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THSC Response to

California Home School Case

by Tim Lambert

As I write this, we Texans have just finished the first round of voting in the primary elections in which political parties choose their nominees for the November General Election. Some of those elections had several candidates, and no candidate received a majority, so there will be a runoff in thirty days to determine the nominee. In many cases, there is no other political party fielding a candidate; therefore, the nominee is, in effect, the winner of the election. 

THSC PAC spent the better part of six weeks contacting legislative candidates, seeking their opinions on issues of interest to the home school community and endorsing those supportive of home school freedom and parental rights. The PAC raised money to help candidates and to mail an endorsement piece to every family on our list, urging them to vote for those candidates and work for their election. Most of those supported by the PAC won. For example, in one local race, a district judge had a particularly bad reputation regarding his dealing with parents in custody and grandparent access cases; THSC PAC endorsed his opponent, mailed letters to home school families in the county, and called home school families with a message that I recorded. The result was that the judge was defeated soundly. However, some friends of home schoolers did lose, and there are a few who are in runoffs.

For more than twenty years home school families have been strongly encouraged by THSC to participate in this process of choosing those who will represent us in our local, state, and federal governments. We have done so consistently and aggressively because, while many Texas home schoolers have no memory of a time in which they were not completely free to home school, some of us well remember the time in the 1980s when those in our state and local governments argued that it was illegal to homeschool and used the power of government to harass and prosecute families who had the audacity to teach their own children at home. In fact, last year we celebrated the victory in the battle for the freedom to homeschool in Texas–which lasted over a decade–with the release of a documentary, Taking a Stand in Texas: The Battle for Home School Freedom.

On February 28 of this year the California Second Court of Appeals ruled that a family has no constitutional right to homeschool their children, and, in fact, a family could only homeschool legally if the parent was a certified teacher. The court said, “The trial court’s reason for declining to order public or private schooling for the children was its belief that parents have a constitutional right to school their children in their own home. However, California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children. Thus, while the petition for extraordinary writ asserts that the trial court’s refusal to order attendance in a public or private school was an abuse of discretion, we find the refusal was actually an error of law. It is clear to us that enrollment and attendance in a public full-time day school is required by California law for minor children unless (1) the child is enrolled in a private full-time day school and actually attends that private school, (2) the child is tutored by a person holding a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught, or (3) one of the other few statutory exemptions to compulsory public school attendance (Ed. Code, § 48220 et seq.) applies to the child. Because the parents in this case have not demonstrated that any of these exemptions apply to their children, we will grant the petition for extraordinary writ.” (emphasis by author)

As you might expect, this situation has stirred up a good deal of controversy. California appears to be on the verge of taking a huge step backward concerning parental freedoms to homeschool. The case seems likely to be headed to the California Supreme Court, and if that court upholds the lower court ruling, the only alternative for California home school families is to go to the legislature and try to get it to amend the law to allow parents without certification to homeschool. 

While this has been going on, after a decade of freedom, Washington, D.C., city officials have drawn up a list of regulations for home schoolers as the result of the tragic death of children who were supposedly homeschooled. In a hearing on March 5, dozens of home school families testified against the proposed rules, and officials agreed to scrap the proposal and start over, this time including home school leaders in the process of adopting regulations.

Added to these problems, our friends in Nebraska are fighting against the worst legislative attack against home schooling since the 1980s. The hearing on the bill set a record for the number of attendees with over thirteen hundred people in attendance; at the time of this writing, the outcome is uncertain. 

Obviously there are many people in many places who believe that the state, rather than the parents, has the right to make decisions for our children. 

I share these stories with you because the natural tendency that we all have is to become focused on our own families and the day-to-day issues that concern us in the rearing of our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; we tell ourselves we do not have time to follow this “political stuff.” However, all of these stories are evidence that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We must stay informed and attuned to what is going on around us in our government and the public policy process. To fail to do so might one day bring us to the place where our friends in California, Washington, D.C., and Nebraska are today.

Lest I leave you discouraged, let me remind you that home school parents in Texas led the way in the 1980s, and we have the landmark Texas Supreme Court ruling (Leeper v. Arlington ISD), won by Shelby Sharpe, THSC general counsel, in which the highest court in Texas ruled that home schools are private schools, and because of that, they are exempt from compulsory attendance laws. We have a governor who has strongly supported home school freedom for parents and has appointed a commissioner of education who also holds that position.   THSC Association is well respected in the halls of the Texas legislature, and THSC PAC will continue, by God’s grace, to be active in legislative races, supporting those who defend home schooling. 

Thank you for your prayers and support of our work at THSC. With your help and God’s grace, we will continue to work to make Texas a beacon of freedom for families to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

In your service and His,

Tim Lambert

Articles concerning the California home school case:

Judge Orders Homeschoolers into Government Education

WorldNetDaily, February 29, 2008

Home Schoolers' Setback Sends Shock Waves Through the State

San Francisco Chronicle, March 7, 2008

See what TIME magazine has to say about the issue.

Criminalizing Home Schoolers, Mar. 07, 2008

California Resists Home School Ruling, Mar. 12, 2008  

Governor Vows to Protect Homeschooling

San Francisco Chronicle, March 8, 2008
 

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