By snoadmin
A February California appellate court decision, which would mandate home schooling be taught by state-credentialed instructors, will be reheard, reports the Los Angeles Times. Both religious and secular home-schooling families have called the decision a violation of their constitutional rights and have agreed to fight the ruling -together.
The home schooling and “unschooling” of California’s estimated 166,000 students (Los Angeles Times) have been growing in popularity for quite some time. In the same token, California’s overcrowded schools have seen a decline in student enrollment for a while. And the decrease in student enrollment is not necessarily connected to the increasing popularity of home schooling.
Families that choose home schooling argue that they want to play a larger role in the development of their children. There are many parents who don’t want to “expose” their children to positive opinions on homosexuality or what they refer to as an “anti-Christian bias.”
No doubt some of these children will be poorly served by their parents’ intolerance, but technically, we live in a “free” country where we are “free” to decide what we believe. Some parents don’t want to vaccinate their children and this also makes home schooling a viable option.
Even the Educ-hater has become quite the home school supporter.
“Every California child deserves a quality education. Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children’s education,” said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a prepared statement, according to the website WorldNetDaily.com.
We can speculate that if education’s state funding is slashed, inevitably more children will be taken out of what would be a deteriorating school system. For Schwarzenegger, this may mean a few less apologies.
Those who oppose home schooling may consider California’s complex educational funding system as the reason. K-12 funding is affected by the average daily attendance of students, making head counts a large contributor. The fewer students, the less money the school receives. This is also the same reason we were sent home with notes from scary school administrators that would guilt your parents into forging a doctor’s excuse – again.
The battle, however, rages on with positive and negative points for either side. For example, the opposition claims the state should have an interest in children obtaining the best possible education, publicly funded or not. But this claim seems awfully ironic when we have a program like “No Child Left Behind.”
Besides, if the state were overly concerned about the condition of the education system, why is there a 10 percent budget cut proposal?
Home school and public school will both exist regardless of the other. Therefore, it should be possible to be supportive of both. For some students, one may work better than the other. Should this not be a determining factor?
We need to rethink how we define education – even if it doesn’t adhere to traditional styles of learning.
This would be a great opportunity for the state to put a little more care into the public education system and leave the home “schoolers”and “unschoolers” alone.
