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My son David emailed this to me yesterday.......
Mom,
You have to read this story. It sends chills down my spine. Especially
the last line "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.""
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."
Online resources
The ruling: To view the ruling by the Second District Court of Appeal,
go to links.sfgate.com/ZCQR.
Some of my thoughts on this include:
How does that saying go?........as California goes, so goes the nation......
Power-hungry. prideful and greedy unions have really taken a destructive toll on this country.....
The ruling was applauded by a director for the state's largest teachers union.
I
thought something sinister must be happening with the Teacher's Union
in California, because eBay is there and eBay stopped the sale of
Teacher's Editions of textbooks in the last year because they "might be
sold to someone who doesn't have teaching credentials."
That's what they told me when they removed one of my listings
recently for a Teacher's edition of an elementary science book
published by Abeka....a Christian textbook publisher. Lots of
homeschoolers have depended on eBay for their books at a good price and
now it makes it a lot more difficult to find used copies...... What a
joke.........you can buy Playboys or worse and plenty of mind-rotting
stuff on eBay, but they ban the honest attempt to get a more decent
education. I hope and I will pray that there will be a loud outcry in
this country (and to the Lord) for this terrible injustice for the
attempt to take away and control our children and their minds for the
good of the "state"....sure sounds like communism to me.......
But then, why should I be surprised?.....when they take the one true God out of schools...........the schools themselves become the very gates of hell (as Martin Luther said long ago)..........scary...........We must pray that this "Goliath" will be defeated!
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A deep Question for today's musing...............
If today is tomorrow's yesterday, then what is Friday?
As Winnie the Pooh would say as he winces and taps his head............"Think, think, think........"
Answer: Partly cloudy?
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| If you need to feel JOY right now and if you have never read anything by John Piper, start NOW! This book that I am currently reading is the most uplifting book that I have ever read outside of the Bible. It will fill your heart with JOY and what a great thought right now during this CHRISTmas season. It speaks of God being a happy God and all that he does comes from that never-ending source of Joy and happiness. And I am only in Chapter 2!!
Now, if I can only be able to remember these things when life doesn't seem to be going so well.....
All that the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. - Psalm 135:6
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| First things first........so what exactly is a pomegranate?
(we'll talk about the journey later.....)
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) - Cite This Source
pome‧gran‧ate /ˈpɒmˌgræn ɪt, ˈpɒmɪ-, ˈpʌm-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pom-gran-it, pom-i-, puhm-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun | 1. | a
chambered, many-seeded, globose fruit, having a tough, usually red rind
and surmounted by a crown of calyx lobes, the edible portion consisting
of pleasantly acid flesh developed from the outer seed coat. |
| 2. | the shrub or small tree, Punica granatum, that bears it, native to southwestern Asia but widely cultivated in warm regions. |
[Origin: 1275–1325; ME poumgarnet, pomegarnade (< OF pome grenate, pome gernete), repr. ML pōmum grānātum lit., seedy apple. See pome, grenade]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006. | | |
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