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Whose Children Are They, Anyway?

By Theresa Camoriano

A California appeals court has recently decided that it is illegal for parents to home-school their children if the parents are not certified teachers.  The court said there is no Constitutional right to home-school.  This case cuts to the very core of our society – who has the authority and responsibility for raising and educating children – the parents or the government? 

We need to understand that this case has nothing to do with ensuring that children get a good education and everything to do with who controls them.  Home schooling families have proven repeatedly that they achieve superior educational results, regardless of the education level of the parents.  Far more children fall through the cracks and fail to learn in the public schools than in home schooling environments.  In fact, if the government really cared about educating children, it would encourage more home schooling, not less. 

But the government education complex is not about what is best for the children; it is all about what is best for itself and its friends.  As Albert Shanker, a former teacher’s union president once said, “When school children start paying union dues, that 's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.”

I home schooled one of my daughters for three years and find it somewhat ironic that I would be breaking the law if I were home schooling her in California today, since I am not a certified teacher.  Apparently, my degrees in engineering, Russian, and law, and my deep caring for my daughter would count for nothing; I would be forced to turn her education over to some stranger who may have been incapable of getting a college degree in a serious subject and instead became a certified teacher.  Maybe it would be someone like the teacher she had who couldn’t even manage to get the words spelled correctly on the bulletin board, or the teacher who allowed the other children in class to bully and abuse my daughter.  Or maybe it would be like the teacher my other daughter had, who herself was the class bully and who only stopped abusing my daughter when she began recording the classes.  But at least the teacher would be certified, having the stamp of approval of the state!

In the course of home-schooling my daughter, I had the opportunity to think very seriously about what I wanted her to get out of her education.  I realized that basic skills, such as reading and math, were very important, but it was also very important for her to learn good values, good habits, and how to think and problem-solve.  And this is the precisely the responsibility of parents – to raise good, responsible children. 

The fact is that, from the point of view of the government education complex, children are just pawns in a power game.  If the educrats can control the children, they will control the vast coffers of education money and the future of our society. 

If government has control over who becomes a certified teacher, and if government has the power to require children to be taught by certified teachers, and the power to force us to pay for that government-certified education, then government will dictate what our children learn, including the government-approved version of history, the government-approved set of values, and the government-approved relationship between the citizen and the state.  Do we really want folks like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Richard Nixon, or Arnold Schwarzenegger to have that kind of power?  Thanks, but I’d rather trust parents any day.

If parents lose control of the right to educate their own children as they think best, then we will have become subjects of the state, not sovereign citizens.  This is something that I would expect to see in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, not in a country that claims to be free.

(Note:  The Kentucky House of Representatives wants to require children to get a dental exam before they can attend public school.  Since one student’s teeth pose no risk or danger to another student, we can only assume that the dentists have lobbied for this perk.  Next, the legislature will be requiring every student to have new shoes, visit the chiropractor, and get a manicure, too!)

  "A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader."

-- Samuel Adams (letter to James Warren, 12 February 1779)

"If you're going to send your kids to Caesar, you're going to get Romans back."  -- Cal Thomas

http://townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2008/03/04/coming_out

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