Teacher Unions Target Home-Schooling
Ohio home-school advocates should take note. A California state appellate court recently handed down a landmark ruling that stunned many parents and could potentially have legal repercussions for families across the country. Judge H. Walter Croskey wrote a court opinion that declared California children were only allowed to be taught by teachers credentialed by the state. Such a decision was a stark about-face from the previous California policy which provided parents with options in determining how best to educate their children.
Ohio has more than 56,000 home-schooled children. The California decision will likely embolden the state’s politically powerful teachers’ unions to challenge our home-school statutes and deny parents an important educational option. Allies in Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration are no doubt ready to carry the unions’ water.
The reaction of parents and public officials in California should give them pause.
In California, home-schooling parents found the majority of elected officials and government appointees took their side. California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell released a statement vowing his department’s continued support of parental rights. "I have reviewed this case, and I want to assure parents who choose to home-school that California Department of Education policy will not change in any way as a result of this ruling, parents still have the right to home school in our state,” O’Connell said. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has also ensured that if the courts did not overturn the decision upon appeal, the legislature will move to ensure that education choice remains an option in California.
Gov. Schwarzenegger understands a decision such as this has profound ramifications that stretch beyond educational choice, from parental rights to privacy laws.
The support of these officials may come as cold comfort to parents in California and concerned activists nationwide; but the decision of the court should not have come as a surprise. Rather, the decision is simply the most prominent salvo in an increasing trend against parents’ rights that exists under the guise of globalization and the innocuously-named “children’s rights movement.”
It has been nearly twenty years since the United Nations first agreed to codify the Convention of the Rights of the Child into international law and since that time, the United States has been only one of two member states of the United Nations to have not ratified the Convention.
The California case is a perfect example of why the United States has not ratified the treaty. The United States Constitution is unique in that many of the rights declared in the U.N. document are explicitly spelled out in our Constitution. The dignity and right to life of every human being is a cornerstone of our democracy. It a great shame that we live in a world where issues such as child soldiers and child pornography exist, and in some countries flourish. However, the best interests of the United States must come first when we enact domestic policy. The possibility of judicial rulings such as the one that came out of the California court has been noted for several years by numerous experts, ranging from home-schooling advocates to religious-liberty scholars. The ruling has unified many California officials, from the Republican Schwarzenegger to the Democrat O’Connell.
In a state where an estimated 166,000 children are home-schooled, it is encouraging to see elected officials uphold their commitment to the people they represent. It is also vital for voters heading into elections booths this year to be aware of the ramifications of their vote.
In appearances last summer before the National Education Association, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were practically tripping over themselves in their willingness to promise the NEA that they would do anything in there power to help the union achieve its goals. One of those goals is to force the United States Congress to ratify the Convention of the Rights of the Child. The NEA is also applauding this California court decision, publicly reiterating its uncompromising opposition to home-schooling.
As the California case teaches us, it is not necessary for the U.S. to ratify the Convention in order for its mandates to be enforced upon American families. Three activist judges have single handedly overturned fifty-plus years of California policy and threatened the educational stability of countless California school children. It is not an issue that should be taken lightly.
Ken Blackwell is the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow for Public Policy at the Buckeye Institute in Columbus, Ohio and a Senior Fellow at the Family Research Council in Washington, DC. He is a columnist for the New York Sun, a contributing editor and columnist for the conservative news and opinion site Townhall.com, and a public affairs commentator for the Salem Radio Network.
