I think that visiting all parents and visiting homeschooled families is a different situation. There is a legal requirement that all children be educated up to a certain age, and there are standards of curriculumn and material that are required as well. Homeschooling is a privelege, unless anyone can show me case law (preferably from SCOTUS) that establishes a right to educate your children at home. AFAIK, it would be perfectly legal for states to bar homeschooling – they already can (and should) require homeschooling parents to pass qualification tests to make sure they’re capable of imparting an acceptable education to thier children.
I see no problem with the state ensuring that the curriculmn being covered fits state-approved standards, and that the parents aren’t filling their kids heads with nonsense about magical beings who created the world 6,000 years ago where humans and dinosaurs frollicked together in happiness before an evil demon created the Great Lie of Evolution. The state has a responsibilty to ensure that the quality of homeschool education, and the content of it, fits with legal standards.
While I understand that most countries have mandatory education laws, I’m still unclear as to why ensuring that a home-schooled child is receiving an appropriate education requires visiting the family home. Surely any tests designed to measure the child’s scholastic performance could be just as easily administered at the offices of the relevant department or some other suitable location.
Well, for one thing, Reprise, such tests tend to be taken rather late in the process. Better to catch the fact that parents are teaching their kids that humans evolved from Easter bunnies before the tests than afterwards, if only for the sake of the child.
I, for one, would support a school voucher system that would let people send their kids to private schools easier, alongside an end to homeschooling. I don’t trust the average American to properly educate their child. Most people appear to be pretty damn dumb.
You’re aware, I assume, that the constitution predates widespread state-sponsored public education.
Think about what you’re saying. Most people willingly send their children to the custody of the State for several hours per day to be taught what the State wants them to learn. That’s all fine, on account of what the State wants children to learn in most cases coincides nicely with what the parents want their children to learn. So it seems pretty normal. But you’re asserting that the State has the absolute right to take these children for several hours a day and that the parents have no voice in it whatsoever, unless they have the means to send their children to a (State-approved) private school.
Compulsory education is one of the best things the United States has ever done. That the Constitution doesn’t mention it is a non-sequitor. The Constitution also mentions nothing about an Air Force, Social Security, the Coast Guard, NASA, Medicare or many of the other good things our government does.
Better the state set the standards, than to have a system where there are no standards, where parents can teach their kid any crap they want and have that count as the child’s “schooling.” If parents don’t like the standards the state sets, they can voice that opinion at the voting booth.
Every year here, when year 12 exams come around, there’s an outcry in the media about at least one school having failed to properly deliver the year 12 curriculum to its students.
I’m wondering if home-schooling is more associated with reclusive cults in the US than it is here. Home-schooling isn’t a decision which people make lightly here, it’s subject to the same statewide performance tests as any other form of education (and a few more besides), and for those families whose children for one reason or another don’t fit into the over-crowded, under-funded, state education system, it can often be the very best educational option available for an individual child.
Would that be the same voting booth where a simple majority of people, educated by the State, can deny people permission to marry simply because both partners happen to be of the same sex?
So it is true, then, that there are indeed radical homosexuals attempting to push their agenda by forcibly brainwashing children in schools. Interesting, because fundamentalist propaganda about this issue is often ridiculed. Can’t say how widespread it is, but certainly the sentiment exists, as demonstrated here.
I should probably point out that distance education of one kind or another has long been a feature of Australian life, so home-schooling as a choice doesn’t seem so “out there” - for many people in isolated locations, it was the only educational option other than boarding school for many years.
You cannot draw a parallell between gay marriage and home schooling. One is a private issue between two people (and a minority issue, a type of issue that should NEVER be decided by “majority rules” for obvious reasons), the other is the education of children, which has a direct and material impact on everyone else in the community. There have to be standards on education, to ensure that all children are raised to a basic level of ability, for the good of the entire community.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that educational standards should not exist for home-schooling, just as they exist for other forms of education delivery.
I don’t believe, however, that it should be assumed a priori that parents who choose to home-school are incapable of meeting those standards.
What agenda am I “pushing”? That kids be taught facts in their education and not whatever mumbo-jumbo their parents think is true? That the state should be empowered to make sure that standards are being met?
We let food inspectors drop in to make sure restaurants are following the rules and not poisoning their customers. Education is a hell of a lot more important than the health code, why should it be any less stringently monitored?
And please note where I said anything about homosexuality.
The only agenda I have in education is making sure kids are taught fact, and that all kids learn from a similar curriculum. How is that a radical homosexual agenda?
Incidentally, our laws require that a child receive an education until the age of 15. There is no legal requirement that they attain any given level of competence, and there are plenty examples around of 15 year olds whose state education has failed to provide them with even primary school level literacy and numeracy skills.
This is one of the moments that I don’t like myself very much…
WRT the OP, There is a part of me that thinks it’s more trouble than it’s worth. This part thinks that it is too costly to implement such a program, that finding people qualified to do the at home visits is too hard, that regulating the whole system would be nightmarish, that the potential for further harm is immense - but still thinks of those one or two kids who might be served better if their parents (who aren’t so far gone as to be abusive or neglectful, but do make some extremely poor choices) knew that at any moment, a government agent might drop in on them for a quick checkup.
The other part of me thinks its a dangerous intrusion into privacy and civil liberties and therefore should not even be proposed. And that part wins.
As far as homeschooled kids -
Kids that are sent to public schools are checked out by a government agent 5 days/week. That person notices (sometimes) whether or not the kid is malnourished, overtired, has far too many bruises, has a sudden, unexplained personality change. In other words, if something is happening to that kid, there’s a chance (not an absolute, but a chance) that someone might notice and do something.
The overwhelmingly vast majority of homeschooled kids are fine. But, every so often, you hear about some child who is being kept at home and being homeschooled so that these kinds of problems aren’t seen, so that the kid is kept hidden. I think that’s the driving reason for doing the kinds of random homeschool check-ups.
Precisely. You are attempting to stamp out religious beliefs that you dislike by controlling the education system.
Beyond the fact that freedom of religion is a fundamental right, unlike freedom to eat unhealthy food at restaurants, the fact is that we do NOT force all people to eat only at restaurants, so as to make sure they are eating healthy. Which is analogous to what you are suggesting here.
You did not. I am speculating that your antipathy to fundamentalist religion is not unconnected to homosexual issues.
I did not say that your agenda was a “radical homosexual” one. Only that you personally are a “radical homesexual”. This because - fortunately - most homosexuals would not take their activism as far as you would.
There is a HUGE difference between open-heart surgery and education, and to even compare the two is not just simplistic, it is… I’m not sure what to call it and still be nice. All children are educated by their parents from birth, and the idea that the state should take over at a certain arbitrary age is a relatively new concept. In that light, i would more compare it to feeding your child.
Feeding a child a proper diet is very important, perhaps even more so than educating them. An education won’t mean much if you starve, and few people will take the time to find out how educated you are at 400 pounds. But even without going to extremes, a habit of eating junk that begins in childhood and is not corrected leads to numerous health problems, which can be both costly and deadly, true? But the very idea of the state asking for evidence that we feed our children properly (without some indication that we are severely neglecting this obligation) is frankly galling.
It’s a combination of being subscribed to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)'s newsletter, and watching some friends of mine struggle with CPS trying to take their kids for no reason. It’s bringing up some concerns especially because CPS has knocked on my door before.
What part of “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” don’t you understand?
The right to educate your children as you see fit is not a privilege.
There are issues with the First Amendment with forced schooling, given that any sort of mandatory education risks clashing with the Free Exercise and Free Association clauses. Since these are fundamental rights, the state is required to use the least restrictive means, and mandatory participation in group schooling is not “least restrictive”. The right of free association has been used repeatedly by courts to defend parent’s rights to retain an association with their children and to control the nature of their children’s associations. The parent, as guardian of the child, and not the state, has the right to decide where and with whom the child will be, subject only to the traditional limitation that the parent may not act so as to harm the child. Taking away the right to educate as a parent sees fit would be an abrogation of the common law, and as such would require an explicit statute – and such a statute would face a high constitutional burden.
Public education did not exist at the time the Constitution was written. The establishment of the “right” of a “free and appropriate education” did not evolve until around 1800, and did not reach the entire population until the 1970s with the adoption of the statutory Individuals with Disability Education Act. Nobody has successfully sued a state for failing to provide an education on federal constitutional grounds. Such suits have always flowed from state constitutional provisions, state statutory law, or (since IDEA) federal statutory law. And IDEA only mandates “FAPE” as a condition of receiving funding; a state can reject federal education money and thereby refuse to provide public education.
Historically, at least one state did in fact shut down its entire public education system within the past 50 years (a Southern state, in an effort to avoid integration at the hands of Brown v. Board of Education).
All that said, there probably is case law acknowledging the fundamental right of parents to home school, precisely because there have been so many efforts made to interfere with those who do home school. However, I lack the resources to find it for you.
Not at all. Religion and education should be complete strangers. Parents are free to teach their children, in regards to religion, anything they like. However, when it comes to education, state standards must be upheld. You can bring up religious topics – everyone should know the basic beliefs of every major world religion – but science texts should reflect real science, not Creationism nonsense. Physics education shouldn’t skip things like the laws of thermodynamics (is that physics?), etc. Kids shouldn’t only be reading the Bible (which isn’t that amazingly written anyway, and a rather weak example of “literature”). So on and so forth.
My point is that we have standards for food preparation, and for education. Religion has nothing to do with this. My example from above was poorly chosen. The issue is that there are standards for education, and it is the state’s responsibility to uphold them.
My “antipathy” to fundamentalist religion predates my coming-out, even to myself, by years and years. Ask Polycarp. Nice try.
That’s hilarious. I am not a “radical” anything. I do not desire the overthrow of society or the annihilation of the existing social order. All I want is unfettered equality for gays and lesbians. If that makes me a radical in your eyes, then you need glasses.
I’m not an activist. I don’t march in parades. I don’t picket. I don’t participate in boycotts. I write a column for my university newspaper, which has dealt with the issue of homosexuality exactly twice in 18 months. And I do not keep my opinions to myself. But that’s hardly a trait limited to the topic of homosexuality. Oh, and I’m a dues-paying, card-carrying member of the ACLU. But that hardly makes me an activist.