California appeals court affirms home schooling by non-credentialed parents
By Sharon Noguchi
Mercury News
Article Launched: 08/08/2008 09:51:09 AM PDT
In a decision widely praised, a California appeals court this morning affirmed the right of parents who don't have a teaching credential to educate their children at home.
A three-judge panel overturned a lower-court order in February that had created an uproar among home-schooling parents when it required that they be credentialed. An estimated 166,000 California children are home schooled.
The Second District appellate court in Los Angeles ruled that individual parents, like private schools, are exempt from the requirement that those who teach children be credentialed by the state.
"It is a very good decision and definitely a victory for home-schooling families in the state," said Damien Schiff of the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a Sacramento couple who teach their 7-year-old at home.
"We're happy with the ruling," said James Owens, Los Angeles assistant county counsel, who represented the county's child welfare agency. In the case before the court, that agency had sought public schooling for two children being educated at home.
According to a related article in the San Francisco Chronicle, this new ruling essentially declares that homeschooling is legal if parents declare their homes to be private schools. Teachers in private schools are not required to hold state-issue teaching credentials.
It's about time.
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1 comment:
I'm glad the ruling turned out the way that it did.
My husband & I do not have children yet, but when we do they will most likely be home schooled.
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