A Stitch in Haste

As someone who has been warning my fellow libertarians for some time now about not being too absolutist in insisting that there is an unlimited right of parents to homeschool their children, I felt an especial sense of Whoa! upon hearing that an intermediate appeals court in California held that there is no right whatsoever to home school and that non-credentialed homeschooling can even be prosecuted as a criminal act:

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.
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"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.
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The ruling was applauded by a director for the state's largest teachers union.

I have no doubt of that last sentence.

It is a fine line (or a massive chasm, depending on your point of view) between insisting, as I do, that there is no right to badly homeschool your child and this court's ruling that there is no right to homeschool whatsoever. Regardless, I do not think it is a line that can be crossed.

The authority to regulate homeschooling derives from the obligation of the government to protect the incompetent -- in this case minor children. To homeschool poorly is simply a variation of child neglect -- malnutrition of the mind, if you will. Indeed, this particular court case began not as a homeschooling charge but as a physical abuse complaint.

But child neglect, like any other offense against another person, should have to be proven on a case-by-case basis. To adopt a bright-line rule that any homeschooling is "bad" homeschooling is arbitrary, irrational -- and likely an unconstitutional violation of due process. Even in the knowledge that some homeschooling will be bad homeschooling, the state should be required to demonstrate that a particular parent is failing to properly homeschool a particular child, just as it should be required to demonstrate that a particular parent is neglecting or abusing a particular child.*

(Indeed, the court addressed this question and preposterously dismissed it: "It is unreasonably difficult and expensive for a state to supervise parents who instruct children in their homes." Facts to support that outlandish, sweeping and conclusory assertion: none.)

The only three explanations for a bright-line rule criminalizing all non-credentialed homeschooling are: (a) intellectual laziness by legislators and judges; (b) budgetary stinginess by the government, or (c) pandering to teacher unions. But not "the best interests of the child." That is the one factor that ought to trump all else and demand a (rebuttable) presumption of propriety regarding homeschooling.

How sad that it does not.

The case is In re Rachel L., No. JD00773 (Ct.App.Cal., 28 February 2008) (PDF - 18 pages) More thoughts at Cato@Liberty South Puget Sound, QandO.

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*Regarding this "particular parent failing to properly homeschool this particular child," the record should reflect that it was indeed a case of radical fundamentalist Christians trying to provide a typical (i.e., redacted, inadequate and incorrect) "Bible-based" pseudo-education of the kind I have warned about. Indeed, it was the children themselves who sued to be removed from their abusive (but "Christian") parents and thereby receive a bona fide education (with fewer beatings in the process).