When a California court ruled that two children could not be taught at home, it became a cause celebre for those claiming that home-schooling was being outlawed.
In fact, the ruling has less to do with the right to educate children at home and more to protect children from neglect and abuse — a reminder that complex issues often defy easy categorization.
Lost amid the ensuing culture-war debates over parental control versus public schools is the specific child-welfare case heard by the California Court of Appeal for the Second Division.
NEWS ANALYSIS
The case of “In re: Rachel L.” involves a teenager and her two younger siblings who are asking through their court-appointed attorneys to be sent to public or private schools. Rachel, now 16, doesn’t want to be home-schooled — in fact, she doesn’t live at home at all — and the attorneys for her younger brother and sister are arguing it’s in their best interest to be sent to school.
Thus, it was a victory for the children when the California appellate court ruled Feb. 28 that their parents had to send them to school.
The case is about protecting children, not upending home-schooling, said Leslie Heimov, executive director of the Children’s Law Center of Los Angeles (CLC), whose lawyers were assigned to represent Rachel and her siblings, ages 10 and 8.
“We absolutely, 100 percent, wholeheartedly believe that parents are the best and most important people to be protecting their children,” Ms. Heimov said.
“But our clients … are children who a court of law has found are not being protected by their parents, and I think that’s a nuance that’s been missing.”
Unpublished court papers tell a sorry story about the Lynwood, Calif., family of Phillip and Mary Long.
They and their nine children have been involved with the child-welfare system for 20 years, owing to accusations of physical abuse by the father and sexual molestation of several daughters by a male family friend whom the parents permitted to come around.
The father, a high school dropout who is described as “dictatorial,” has refused to send any of his children to school, even though two of them repeatedly asked to go. His wife, who has an 11th-grade education but home-schools the children, is described as passive and dominated by the father.
The CLC lawyers appointed to represent the two siblings urged a juvenile court judge to force the parents to send these children to a public or private school for their education, safety and well-being.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen Marpet sympathized with the children — their home-schooling was “lousy” and “meager,” he wrote — but he refused to order the parents to send the children to school because he thought they had a right to teach their children.
The CLC lawyers appealed, and the appellate court ruled in their favor: Since the mother did not have the required “valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught,” she could not teach the children at home, the appellate court said in its unanimous opinion.
The court further opined that, in California, unless parents have teaching credentials, they “do not have a constitutional right to home-school their children.”
Anger from home-schoolers and politicians issued forth predictably.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, called the ruling “outrageous” and promised the law would be fixed.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said the state would not enforce the ruling on the state’s estimated 166,000 home-schooled children. “Parents still have the right to home-school in our state,” he said.
The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), an Arizona legal-defense group, has agreed to represent Mr. Long and requested a rehearing. On March 25, the appellate court agreed and gave local and state education officials, as well as home-schooling groups, about a month to file papers in the case.
ADF lawyer Gary McCaleb praised the decision, saying that since the case affected all of California, it deserved “a second look.” ADF also seeks a win for the Long family. “It’s this family’s right to home-school their children, and it’s the right of all California parents to have that choice to home-school their children,” said ADF spokesman Greg Scott.
“This case remains our top priority,” said Michael Farris, chairman of the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association.
The CLC, which argued against the rehearing, is preparing its arguments, too.
“From our perspective, the CLC had no interest in changing or impacting the law regarding children who are home-schooled by loving, caring parents who are assumed to want to and are capable of protecting their children and providing for their children’s best interests,” Ms. Heimov said.
But in situations where parents are not protecting their children — as is the case with this family, in her view — “it is paramount” that society step in and protect these children, she said. “That’s what this case was about.”
