Homeschool News & Views

Issue 81, August 10, 2008

From Homeschool Helpers

In association with Pass It On Ministries

By Dan L. White

The California court has declared that homeschooling is a constitutional right of parents.

The Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles completely reversed a ruling that it made in February where it said that the only way parents could homeschool was if they were state certified teachers. Now the court has affirmed that if the state prohibits home schooling, that would intrude on parents' constitutional right to direct their children's education. Any limit on that right would be presumed unconstitutional.

This is a stunning development. Mike Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), said, "We're very thrilled -- not just a little bit. We're surprised as well. To get a court to do a 180-degree reversal is a remarkable thing.”

The decision is surprising because the court did such a complete turnaround. In the first place, they went out of their way to declare homeschooling unconstitutional. The original case was not about homeschooling at all. That case was about purported child abuse, and the authorities wanted that one family’s kids in public school so the teachers could watch for signs of abuse on the children.

Obviously, the judges were just looking to make trouble for homeschoolers. Now they have completely reversed themselves.

Why did they do that?

Apparently because they raised such a stink, and they don’t like to be thought of as stinkers.

The letter of the law certainly did not change in the last six months. The letter of the California law actually does not allow homeschooling, that law going back to 1953. Yet the judges completely reversed themselves, apparently based wholly on the popular reaction to their decision, which was not popular at all.

What does this latest California decision mean for homeschooling overall?

Homeschooling would now seem to be somewhat safe from socialist attack. California is about as left wing as any state in the country, and they have formally declared that homeschooling is a constitutional right of parents, even though their constitution doesn’t mention homeschooling at all. That is a very big development. One of the most radical, left wing socialist states in the union has declared that homeschooling is a constitutional right of parents.

Based on that, it now seems that liberalism in America will accept that premise. Homeschooling must be allowed, because it is accepted as a constitutional right.

Further, one of the main avenues of attack against homeschooling is to require teacher certification. A Republican state legislator from Poplar Bluff, Missouri tried to pull that here a couple of years ago. That is one of the demands of the National Education Association, to require that all teachers be state certified.

That is a means of destroying homeschooling without saying they are destroying it. Parents are not able to go to college for another four years to get state teacher certification. Plus, the process of certification would indoctrinate the parents in the very socialism that they are trying to escape.

That was the route that the California judges took to attack homeschooling, by requiring teacher certification. Now that is overruled in California, so we will presume that liberals will not try to destroy homeschooling by teacher certification.

Thus homeschooling is accepted overall by the conservatives and liberals in America as a constitutional right. What the California judges sought to destroy, they have now affirmed nationwide. Yes, nationwide. The California ruling does not apply in point of law outside California, but in reality their stunning reversal ruling has set an enormous precedent for all states in the country. The California judges tried to criminalize homeschooling. Now they have canonized it. It is sacrosanct and untouchable.

As California often sets a trend for America, so America often sets a trend for the world.

This has happened with homeschooling. Homeschooling has spread to most of the nations of Europe. It is still very small there, as it was in the US a generation ago, but it is there, it is growing, and now people in these nations will begin to look at it as a fundamental right of every parent.

Germany is a striking exception to this educational freedom movement, and it is good that Germany is the exception. Germany has a history of fascist Prussian oppression. Their anti-homeschooling education law goes directly back to Adolf Hitler, written in 1938 at the behest of Der Fuhrer.

From the Brussels Journal, 2/24/08, article Hasn’t Germany Learned Anything From Its History?:

“Home-schooling has been illegal in Germany since it was outlawed in 1938. Hitler wanted the Nazi state to have complete control of young minds. […] Klaus Landahl, 41, who moved in January from the Black Forest in Germany to the Isle of Wight with his wife, Kathrin, 39, said they had no option but to leave their home, friends and belongings in order to educate their five children, aged between three and 12, legally and without fear. 'It feels like persecution,' he said. 'We had to get to safety to protect our family. We can never go back. If we do, our children will be removed, as the German government says they are the property of the state now.' […]

Jonathan Skeet, who is British-born, said that he, his wife and five children, aged between two and 11, were driven from Lüdenscheid after the authorities froze their bank account, removed money from it and confiscated their car. […] 'It was crippling,' he said. 'When we lived in Germany we wanted to live a very inconspicuous and quiet life. But instead we ended up in direct confrontation with a very powerful state.'

About 800 families are believed to educate their children at home illegally [in Germany]. Stephanie Edel, who runs the Schulbildung in Familieninitiative, a German organisation that aims to support those who educate at home, said that last year some 78 home-schooled children fled Germany with their parents. 'It is very dangerous to home-educate here,' she said. 'Home-educators have to learn to expect anything and have to be ready to leave overnight.”’

Germans have even fled their home country to move to Iran – Iran!! – just so they can have the freedom to homeschool.

Now we have these two conflicting examples: left wing California, declaring that homeschooling is a constitutional right; and somewhat socialist Germany, declaring that Hitler was right when he forbid homeschooling.

Germany must yield. Hitler must be put back in his bunker. Germany is being criticized around the world because of this blatant example of Hitler’s Nazi heritage. Germany, which tore down the wall around communism, must tear down this wall around Nazi socialism. Just as Germans wanted freedom from economic and political communism/socialism, so they should have freedom from educational communism/socialism.

And it seems they will get it. Homeschooling is a constitutional right in America. Our Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Homeschooling is among those rights of every American. And if homeschooling is a right of every American, should it not be the inalienable right of citizens of other countries?

Absolutely. And that is where this is going.