Home Schooling Illegal in California? A Radio Interview with Dr. James Dobson
Tag(s): • courts • Danger to Parental Rights • education • law • parental rights • Radio Interview
Two weeks ago, I had an opportunity to speak with Dr. James Dobson about the threat that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child poses to parental rights, particularly the right of parents to direct the education of their children. In retrospect, these warnings almost appear to have been prophetic.
This morning, I was able to speak with Dr. James Dobson again, this time about the disturbing decision of a California court which declared just eight days ago that the vast majority of parents in California do not have the right to educate their children at home. The eighteen-page decision, issued by three judges in the Second District of the California Courts of Appeal, boldly and unequivocally stated in its opening paragraphs that “parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” and that parents could teach their children at home only if they were certified teachers. The court also rejected the parents’ appeal to home school because of their religious beliefs, saying that the parents did not present the right “quality of evidence” to prove that they had these religious beliefs.
In so ruling, the court declined to follow vital Supreme Court precedents, such as the Court’s 1972 decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder and its 2000 ruling in Troxel v. Granville, relying instead upon two antiquated lower-court decisions: one from New Hampshire in 1929, the other from California in 1953. The California court also did not recognize parental rights as fundamental rights (even though the Supreme Court did in Troxel). Instead, the court rejected the language of fundamental rights in favor of the more lenient, often pro-government standard of “reasonableness,” by agreeing with an earlier California decision which claimed that it would place “an unreasonable burden on the state to have to supervise each and every home in which a child was being educated.”
Listen to the discussion with Dr. James Dobson to learn more about the California decision, its potential impact on home school families, and what can be done to reverse this outrageous ruling.
Who asked them to supervise and oversee each and every home? Who gives this government the right to decide this garbage? YOU DO!
Take it back folks…..Have a parade, a protest, sing a song, shout, read on the steps of the buildings, write letters, read what is going on, have your kids get involved. This is your last chance. We are on the slippery of tyranny from which there is no return.
Mar 10 at 8:34 pm
Everyone knows this is about money, right? The school system loses money for evry child that is pulled out of the system. We know it is about fear too, right? The fear of having independant thinkers is a huge worry, for a government organization. Common sense is dangerous. It’s about pride, because many government thinkers, think that education is only from the class room or “standardized” results by way of testing at the lowest common denominator and producing people who have a limited view of history, economy even health care. But most of all it is about power over land, business and individual rights. Where is the ACLU on this one? They won’t take it up because it would mean they had to fight their buddies in the government. Let’s all remember that the only real government is God’s.
Mar 14 at 9:01 am
I sincerely hope that Dr. Dobson can some how stay alive and an active voice for the next 50 year! He is one of the few sane, level-headed voices holding back the tides of radical and reactionary opinions that I fear will dominate the field of child protection and parenting once he is gone.
May 2 at 7:23 pm