help see that is the case.
