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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Saturday, March 8, 2008
Is home schooling illegal?
Apparently, in California home schooling is illegal. Or so a judge ruled late last month. In a child abuse case, an appeals court judge found that a 1950s era Califonia law requires students under age 18 to be taught by a certified teacher and ruled that home schools taught by uncertified parents were illegal.
In theory, this could force most of the 200,000 home schooled kids across the state into public and private schools.
An appeal appears certain to send the case to the state supreme court and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger already is calling for legislation to correct the problem.
The case raises old issues about home schooling. Few doubt that a qualified parent could do a perfectly good job of teaching a child academics at home. But in many states, Ohio and California included, home schooling is very loosely regulated. The potential for abuse of the system is real.
I’ve written a bit about home schooling and interviewed a fair amount of parents and kids who have gone that route. Most of the folks I’ve met seemed quite competent as teachers and the students came across as well taught. But we also see cases of home schooling gone wrong, where parents pull their kids out of school in a huff but then fail to keep up the schoolwork at home.
In today’s world, I just can’t see a law against home schooling holding up in too many states. But I also don’t see many states rushing to tighten home school monitoring.
How do you think this balance can best be struck?
(Image credit: Chris Hondros, Getty Images)
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