Homeschool Trial and Error

What started out as a simple child welfare case in California has resulted in the most sweeping rejection of homeschooling in state history.

By a 3-0 decision, a panel of appellate court judges sent families reeling with the verdict that parents don’t have a constitutional right to homeschool their children without obtaining state teaching credentials. The ruling, which completely blindsided social conservatives, turned an isolated family incident into a broad indictment of the entire homeschooling community.

The court was asked to consider whether homeschooling was facilitating the opportunity for a set of parents to physically and emotionally mistreat their children. Based on that one specific incident, the panel used the opportunity not just to resolve the situation at hand but to potentially ban homeschooling across the state.

According to the opinion, the court based its judgment on a California statute which says that children ages six to 18 must attend a full-time day school (public or private) or “be instructed by a tutor holding state credentials for the child’s grade level.” Since the ruling was released, Justice H. Walter Croskey has become the focus of national outrage for suggesting that parents who fail to comply with California’s statute should be criminally prosecuted.

Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council. This brief is excerpted from the Washington Update that he compiles for the FRC.