THE RIGHT TO HOME SCHOOL
Mothers can provide life to children, but not education?
BY CHUCK MUTH

Chuck Muth is president and CEO of Citizen Outreach. He is a professional political consultant. Find more about him and read more of his work at www.chuckmuth.com. Other stories by Chuck Muth

According to three California judges, parents “do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children.” In so ruling, the judges turned the parents of some 166,000 home-schooled children into criminals with the stroke of a pen. These paragons of justice say parents should be forced to send their children to government-run education camps, whether they like it or not. 

Wars have been started over less.

“A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare,” wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey, explaining his decision to outlaw home-schooling.

Notice that Judge Croskey didn’t mention silly little educational things like reading, writing and arithmetic. But it’s truly frightening when an American judge admits that a primary purpose of our public-school system is to indoctrinate kids into blind loyalty “to the state.” Tommy Jefferson must be rolling in his grave.

In Nevada, at least for now, the law sorta recognizes a parent’s right to educate their own children at home. However, the state still requires home-school parents to “register” with the government, ostensibly for “truancy” purposes. But this raises the same legitimate argument raised against gun registration: If the government knows who all the home-school parents are, and if three nitwit judges suddenly determine they’re all criminals, the government will know exactly who to round up.

Which is why I have pointedly elected not to fill out the “required” paperwork “registering” my children as being home-schooled. While many home-schoolers maintain that simple “registration” is not an onerous condition, I strenuously object to being required to notify the government of what I consider to be the inalienable right to teach my own kids — with or without a “teaching” degree.

And if the local school district wants to do something about it, bring it on. They know where I live. If not, just call Child Protective Services. They have the address. We’re the same folks who let our kids play out front without shoes on.

But let me put this in even starker terms. Suppose a woman decides she wants to terminate her pregnancy. Is she required to “register” with the government in order to notify the authorities of this decision?

Why, then, should a mother who chooses to bear the child instead not have the right to educate that child without “registering” with the government?

Hmmm.

Why does a woman have the right to make a life-and-death decision, literally, without providing official government notification, but not the freedom to decide how to educate her child? Whose child is it anyway?

Granted, there is a community interest, as well as a business interest, in having an educated populace. But that means education should be widely available and encouraged, not mandatory. In a free nation, people should have the right to be stupid — a right exercised with reckless abandon by three judges in California last month.

If they outlaw home-schooling, only outlaws will be home-schoolers. Just call me Josie Wales.