California Courts Defend the Rational
By Irreligiosity on Mar 7, 2008 in Around the World, Christianity, Featured, Politics, Rational Thought, Religion, Religious Freedom, United States
Readers might recall me ranting about California fundamentalists pulling their children out of the public school system due to a bill that made it clear homosexuals were protected by state anti-discrimination laws. You can read the full story by clicking on the link, but there is a new development in this situation.
A ruling in a California Appeals court has once again clarified the law for these groups (funny how arms of the government are always having to be clarified for these religious groups) and has made it abundantly clear that homeschooled children must be homeschooled by a state accredited tutor or teacher. Previously homeschoolers had gotten around this by registering their household as a Private School and then enrolling their children, but this is going to be a no-no from now on.
The religious homeschoolers are understandably upset about this, but I say good on California. I’ve always thought it was ridiculous that parents could just pull their children out of the public school system and teach them whatever they want at home, especially considering most of the cries for homeschooling are a result of either the state trying to teach tolerance towards groups Christians don’t like or trying to teach scientific fact that religious groups don’t agree with because their ancient holy texts say an invisible man in the sky snapped everything into existence. It’s about time a state government takes a stand against this practice and attempts to pull the homeschoolers back into the civic mainstream.
In other news, Irreligiosity has been added to the Planet Humanism blog network. Hello to everyone there, and I look forward to interacting with all of you in the future!
Technorati Tags: homeschooling, california, court of appeals, religion
the chaplain | Mar 7, 2008 | Reply
This is basically a good move by California. Home schoolers should be required to meet some sort of minimum academic qualification. I’ll do some more thinking about curriculum requirements before writing about that can of worms.
John | Mar 7, 2008 | Reply
Even if you think minimum requirements or some sort of regulation makes sense, a teachers credential is just stupid. It takes 5 years full time to get one, it expires in 5 years if not used in a school setting and is limited to a specific subject or grade. There isn’t a teacher in the state who has the certification to teach a child from K-12.
Not to mention, a teach is credentialed to teach 30 or so students they have never met, have very limited influence over, and cannot tailor the pace or content to the students’ interest or ability. This is orders of magnitude more dificult than teaching one child who you’ve known all their life in a setting that is entirely within your control. To suggest otherwise is offensive to teachers!
Finally, homeschooling was actually first pushed within LIBERAL communities as a way to make sure their chldren where not brought up (in an earlier age) in a way THEY found objectionable. Now, perhaps more conservatives do it, but I have known many liberal minded homeschoolers even today.
John | Mar 7, 2008 | Reply
Additionally, it’s interesting to see that you are as eager to use the state to force Christians to raise their children your way as they were to “Christianize the Catholics” and other such nonsense proffered as a reason to START public schools in the first place. (Look it up, it’s fascinating)
Irreligiosity | Mar 8, 2008 | Reply
I could give two shits about who started home schooling. Maybe it was liberals, I can’t really tell for sure because A) who started homeschooling has no bearing whatsoever on the way that Christian fundamentalists have co-opted the system for their own twisted ends and B) you didn’t really provide links to anything to back up your claims.
And it isn’t a teacher’s certification, just an accredited tutor or teacher. Read the article before spouting off, maybe?
Although honestly, what’s so bad about requiring that people be taught by teachers? Homeschooling as it is has been turned into a religiously motivated joke, so clearly the system isn’t working as intended no matter who originally started it and what their intentions were at the time.