exvigilare

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, “you keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

A California court has ruled that the homeschooled children of Phillip and Mary Long must attend public schools - or, as the “court” put it,

that several children in one homeschool family must be enrolled in a public school or “legally qualified” private school, and must attend, sending ripples of shock into the nation’s homeschooling advocates as the family reviews its options for appeal.

This has been linked by everybody, I know, and I don’t normally like to follow suit but this case is so important that you need to read this if you haven’t already.

This last ruling was from the California Appellate Court, finding that

“keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children’s lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents’ ‘cloistered’ setting.”

The appeals ruling said California law requires “persons between the ages of six and 18″ to be in school, “the public full-time day school,” with exemptions being allowed for those in a “private full-time day school” or those “instructed by a tutor who holds a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught.”

The judges ruled in the case involving the Longs the family failed to demonstrate “that mother has a teaching credential such that the children can be said to be receiving an education from a credentialed tutor,” and that their involvement and supervision by Sunland Christian School’s independent study programs was of no value.

Nor did the family’s religious beliefs matter to the court.

Damn right that emphasis is mine.

A follow up report on this issue incorporates reaction from the Home School Legal Defense Association (how sad is it that this organization must exist?), saying that the ruling made no changes in California law regarding homeschooling. Hmm, I don’t believe them, frankly. At least, not based on the California court’s ruling.

Child advocates? Hardly.

UPDATE: Good friends are emailing this link for a petition.

UPDATE 2: Gabriel says the LA Times has misunderstood the case and homeschoolers need to chill. I don’t agree, especially with his findings here, but it’s worth your time to read both.