A state appeals court lifted the cloud it had cast on the homeschooling of 166,000 California children and ruled Friday that parents have a right to educate their children at home even if they lack a teaching credential.
After an outpouring of protest from homeschooling advocates and politicians, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles reversed its Feb. 28 ruling that could have reclassified most homeschooled children as truants.
I first wrote about this here, and more recently here. As I said in the previous links, I never thought that the ruling requiring parents to send their kids to "regular" school would ever stand, which is why I didn't really get worked up about it.
6 comments:
I didn't know judges were ruling in the case of homeschoolers. I live in VA, and I'm not sure what the laws are governing homeschooling. All I know is that, as a high school English teacher, I get a heck of a lot of homeschoolers entering 9th grade who are in public school for the first time. BTW, come join the fun for the Silly Summer Sunday Sweepstakes. Come share the Caption Love with us--we've got a good one this week! Welcome back from Mexico!
"I didn't know judges were ruling in the case of homeschoolers."
It was an interesting side-effect of a ruling on alleged child abuse. The ruling was vague enough that some people (including the California superintended of schools!) didn't think that it outlawed homeschooling. The new ruling clarifies things quite a bit compared to the first ruling :-)
[And I've been following this moderately closely ... because I homeschool.]
-Mark Roulo
"I didn't know judges were ruling in the case of homeschoolers.
One more followup!
Part of the confusion is that California has no laws that explicitly address homeschooling.
None.
Many homeschoolers do so by creating very small (in my case, with a student body of one!) private schools.
The lack of explicit laws made things a bit more difficult for the judges. I actually think that they did okay on the first ruling (but I also read the ruling and didn't think that it outlawed homeschooling). This new ruling is much more explicit and less subject to misinterpretation.
-Mark Roulo
The concerns came because originally the judge ruled that these particular students had to go to a school with a credentialed teacher.
I wonder if there'd be some way to gauge the response of the homeschooling community?
California legislators somewhat relieved the court clarified it's ruling, getting the off the? California legislators suffering uncontrollable trembling from the volume of incoming artillery fire from homeschooling parents? Somewhere in between?
"...students had to go to a school with a credentialed teacher"
Law of unintended consequences?
I was wondering how this would play out when, currently, public schools hire teachers without teaching credentials.
Technically, the schools wouldn't be able to hire most of the substitute teachers that currently are not required (and most don't) hold a teaching credential.
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