Home schooling challenged
Court ruling requires parents to have teaching credentials
A ruling by the California Court of Appeal that parents who teach their children at home must have credentials has prompted Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to promise to push through legislation to “protect the rights of parents,” if higher courts don’t reverse the edict.
The decision came last month as the result of a case involving a Lynwood family, Phillip and Mary Long, who were taken to juvenile court by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). The judge in the case found that the children were being “poorly educated,” but did not order that two of the youngsters, ages 7 and 9, be enrolled full-time in a school.
On appeal, the 2nd District Court of Appeal told the juvenile judge to require the parents to comply with state law by enrolling their children in a school.
The California Department of Education allows home schooling as long as parents file an affidavit with the state establishing themselves as a small private school, hire credentialled tutors, or enroll their children in an independent study program run by a charter or private school or a public school district. In these scenarios, the children can still be taught at home.
Further, the California Education Code exempts children in private school from mandatory public school attendance.
A spokesperson for Superintendent of Public Schools, Jack O’Connell, said that the burden of verifying whether a school is actually a private school falls on local school districts who are required to enforce truancy laws.
Jennifer James, co-founder with her husband, Michael, of the National African American Alliance of Homeschoolers (NAAAH), said the ruling might have a chilling effect on the involvement of African American parents in the homeschooling movement.
“It creates the stigma again. Homeschoolers worked so hard to drop the stigma that they are this weird sect of people that keep their kids inside. I think this will re-ignite the stereotype and scare people away from possibly homeschooling,” said James.
According to the association co-founder, African Americans are the fastest growing segment of the homeschooling population. She estimates they make up a little more than 10 percent of the total population, which equates to about 100,000 African American children nationwide.
“A lot of parents are fed up with their children not being given the same opportunities. There was one parent in Charlotte, NC, who said her child was in a school that had resource books from the 1980s. Those are the types of things that push African American parents to consider homeschooling,” James added.
The movement for black parents to homeschool began strongly during the early 1990s in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area, according to the NAAAH co-founder. “There were a lot of well-to-do blacks in these areas, but they weren’t well-to-do enough to send their children to private school, so they began homeschooling, and it started to trickle across the country.”
James said what previously kept African Americans from homeschooling was the belief that this option was not available to them. But as the phenomena became more prevalent in the media, James said the concept began to click with black parents, who reasoned they could do the same thing.
Back in California, homeschooling proponents as well as the Longs have said they will appeal the decision by the 2nd District Court. Meanwhile, the State Department of Education said the ruling does not immediately impact what they do—accept private school affidavits.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—The Los Angeles City Council will consider banning smoking in "all public areas and common areas where people congregate.''
Councilman Bernard Parks, who proposed the ordinance, said "We need to implement legislation to regulate cigarette smoking by limiting it to specific places where there is no expectation of involuntary contact with people—wherever people congregate or there is an expectation of people being present, (then) smoking should be prohibited.''
If Proposition 24 passes, California will get larger class sizes, fewer teachers and will lose other social service workers and state workers. That’s the prediction by Frank Wells, a spokesperson for the California Teachers Association (CTA).
Proposition 24 repeals tax law that allows multi-state businesses to use a simplified formula to determine how much tax they must pay the state.
According to the Census Bureau, the poverty rate has escalated from 13.2 percent in 2008 to 14.3 percent in 2009. Last year, 43.6 million Americans lived in poverty; that figure increased nearly 4 million, compared to 2008.
“This is the largest number of officially impoverished Americans in the 51 years the government has kept track of poverty levels, and the highest percentage since 1994,” wrote Joseph Shaman, a senior correspondent for AOL news.
This November’s battle between incumbent Barbara Boxer and challenger Carly Fiorina for the junior California Senatorial seat will be closely watched, since a Republican win here could upset the Democrat majority and further inhibit the President’s ability to implement new legislation and the appointments of judges, federal executives, and uniformed officials. Both candidates graciously granted separate interviews with Our Weekly to address the major issues in this most visible of State elections.
In the next few days, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education will discuss the issue of putting a multi-million bond measure on the November ballot that would relieve overcrowding at Los Angeles middle and high school campuses.
The funds would underwrite the cost of modernizing and repairing schools; creating smaller independent campuses; as well as opening charter and specialized schools, according to Superintendent David Brewer.
