Home schooling -- now what?
It's time for parents who want to teach their own kids to celebrate: Home schooling has been declared legally kosher in California even if parents lack a teaching credential. Overall, the news is good.
But few people paid attention to the second part of the court's decision last Friday, which is that home schooling isn't an absolute right, simply an accepted form of "private school," as it's been interpreted by the state Department of Education. Keeping kids safe from abuse and neglect is more important than home schooling, the court said.
Few people would disagree with that, but the question is, how do you go about it? I ask because, as much as I admire the job most parents do in home schooling their kids, I also know that there are real cases in which parents have used the home-schooling conventions to shield their private actions from those who might move to protect children. I know it because I know one of those kids, from my local community. He clearly needed all kinds of help, right down to strong reading glasses, which his parents denied him. Parents who helped in the classroom would send in notes to the office asking the school to intervene; teachers would advise testing, which the mother would routinely refuse. Eventually, the parents removed their two children from the schools and claimed to be home schooling them.
The kids were seen only occasionally around the community, until, a couple of years later, the city was called to the family's house by neighbors because of the bizarre goings-on. Without going into details, the family was obviously in deep trouble, the house was a health hazard and officials took the children, at least for a while, to a shelter. But that was two rough years in those kids' lives, and two years of education that apparently wasn't happening. Not attending a school meant that no one was around for the kids to talk to, with no one to notice what was going on with them.
Obviously, this isn't how most home schools operate, but the question is, how do we best give home schoolers the freedom to teach their kids, while making sure that children actually do get an education -- and, give those children some access to outsiders so that we know they're OK? Should the Legislature officially legalize home schools, but also invoke some light regulations, like home visits, or requiring some evidence that the children have been learning? Or do we figure that these cases are so rare, we should just let it go?
I once served as the principal of a large public elementary school that also was a tri-county magnet for physically handicapped students. I remember one third-grader who was both physically and emotionally disturbed to the point of self-destructive behavior, apparently because he required dialysis three times per week and his imprisoned father was a match to donate the kidney that would have ended the boy's dependence on dialysis, but refused to help him.
There wasn't anything the system could do about that (believe me, I tried!) -- child abuse is about real kids and families and ruining real lives, no matter what kind of school programs parents or their children did or didn't participate in. Regulating home education is a red herring, don't get led astray.
Posted by: JJ Ross | August 13, 2008 at 08:59 AM
The main problem I have with regulating home schools is that the people who would design the regulations (government officials and educational administrators) have little to no actual experience with homeschooling. Any regulations they would come up with would be practically certain to hinder more than they help and to be next to useless.
I wouldn’t object to well-designed regulation that would work–I just doubt very much that California could come up with it. However, I’ve been thinking lately that perhaps experienced homeschoolers should be coming up with design proposals to offer when state legislators start making noises about regulation, as they are bound to do, government being what it is. That would be difficult, given how allergic most homeschoolers are to regulation (and with good reason), but I think it would work better than the alternative.
I notice that in the case cited in this article, the two kids were in the public school system and nothing was really done to help them. People made comments and recommendations, but apparently no one ever called CPS or investigated the home until years later. How many publicly-schooled children are slipping through the cracks? Why do we think that the educational system can do any better with the few abused homeschooled kids among the tens of thousands of well-parented homeschool children? Why should the educational bureaucracy have the right to come into families' homes when they do not have that right over the children who are actually in their care?
I simply don’t think that legislators and administrators who work in the public schools are really equipped to design good regulation. They don’t have the experience or knowledge of how homeschooling works, and they’re far more likely to hurt than help.
Posted by: dangermom | August 12, 2008 at 10:26 PM
"Not attending a school meant that no one was around for the kids to talk to, with no one to notice what was going on with them."
From the story, clearly being in school wasn't making a difference either. It sounds like the school staff and officials knew there were issues and chose to not take the steps at their disposal. Don't lay this one at the feet of homeschooling.
Posted by: Did the schools do their job? | August 12, 2008 at 10:20 PM