Via Jeff Culbreath's blog comes a bit of good news: The same California court that earlier declared home schooling illegal for parents without teaching credentials has reversed its ruling on this point entirely.
Clearly, the court reads What's Wrong with the World, as it expressly referred to the fingerprinting exemption for parents passed by the CA legislature. Well, okay, no. I got that bit of info. from HSLDA, and HSLDA filed an amicus brief that brought it to the court's attention.
The decision seems to me carefully argued and right on the money as to the way in which the legislature's acts over recent years have made it clear that home schooling is allowed under the private school exemption. This is all the more admirable as it seems to me fairly clear that the judges in question don't like home schooling much, though that is a guess.
The original case has been remanded to the trial court so that they can decide whether there are specific reasons in the family in question to require the children to be sent to a bricks-and-mortar school. The allegations against that family are relatively serious, but of course (as always in family law) they have not received a jury trial for any of them, and I have little data allowing me to draw a conclusion. In any event, many people at the time said that the court should have restricted itself to the case before it rather than drawing sweeping conclusions about the legality of home schooling in California, and that is what is now happening.
Comments (3)
This story made http://detentionslip.org! Voted #1 for school house news. Check it out for all the crazy problems in public education.
Posted by hall monitor | August 10, 2008 3:23 PM
Thanks for the good news.
Posted by Lara | August 11, 2008 1:18 PM
As I understand it, homeschooling parents are now required to register their home as a private school. Is this requirement a significant avenue for future meddlesome legislation?
Posted by Kevin J Jones | August 12, 2008 2:07 PM