A California appeals court last week ruled that homeschooling parents need “teaching credentials“.

In this case, California ruled that a family’s kids needed to be “supervised” by “credentialed” teachers.  The parents fought – and lost.

A lawyer appointed to represent two of the Long’s young children requested that the court require them to physically attend a public or private school where adults could monitor their well-being. A trial court disagreed, but the children’s lawyer appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which has jurisdiction over Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

The appellate panel ruled that Sunland officials’ occasional monitoring of the Longs’ home schooling — with the children taking some tests at the school — is insufficient to qualify as being enrolled in a private school. Since Mary Long does not have a teaching credential, the family is violating state laws, the ruling said.

“Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey in a Feb. 28 opinion signed by the two other members of the district court. “Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program.”

The usual suspects tip their hands:

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.” 

For starters, lets be clear on something:  “Teaching Credentials” are to “qualified to teach children” as “Tia Tequila” is to “actress”.  Whenever a profession sets up “credendials”, especially credentials administered by the government, the purpose is very rarely to promote a better professional service;  it’s to constrict the supply of those professionals.  Which is exactly what this ruling does; limits the job of “teaching kids”, something nearly every parent in the world does by instinct, and better than most teachers, to people who’ve taken “Theory of the Eraser 352” at Bakersfield State College. 

 I wish my father – an almost-forty-year teacher and several-time instructor in a college education department – could sound off on this one; he’s as solid a critic of “teacher education” as anyone I’ve met…

But what this ruling really means is “the state knows more about raising your children than you do”.

Which should make your skin crawl.

As you think of that, and might perhaps be tempted to say  “well, it’s only California”, remember; the DFL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Education Minnesota, and EM hates homeschoolers; the Minnesota Legislature tried to “cap” the number of charter schools (the only alternative an awful lot of working parents can afford these days) last year, and the DFL in the legislature fought charter and home schools tooth and nail when the idea first surfaced.

It can happen here – and big parts of the Educational/Industrial Complex want it to.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.