From my print column this week:

Homeschoolers across the state issued a collective “Huh?” earlier this month when word of an appellate court ruling made the rounds of news outlets. Media reports said the ruling effectively outlawed homeschooling in California. Everyone, it seemed, had an opinion about homeschooling.

An editorial in the L.A. Times accused homeschoolers of being elitist even as the authors insinuated that homeschooled children sit around watching television all day.

Jack O’Connell, state superintendent of public instruction, issued a statement indicating that the California Department of Education saw no reason to change any rules relating to homeschooling. The homeschool hoopla only intensified from there.

Since there was nothing more important to do in Sacramento (like work on the budget?), our governor issued a statement in favor of parents’ rights to choose home education. A few state assemblymen proposed a non-binding resolution in favor of homeschool rights.

That was only the beginning.

Advocacy groups saw a chance to get some press and began issuing releases. “Don’t worry,” they said as they broadcast frantic pleas asking homeschool families to sign petitions, lobby legislators and send money to defray legal expenses. Talking about freedom of religion and constitutional rights kept the game going and the donations rolling in.

If only Jesse Jackson had joined in the fray, the circus would have been complete.

By the time the noise died down, there were few who remembered that at the heart of the case was a troubled family who had a long history with the folks at CPS. There were allegations of child abuse in the original court case, and the judges ruled that the Longs were not actually educating their children at home. The ruling stated that the Longs’ home education efforts were “meager” or worse. Those judges did not, however, see fit to remove the children from the home environment.

There were not many comments printed about the merits of the judges’ observations in relation to this family. Maybe the kids were slow. Maybe the parents really failed. Maybe they asked for help so many times that they gave up. I have no idea.

Concern for the children’s well-being should have been the centerpiece of the debate.

Still, many clamored on about the constitutional right to homeschool. I may not be a constitutional law whiz, but I’m pretty sure there is no line in there specifically guaranteeing the right to homeschool. We also don’t have clearly stated rights to watch television or eat pork rinds, but many people do those things safely unless expressly forbidden to do so by common sense or interpretation of law.

As Americans, we are called upon, both by law and by common sense, to protect children. Interpreting a law narrowly because of the improper actions of one family will not result in additional protections for children. If that worked, all the laws currently in place to protect children attending public schools would result in all children being completely safe at school. Sadly, it is not that simple.

By making this case bigger than it is, we run the risk of failing to protect the specific children who are at the center of this battle.

Our elected officials need to take a crash course in basic civics. If the courts continue to interpret the law to indicate that homeschooling is illegal in California, no amount of non-binding resolutions and proclamations will change that. Non-binding resolutions don’t do much except get your face on the evening news. Proclamations and press conferences are just so much useless wind.

Homeschoolers have a legitimate concern that lawmakers may restrict our rights to homeschool by crafting new laws. Knee-jerk regulations often throw the baby out with the legislative bathwater. However, the specifics of the original case are being obscured by those who are hogging the spotlight.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.