The latest homeschool freak out
13 03 2009If you homeschool, you already know, and have either ignored it or had a meltdown.
You know, North Carolina, judge orders homeschoolers back to public school.
Generally I chime in on these things and try to take the reasoned approach. This time, I sort of ignored it, because I don’t have a dog in that race anymore. My gut reaction was this: it ain’t a homeschooling issue - it’s a divorce issue. The parents don’t agree what is in the children’s best interest. The judge isn’t at fault - the parents are.
And I’m not alone. Tammy says it better. But I think we may be the only two.
Yes, the sky is falling. All homeschoolers are going to lose their rights. Blah blah blah. California is going to force children to have sex in their classrooms! Gay sex! Subway is biased! Obama kills babies! NAIS is the mark of the beast! Oh wait, that isn’t a homeschooling issue. Well, livestock people can be just as nutty, trust me.
The point is, use your heads. If WingNutDaily is promoting a cause, figure that it’s likely to be embarrassingly over dramatized. The government isn’t that interested in what you’re doing at your kitchen table.
Isn’t NC the state where the Governor is using their millions of dollars in Federal stimulus money to pay off debt rather than fix up public school buildings…several of which are in such disrepair that they have been condemned?
Doc,
Would you know why I am getting an insane amount of hits from your site, in the last two days?
That usually only happens when we parry and there’s nothing to parry about this time, so why all the traffic (not that I mind)?
toni
[…] 03 2009 Doc is right. This is the latest homeschool freakout over parent rights and freedom to homeschool. Iit came to my local (primarily conservative […]
Toni. Dunno. I’ve been pretty busy and mostly offline since before the first of the year. Something shaking at the Well Trained Monkey site?
Nothing hot going on over there that I can read. At least none out of the ordinary for them
I’ve not blogged anything lately of interest either. But I keep getting hits from your site, so either they are mistakes or the name of my blog is intriguing them.
Dunno outside of that.
toni
You’re right - out of the ordinary would be “hey, Toni and/or Doc wrote a good blog entry about that!”. The ordinary would be that some troll has invaded and the xtards think it’s one of us. Or Phred.
Isn’t NC the state where the Governor is using their millions of dollars in Federal stimulus money to pay off debt rather than fix up public school buildings…several of which are in such disrepair that they have been condemned?
Nope. That’s SC’s Gov. Mark Sanford.
If you homeschool, you already know, and have either ignored it or had a meltdown.
Ignored it. And, for me, this is about as local as it gets.
I think they’d keel over dead if one of them wrote “toni or/and Doc wrote an awesome blog”… likely that, or they’d keel over after finding out that Phred really isn’t one of us.
But keeling over isn’t a bad thing, at least not when we speak of them.
And yes, like Daryl, I am in the “ignored it” category. I cannot roll my eyes any further into the back of my head than they already are.
toni
My initial reaction was the same as yours: okay people, whatever. My secondary reaction was: How can they DO that!!?? My tertiary reaction is: okay people, whatever, I’ve got to get some homeschool done.
Toni: Just a thought, but you left more than one comment on the Religious Mom from Mexico’s blog concerning the latest WTM bru-ha-ha and the link to your website when you posted on that blog was not working. I’m willing to bet that some people came here knowing your site was linked from Doc’s site. Hence all your hits from this blog. But that’s just a guess….a wild shot in the dark.
you know, that might be it. I did go to that wackaloon’s blog to tell her off and I did sign my name letting the WTM wack’s that I knew what was going on… but I did not think they’d actually follow me around, especially from Doc’s blog.
Make’s sense though.
toni
Huh? Dunno. Don’t care.
I don’t pay attention to posts that include links from WingNutDaily or FucksNews.
Here it is in a legit NC newspaper, for those who won’t read WND on principle:
Judge Sets Deadline [today - Sunday] in Homeschooling Dispute
I decided to look up “Sound Doctrine Church” today to see if what they preach is extra biblical or cultish. I found their website - http://www.sdoctrine.org/ which on the surface looks fundy but not dangerous. Of course, you don’t know what happens on the inside of a closed building. You have to “join” to get any real information. I found this discussion, from someone who had attempted to join the church. To me, it sends up a lot of red flags. Why be so secretive about your congregation? http://www.factnet.org/discus/messages/3/1488.html?1148607099
Definitely extra biblical. Controlling. Secretive. The basic tenets of a cult. If I were the father of those kids, I’d be wanting them away from mom, not just in public school. Poor kids.
And I found the lunatic friend of the mother’s, the one who has “started a website” - hello? It’s blogspot. Talk about paranoid….
http://www.hsinjustice.com/2009/03/judge-starting-cover-up.html
“The Cover Up Begins”
Great minds! I just finished doing the same thing, but here’s what I found — read to the bottom — which ought to scare the stew out of the kids and the dad, if not the judge:
I guess I missed this one, because, like you, I no longer have a horse in this race.
My first thought is that you are right. It is likely the divorce that is the problem. How often do the parent’s disagreements end up being dealt with by the court? And in such cases, the court can’t win. Not really. Poor kids, is right. Their whole world is falling apart and they have very little say.
I heard about this on American Family Radio or some such while flipping channels in the car; they were issuing a call to arms for Parent’s Rights. I wonder if they’d let me sign up so I can assure my right to continue to homeschool my lesbian daughter.
i read it, it bothered me, but i have to agree, it IS a divorce issue…the father doesn’t agree with how the kids are being schooled (the very conservative christian theme was mentioned) and felt they would be “more well rounded” in a public system…and in all honesty, in a case like that, i TOTALLY have to agree…after all, how can you teach people to be tolerant of one another if they are NEVER exposed to someone different? oh wait, they WOULDN’T be taught that, and they SHOULD be…
“Isn’t NC the state where the Governor is using their millions of dollars in Federal stimulus money to pay off debt rather than fix up public school buildings…”
(I’d make that quote in italic, if I knew how . . . anyhoo . . .)
The NC governor is in a lot of hot water for using lottery funds, which are supposed to be earmarked for education, to pay off debt.
As far as the court case, I’m split between being able to dismiss it as a simple custody issue (and if WND takes it seriously? I usually don’t) and being just a smidge nervous. I do worry that each ruling can be used in the future to make more rulings.
If you turn the tables around, here’s a hypothetical — a pagan family is homeschooling their child, and dad is “born again” (hallelujah!). Dad pressures mom and kid to come to church, yada yada, finally mom says shove off, we’re getting a divorce. Judge decides that the kids need to go to the local Christian school, where they’ll be taught creation science, because that’s what dad wants (and the judge just happens to be a conservative).
So if judges start to rule on family homeschooling issues, what about when Grandma Fundy decides that the kids would be better off in the local school, where a lot of her blue-haired conservative church ladies teach, because she doesn’t trust her daughter and that wack-a-doodle she married, what with all their “unschooling” nonsense. And you get a judge who suffers the misconception that homeschoolers are robbing the public schools of funds, so he sides with Grandma and hands down a ruling that the kids have to be driven thirty miles from their little farm to the nearest podunk elementary school?
So this does make me just a little nervous, even though I strongly suspect that if I had the facts about the current case, I would agree with the judge and the dad.
I’m with Christy B worrying about the larger problem behind this case — religion insinuating itself into every aspect of secular governance, politics, law, commerce, journalism, science, warfare and international relations. All the while claiming to be the innocent victim, just looking for a little personal freedom.
I’m pleading blinders.
A week and a half of travel and sickness and I’m so far behind in everything. I can see that my state list is going nutso over it but I’m not reading them.
My biggest concern about this? Given the numbers of families homeschooling, when are the judges going to be required to look beyond homeschooling stereotypes when homeschooling intersects divorce? Since the standard everywhere seems to be “in the best interest of the child,” shouldn’t the judges have a duty to take the time to get educated on the topic?
Can you imagine a judge ordering a public school student into a different public school for better diversity as part of a divorce decree?
It’s amazing how many parents become retroactively against homeschooling when divorce and more importantly support money are on the table.
Okay, so it isn’t the first time Doc was right . . .
Here’s the official court order.
http://www.newsobserver.com/content/media/2009/3/17/courtorder.pdf
Sorry Jamie, but since when is public school turning out “well rounded individuals”?
I homeschool my children and they are functioning in society for a greater part of the day than their public schooled friends are, who are institutionalized for 8 hours a day. They spend time with the elderly, with other children of all ages, volunteer for charities and are more adept at conversation than their friends from public school.
And since when is the “socialization” of our children such an issue? Shouldn’t we be concerned about their education?
Government should not pass its judgement on those who do not submit to its agenda.
Re: Karen’s comments — actually when primary custody changes to a different legal residence, it does affect which public school the children will be zoned for and they have to make that change the next school year, as part of the ruling’s practical effect.
So I’d argue particular school assignment and what kind of schooling (public, private or home) isn’t, and isn’t meant to be, a major consideration in custody rulings — which if you think about it, underlines home education’s point, that real education is always more about home, family and neighborhood than the details of any “schooling!”
Oh –one other thought. Home-educated kids are a quite small number comparatively, something less than five percent, while children in non-churching, non-believing homes are at least three times that! Latest data reported at about 15 percent. So I’d paraphrase Karen’s comments this way:
“Given the numbers of families not churching, when are the judges going to be required to look beyond secular stereotypes and their own religious beliefs, when religious “family values” intersect divorce? Since the standard everywhere seems to be “in the best interest of the child,” shouldn’t the judges have a duty to take the time to get educated on the topic?
Can you imagine a judge ordering a believing student into a different religion for better diversity, as part of a divorce decree? (No) Can you imagine him reluctant to grant custody to any parent openly without belief or church? (Yes) Is either of these defensible in America? (No.)
Editorial from today’s Miami Herald:
LIFT BAN on GAY ADOPTION
OUR OPINION: Bill allows judges to decide based solely on child’s best interests
Which brings us full-circle to Jeanette’s words, ta-da!
“Government should not pass its judgement on those who do not submit to its agenda.”
JJ
I was considering cases where parents share joint and physical custody, but live in different towns (like my downstairs neighbor) or in a district has multiple schools of choice.
My neighbor’s kids are in a school district that is considered superior educationally, while the district he lives in is far more diverse on almost every count.
Since the parents fully share both physical and legal custody, a disagreement could lead to the judge making the decision between two public schools. I just can’t see any way that a judge would say the kids need to go to the more diverse district.
I would have to disagree that homeschooling isn’t a major custody issue when homeschooling and divorce intersect. Thinking more though, not being a custody issue may be true - in the cases I’ve personally seen, opposition to homeschooling been far more about perceived dollars and punishment of a spouse than the education of the children (not the case in the NC case, but this has opened the door for discussion).
I was quite happy to see the Pennsylvania ruling a few months ago.
One thing I’ve noticed in all of the furor about this NC case though - no one has mentioned that HSLDA isn’t gonna touch this case with a 10 foot pole. They don’t do homeschooling and divorce. I did see someone on a local list jump to “They should contact HSLDA!” Not one of the usual defenders/promoters of HSLDA on the list responded publicly.
If homeschooling in a custody case were a threat to homeschooling in general, HSLDA would be all over it like a bad stink. Considering that they clearly steer clear of such issues, that to me proves that it isn’t a homeschooling rights issue. Trying to disseminate all scenarios where a judge needs to make a decision regarding the schooling of minor children is ridiculous. We could “what if” all fucking day. This judge made a decision in this case. Period.
I went to the WND report (wish I hadn’t). Even as someone who homeschooled in Germany and struggled with the authorities for many years and is still actively involved in advocacy there, it makes me cringe when I see their ham-handed dragging up of the Germany situation, and their regurgitation of the same Wolfgang Drautz quote (which came from Dana’s blog). That is not journalism, it’s I don’t know what. They are so stale. At least they’ve moved from Melissa Busekros onto the Dudeks. The word counterproductive doesn’t even start to describe it.