From the SFGate
Homeschoolers' setback sends shock waves through state
Bob Egelko, Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writers

Friday, March 7, 2008


(03-07) 04:00 PST LOS ANGELES --

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.

Some homeschoolers are affiliated with private or charter schools, like the Longs, but others fly under the radar completely. Many homeschooling families avoid truancy laws by registering with the state as a private school and then enroll only their own children.

Yet the 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."

Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said.

"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.

Union pleased with ruling
The ruling was applauded by a director for the state's largest teachers union.

"We're happy," said Lloyd Porter, who is on the California Teachers Association board of directors. "We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting."

A spokesman for the state Department of Education said the agency is reviewing the decision to determine its impact on current policies and procedures. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell issued a statement saying he supports "parental choice when it comes to homeschooling."

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which agreed earlier this week to represent Sunland Christian School and legally advise the Long family on a likely appeal to the state Supreme Court, said the appellate court ruling has set a precedent that can now be used to go after homeschoolers. "With this case law, anyone in California who is homeschooling without a teaching credential is subject to prosecution for truancy violation, which could require community service, heavy fines and possibly removal of their children under allegations of educational neglect," Dacus said.

Parents say they choose homeschooling for a variety of reasons, from religious beliefs to disillusionment with the local public schools.

Homeschooling parent Debbie Schwarzer of Los Altos said she's ready for a fight.

Schwarzer runs Oak Hill Academy out of her Santa Clara County home. It is a state-registered private school with two students, she said, noting they are her own children, ages 10 and 12. She does not have a teaching credential, but she does have a law degree.

"I'm kind of hoping some truancy officer shows up on my doorstep," she said. "I'm ready. I have damn good arguments."

She opted to teach her children at home to better meet their needs.

The ruling, Schwarzer said, "stinks."

Began as child welfare case
The Long family legal battle didn't start out as a test case on the validity of homeschooling. It was a child welfare case.

A juvenile court judge looking into one child's complaint of mistreatment by Philip Long found that the children were being poorly educated but refused to order two of the children, ages 7 and 9, to be enrolled in a full-time school. He said parents in California have a right to educate their children at home.

The appeals court told the juvenile court judge to require the parents to comply with the law by enrolling their children in a school, but excluded the Sunland Christian School from enrolling the children because that institution "was willing to participate in the deprivation of the children's right to a legal education."

The decision could also affect other kinds of homeschooled children, including those enrolled in independent study or distance learning through public charter schools - a setup similar to the one the Longs have, Dacus said.

Charter school advocates disagreed, saying Thursday that charter schools are public and are required to employ only credentialed teachers to supervise students - whether in class or through independent study.

Ruling will apply statewide
Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said the ruling would effectively ban homeschooling in the state.

"California is now on the path to being the only state to deny the vast majority of homeschooling parents their fundamental right to teach their own children at home," he said in a statement.

But Leslie Heimov, executive director of the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles, which represented the Longs' two children in the case, said the ruling did not change the law.

"They just affirmed that the current California law, which has been unchanged since the last time it was ruled on in the 1950s, is that children have to be educated in a public school, an accredited private school, or with an accredited tutor," she said. "If they want to send them to a private Christian school, they can, but they have to actually go to the school and be taught by teachers."

Heimov said her organization's chief concern was not the quality of the children's education, but their "being in a place daily where they would be observed by people who had a duty to ensure their ongoing safety."

I homeschooled my kids with all the correct inspections by the authorities and they achieved graduation a full year ahead of their peers.
My last child went to public high school and also did well. Education is not a Constitutional requirement but a State can make it so for that State.
As usual, California leads the way in stupidity.

What's really scary is, where will they do it next? A precedent has been set.

Well, the stats on homeschooling in Texas speak for themselves. Texas has more sense.
Though I'm not sure about the metro areas.

This country better wake up, because history always repeats itself.


When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community."
Adolf Hitler
Speech November 1933, quoted in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer

I believe that it was God's will to send a youth from here into the Reich, to let him grow up, to raise him to be the leader of the nation so as to enable him to lead back his homeland into the Reich.
Adolf Hitler
April 1938, closing speech of election campaign in Vienna on eve of polling

How to achieve the moral breakdown of the enemy before the war has started -- that is the problem that interests me. Whoever has experienced war at the front will want to refrain from all avoidable bloodshed.
Adolf Hitler

Great liars are also great magicians.
Adolf Hitler

Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.
Adolf Hitler

Our strategy is to destroy the enemy from within, to conquer him through himself.
Adolf Hitler

To be a leader means to be able to move masses.
Adolf Hitler

What luck for rulers, that men do not think.
Adolf Hitler

The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes.
Adolf Hitler

Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.
Adolf Hitler

I think the Hitler quotes are a little over the top.


While I'm not in favor of the law, you have to understand a little more about the case that led to this law. There were reports of physical and emotional abuse by the father. In addition, the mother, Mary, who was responsible for homeschooling 8 children, does not even hold a high school diploma. I think it is an issue when children are being homeschooled by parents that are not educated themselves. In addition, it is easier for abused children to fall through cracks when they are homeschooled. I'm not saying that abused children do not fall through the cracks in public school, but there is a much better chance that abuse can be detected when they aren't shrouded by their parents 24/7. There should be a way to handle this situation. I don't think outlawing homeschooling is the answer, but I think there should be some basic qualifications that the parents must have in order to teach their own kids, and I think there should be some face time between the student and a third party to ensure that there is progress. I think every child deserves a quality education to prepare them for adulthood, and while most homeschooling parents can provide this, some cannot and unfortunately, will not. I'm pretty confident that the intent of the law is make sure children are educated, and not to organize a nazi-like regime.

The case was heard again this past June, and the courts are supposed to deliver a new ruling within 90 days.