California Court: Parents May be Harmful to Children
March 8th, 2008 at 05:14pm Mark Noonan
Read it and weep, fellow Americans:
Los Angeles, Mar 7, 2008 (CNA).- A California court decision restricting two parents’ ability to homeschool their children could subject all California parents to criminal penalties for homeschooling, WorldNetDaily reports.
Allegations of abuse had been brought against Phillip and Mary Long of Los Angeles, who disciplined their homeschooled children with spankings. After the case was closed by the court, the two attorneys appointed to represent the Longs’ two youngest children filed a special appeal challenging the Longs’ right to continue homeschooling their children.
The Second Appellate Court in Los Angeles granted the attorneys’ appeal. Justice H. Walt Croskey, whose opinion was joined by two other judges, declared, “Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction and subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program.”
The Long family’s children were enrolled in Sunland Christian School, a private homeschooling program. Judge Croskey, without hearing arguments from the school, said this was a “ruse of enrolling [children] in a private school and then letting them stay home and be taught by a non-credentialed parent.”
The appellate court confirmed a lower court’s finding that “keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children’s lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents’ ‘cloistered’ setting.”
Did you catch that? The worry from the judge is that the parents might be a baleful influence on their children and thus only a properly credentialled representative of the government’s education monopoly can ensure what is best for the children. This is just the latest in a long line of attempts by the left - going back more than 200 years - to remove children from parental control and have the State raise them to be what the State wishes them to be.
This nauseating ruling must be overturned - it is the family which is the foundation of society, not government-run indoctrination centers…err, I mean “public schools”. The damned schools can’t even teach kids to read and write at times, yet a group of judges holds public schools to be superior in education quality to parents who actually love their children! Enough is enough - it is time we smack down this sort of nonsense and let the left know that we won’t allow them to destroy us.
Cross posted at Battle Born Politics.
UPDATE: Governor Schwarzenegger steps up to the plate:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denounced a state appeals court ruling that severely restricts homeschooling and promised Friday to change the law if necessary to guarantee that parents are able to educate their children at home.
“Every California child deserves a quality education, and parents should have the right to decide what’s best for their children,” Schwarzenegger said in response to the ruling, which said children educated at home must be taught by a credentialed teacher.
“Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children’s education,” Schwarzenegger said. “This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts, and if the courts don’t protect parents’ rights then, as elected officials, we will.”
Entry Filed under: General Government, Justice System, Social Issues
122 Comments
1. Almiranta | March 8th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Of course parents should not be entrusted with the care of their children. Child-rearing should be a matter of the State.
Not only should parents not have the right to decide what their children are taught, they should not be considered the first or most obvious choice for guidance when a child has a question, such as “Should I have sex at the age of 11?” of “Is oral sex really sex?”, or a problem, such as pregnancy—these are also matters for the State to decide.
As a matter of fact, once a child has been told, in school, by ‘experts’ hired by the school to teach and advise the children, that she should have sex with as many people as possible, at any age, including sex with other girls, with boys, with girls and boys, as part of a couple or part of a group, and should also use drugs and drink alcohol, and that condoms take away a lot of the “fun”, when she does become pregnant and has a school official take her to have an abortion, she should not even tell her parents about it.
As long as she doesn’t try to get on a school bus to go to a museum, which of course requires parental approval, it’s all a matter of the State.
And don’t forget, the child is instructed to go to the real authorities in her life, the representatives of the State, to report any transgressions by her parental units. Right now, it’s discipline, but it’s only a matter of time till she will be rewarded for reporting comments made within the home which are not favorable to the State.
You people act like you haven’t read any history at all. Sheesh!!!
(caveat: Muslim parents can choose their own schools and teach what they like. It’s just the rest of us who are supposed to bow to the superior moral and intellectual powers of the elites of the State.)
2. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Mark
I agree with this ruling and it’s about time that such a ruling was made in the public forum. The whole “home schooling” scheme was just a ruse devised by fundamentalist Christians to take their kids out of the public school system to teach them Christian dogma. It’s bordering on child abuse to cloister children away from the world and teach them myths as if the were scientific fact. As much as christians may hate this fact, the world was not created in 6 days and we did not magically appear out of dust gathered up by an supernatural being. I’m all for freedom of educational choice but what these fundamentalists are doing is not choice, it removes choices away from these children.
I believe this ruling should and will stand.
3. Magnum Serpentine | March 8th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I agree with the California courts.
I have visited several home schooled families and only one, in Missouri, were teaching their children educational material. Other families sent their kids out to work when they were old enough and called it home schooling, or allowed them to play in the pool all day long and called it Home Schooling. Others let the kids play video games and called it home schooling. The family in Missouri had a 3 story home and the first story was divided up into class rooms and there were actual desk and learning materials in these rooms. No other family I visited who home schooled seem to care enough to do that.
This is why parents who want to teach at home should have a teaching certificate or degree and be required to take their kids to the school every quarter to take a test to see how well they are progressing.
What can be wrong with testing children to see how they are progressing… After all george requires it in the “Every child left behind act!”
4. Canuckguy | March 8th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Nietzsche:
–According to the results of a poll taken, apparently about 40% of Americans do not believe in evolution. So with such a large number of nitwits, you are beating your head against a brick wall on this issue.
5. Mark Noonan | March 8th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
NiP,
So, you’re in favor of ending family altogether and having children removed from the home at 5 years old and raised by the State…this simply must be your view if, indeed, you feel that a parent teaching their children their religious beliefs is harmful…
6. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 8th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Canuckguy-
40% today, what was it 25 years ago, how about 50 years ago, what do you think that percentage was about 100 years ago?
Old myths die hard but they do eventually die. Education is the best solution.
7. Mark Noonan | March 8th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Canuck,
Even with relentless propaganda against the concept in Canada, 22% of Canadians are of the opinion that human beings were specially created by God, as is, within the past 10,000 years…that is more than one in five of your fellow citizens…and another one in five aren’t sure…
8. Mark Noonan | March 8th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
NiP,
Actually, the number of people accepting blind evolution is declining in the United States - this seems to be the case over the past 40 years or so. Seems the more you push it, the more people push back against the concept of blind evolution.
9. Magnum Serpentine | March 8th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
22 percent seems rather low Mark. Rather low number indeed. the 40 percent in the United States seems more average but then it is rather low also, 60 percent believe in evolution. Thats a rather high number for a “Christian” Nation.
10. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 8th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Mark-
Again you love to take a position and run it to the absurd. I never endorsed breaking up the family.
I do believe it’s right and proper for a family to teach their children their religious beliefs but I do not agree with them teaching obviously debunked religious myths as scientific fact. That does nothing for these children but harm their intellectual development.
11. Mark Noonan | March 8th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Magnum,
What business is it of yours how a parent chooses to educate their children? Whence comes this right of the State to demand a child be educated in a particular way?
One of the most annoying things about public schools is their idiotic, purblind and ignorant one-size-fits-all mentality about education…this is made doubly annoying by the fact that the public schools can’t even teach the basics all that well. There really are people out there holding high school diplomas they are incapable of reading.
When you add too all that the fact that the genesis of public schooling in the United States was a determination by WASPs to take kids out of Catholic schools, you really start to understand was a monstrous imposition the whole concept is…
12. Mark Noonan | March 8th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
NiP,
Deferentiate “obviously debunked religious myths” from those parts of religion which are obviously correct.
What you don’t realise is just how foolish you’re sounding here…
13. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 8th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Mark -
So it’s “blind evolution” now? You know before Christians like yourself wouldn’t have accepted evolution in any form but now I’m hearing “blind evolution. I guess education by persistent liberals is having an effect. I think the point is proven.
14. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 8th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
What’s your problem Mark? You don’t accept that some religious stories has been scientifically proven false?
I can name a few right off the top of my head.
Start with the first page of the Bible.
15. Mark Noonan | March 8th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
NiP,
The problem in evolutionary theory has always been the assertion that its just a blind, random process…no one of any scientific training ever had a substantive disagreement with the concept of species changing over time. The problem comes in when you say that it all happened by accident - I recall reading a history of the Russian Revolution where the Bolsheviks used to stage “debates” between priests and atheists on the subject of evolution…normally, of course, the thing was pre-set for the priest to be “convinced” and announce he no longer believed in God due to the evidence of evolution…one time, though, the audience of peasants and workers gave the victory to the priest because the atheist, asked how nature was created, said that nature created itself; this answer generating roars of laughter from the audience.
16. Mark Noonan | March 8th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
NiP,
You tell me - what part of this is obviously false:
Once you’ve done that, then please go through the entire Bible and do the same, and then tell me where you get the right to tell parents what they can teach their children.
That should keep you busy for a while…
17. Casper | March 8th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Mark’
This is one area that you and I agree, at least to a point.
In my experience, at least here in Wyoming, you can divide Home School parents into to groups.
The first group would include those parents that homeschool their children because they don’t feel the public schools are challenging enough or have problems they don’t want their children exposed to, or they simply think they can do a better job than the public schools can. I have no problem with this group. They are doing what is best for their children.
The second group of parents that homeschool are those that are trying to hide something. There is something going on in the home that they don’t want anyone else to know about, whether it be drugs, abuse, or lack of parental supervision. These are parents that shouldn’t be allowed to homeschool. I recently had a parent pull her 12 year old child out of my class because she couldn’t get her to school at time or at all. The parent now has the student stay home by herself while she works. She also allows her daughter’s 13 year old boyfriend to spend the night. That type of parent should not be allowed to homeschool.
18. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 8th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Mark -
You’re on your “what’s the purpose” quest again.
Evolution acts according to environmental need. To call it “blind” is misrepresenting it.
Nice example with the priest /atheist debate. You know it’s very baffling for me to understand how it’s so hard for Fundamentalists to accept that nature arose through the combination of elements with the introduction of electricity, yet they immediately fall over for the dubious notion of spontaneous creation through supernatural means.
In the end Mark your problem isn’t one of process but purpose. That’s a philosophical debate not a scientific one.
19. Mark Noonan | March 8th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Casper,
That would be a pretty poor parent…but, on the other hand, its none of your business how a parent seeks to educate her child. You can advise, cajole, bring social pressure, offer to help…but you can’t command. That is no office of yours, and no office of an officious judge greatly exceeding any semblance of constitutional authority.
I realise that when we make parental authority paramount, we are running the risk of bad parents doing stupid and/or evil things…but if a bad parent messes up, he’s only messing up his kids…if a bureaucrat or judge messes up, he’s messing up millions of kids. I don’t set the family up as absolutely superior to the State because parents are always right and the State is always wrong - I do so because people tend to screw up, and given this fact of human nature, the job of society is to limit the scope of the disaster.
Its the same reason we don’t have a dictator - we have a President and nine Justices and 535 congressmen because this spreads the authority around, so that no one of them can cause a complete catastrophe…and, meanwhile, the business of government will at least be reasonably well done most of the time.
20. Mark Noonan | March 8th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
NiP,
Where did the elements come from? I know the trick, you see? You just keep pushing your start point back and go, hey presto!, “assume X”, and it all makes sense. I can’t “assume X”…I’ll need a naturalistic explanation for how matter came to be - how, that is, matter created itself. If it didn’t creat itself, then it was created - and thus has a Creator…and any force clever enough to create matter is clever enough to write a bible…
And, at any rate, that is not the debate here - the debate here is where the State gets the authority to tell parents how - or even if - their children will be educated. Whence some this, NiP? Pray tell.
21. french student | March 8th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Let them homeschool all they want.
And then, have all children, homeschooled or not, pass standardized tests once a year or every two years, and publish the results. In as much detail as possible, school averages, homeschool averages, university admissions by school and for homeschooled kids, and so on.
Those whose parents are not qualified to teach should be pretty easy to spot.
And if they want their children to do better than ask about people’s fries preferences, they will send the kids to scool.
22. BARRASSO | March 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
This is far more than just a christian home schooling problem, I have friends who home school their kids in staunch atheism. I also have friends who were homeschooled in devout christian homes, both types of homeschooling will produce a great kid who is smart and able, as long as the parents give a shit. The problem is with the crackhead style homeschooler who are abusing their kids. How does one decide to step in to end abusive parenting?
23. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 8th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Mark-
Genesis? Where do I start?!?!?!
I’ll take it that since you’re a conservative you must also be in some form a Biblical literalist. In that sense all I have to say is …..6 days??!?!?!?!
Are you serious? 6 , 24 hour days? Geology alone proves that incorrect as it took nearly a billion years for the earth to form into a hard crust from a hot molten mass. Then there’s the problem Genesis has explaining the size and age of the universe. The first stars didn’t appear for many millions of years after the Big Bang. So which is it days or billions of years?
To make the Biblical story work you have to suspend the laws of nature and then there’s the problem of nature leaving contrary evidence to what the Bible says.
I’d say the Bible has some ’splainin to do.
24. Almiranta | March 8th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
From homeschool. com ……….
“ACT Inc., producer of the ACT college entrance exam, reports once again that homeschool students scored an average of 22.6 for 2003. This compares with 20.9 for public school students for the same period.
This is similar to past years. According to the 1998 ACT High School Profile Report, 2610 graduating homeschoolers took the ACT and scored an average of 22.8 out of a possible 36 points. . . . This was higher than the national average, which was 21.0 in both 1997 and 1998.
The 1996 ACT results showed that in English, homeschoolers scored 22.5 compared to the national average of 20.3. In math, homeschoolers scored 19.2 compared to the national average of 20.2. In reading, homeschoolers outshone their public school counterparts 24.1 to 21.3. In science, homeschoolers scored 21.9 compared to 21.1.
Over the years there has been concern that homeschool students would not be able to compete effectively for places in colleges. It was said that homeschool parents simply couldn’t educate their children to the college level. This is false.
Even if an individual family is unable to provide every aspect of a high school education, the pooling of resources among homeschool families and the availability of classes from private resource centers have enabled families to continue homeschooling until high school graduation.”
…………………………………..
I know there are many other sources—this is just the first one I came up with when I googled “homeschool college entrance”. I’ve been hearing reports year after year on how well homeschooled kids do, not only when it comes to getting into college but how well they do, compared to their public schooled peers, once they are there. So I knew snakelet was wrong, even without factoring in his history of general wrongness.
But of course the anecdotal “experience” of an anti-homeschool guy, who is also predisposed to claim that the reasons given by people who don’t want their children in the public school system are really just a “ruse” to enable them to brainwash them, is supposed to be convincing. Even before he went into an anti-religion rant, I was unconvinced.
You know I didn’t invent the things I mentioned in my post. In Boulder, Colorado, Boulder High School paid “experts” to speak at an attendance-mandatory event in which all the students, some as young as 13, were told that they should experiment with drugs and alcohol, that they should experiment with every kind of sex including homsexual sex and mulitple partners, and that condoms take a lot of the “fun” out of sex.
I heard the tapes. I heard the words. These are not exaggerations, nor are they inventions. This is what many parents choose to avoid at all costs.
It has nothing to do with evolution or any of your other anti-religionist ravings. Some homeschoolers do feel strongly about their children being ridiculed for believing that God created us. Some do feel strongly that they should be allowed to teach alternate versions of how we got here and why we are the way we are. But many simply abhor the exposure to pornography, licentiousness, coarseness and crudity, violence, anti-Americanism, and other garbage that is part and parcel of the American public school system. They also like the idea of their children learning how to read, write, and spell, how to control that unruly Rogue Apostrophe, as well as how to think instead of merely to regurgitate the political biases of their radically Leftist teachers.
How callow, and transparent, to try to blame it all on “evolution”.
And the anti-religion rantings of one who sneers at believing in something he does not feel has been proven, while at the same time showing a fervent allegiance to a faith-based system which has repeatedly been DISproved, has been proved to be a failure in every way—economically, politically, spiritually, and culturally—are just silly. Snakey, drop your evangelical devotion to Socialism, and then you might be able to discuss faith, pro and con.
Because that is what you, and your fellow travellers, are doing when you come here. You are trying to convert us to your belief system, convinced that our political foundations are as emotional and faith-based as your own. It’s apples and oranges, yet you persist in your missionary zeal to convert us all to the great Good of Socialism—as if adding an O makes it less of a belief system.
25. Casper | March 8th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
“That would be a pretty poor parent…but, on the other hand, its none of your business how a parent seeks to educate her child.”
I agree to a certain extent. I wouldn’t be surprised if her daughter is pregnant within a year. It means that I will be supporting that child with my taxes for the next 18 years. It means that if I’m still teaching eleven or twelve years from now, I get to deal with the next generation.
I would guess that ninety percent of the parents that homeschool are good parents and are doing what is best for their children and they should be allowed to continue homeschooling their children. I would just like to see us do a better job with the other 10 percent.
26. Michael | March 8th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Either the US Constitution allows home-schooling or it doesn’t. My guess is that it does allow it by the fact it is not mentioned. But at the time the Constitution was written many families home-schooled out of necessity. This silly decision by a California apellate court will be overturned by the Supreme Court based on the Constitution, not on religion/science arguments or any other “concerns” voiced here. And that is as it should be.
27. NeoClown | March 8th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Mark,
Jesus said the State has the authority to tell parents how/where their children will be educated.
“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”
28. Canuckguy | March 8th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Mark, you stated “…human beings were specially created by God, as is, within the past 10,000 years…”
OK Mark. I will not comment on the “.. human beings were specially created by God,” but Mark if you believe “…human beings were…created within the past 10,000 years…”, then you are a nitwit, a nitwit unable to comprehend sensible facts from fairytales.
Nietzsche, you are wasting your time debating this issue with nitwits. As am I.
I shake my head in disbelief at an educational system that produces so many dunderheads. As for us up here in Canuckland, I accept the fact that 22% are nitwits on this topic. And am embarrassed by it.
29. phnx | March 8th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Its not surprising that the socialist trolls on this page turn this rights issue into a rant against religion. Its also not suprising that they defend the rights of the state over the rights of the parents.
Michael, since there is no mention of this in the constitution, it would fall under the 10th Ammendment. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
So the state of California would claim this right and the only way to dispute it would be to go to the Supreme Court.
The alternative is to move.
As poor as the public education system is, especially in the inner city, its ludicrous that the state is insisting on this. It would seem that the idea of the French Student makes sense. (would have thought?). Standardized testing should be able to determine if the children are getting properly educated.
30. Sue | March 8th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
27. NeoClown | March 8th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Mark,
Jesus said the State has the authority to tell parents how/where their children will be educated.
?Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar?s, and unto God the things that are God?s?
Clown, it’s evident you have limited and faulty knowledge of the bible. It only proves how ignorant you are about it and does nothing for your argument.
The question was “Should we pay taxes?” And the answer was “Yes. The coin has Ceasers likeness on it, so pay taxes to Caeser, and render what God asks of you to God.”
You were quoting from The King James Bible. Here it is in the NIV translation.
Paying Taxes to Caesar
15Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
18But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”
21″Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
22When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
No where in our constitution does it say that the state or the federal government has the authority to tell parents that they cannot home school their children.
31. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 8th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I know Mark will never fully come over to our side so what I like to do is push him into the “God of the gaps” defensive cul de sac which every fundamentalist must go to in situations like this. Faced with scientific explanations and evidence they must retreat into the gaps of science’s knowledge and insert God, that is until that gap gets explained. Thats when God has to go to the next gap until that gap gets explained. Case in point Mark’s reference to “blind evolution”. Before with them evolution was hogwash now it’s accepted as a process but God is it’s cause because science still has questions (gaps) there. The same with the Big Bang. Mark and his fellow travelers have have on some level accepted defeat on most of the questions of natural process so they have now retreated into the field of origins and cause. When that finally gets they’ll pick up their arguments and move on to some other question. But they’ll never give up and you have to just sit back and enjoy exposing their superstitions.
But Mark is right this isn’t the real debate here it really should be about home schooling. The reason that we veered into this discussion was due to my asserting that home schooling at least in the last 20 years was a scheme devised by fundamentalist Christians as their way to combat scientific public education. Evolution, sex education, the teaching of science in general is what they’re fighting. Most home schooled children are from fundamentalist christian families. That’s a fact. All this talk about substandard schools is just the fig leaf they use to mask what their real intentions are. If the cant bring their religion into the classroom then they’ll bring the classroom to their religion.
32. phnx | March 8th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Nip, MS, Neo Clown, and Canuck Guy,
Your paranoia is showing.
33. TiredofLibBullSh** | March 8th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
The leftists’ courts must protect the government indoctrination centers and the teachers’ unions at all costs.
The government schools in most places have become nothing more than indoctrination centers for leftist propaganda.
Well, in began in colleges and universities, why stop there?
34. Christian Wright | March 8th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
You must admit. There are some crazy parents out there. And what better way to hide abuse than to keep them away from school where a teacher is legally obligated to report suspect child abuse.
There is a family on my block that home school their children and they actually teach them that a supernatural being created the universe and everything in it. Amazing! You think they were still in the 5th Century.
35. Almiranta | March 8th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Nutsy-is-Putzy claims “I’ll take it that since you’re a conservative you must also be in some form a Biblical literalist.”
????????????????????
Where do you people GET this stuff? C’mon, ‘fess up—some conservative is posting as Nutsy just to make Libs look bad, right?
Hey, Nutso—conservatism is a political philosophy which is based on the ideas of the power of the individual rather than that of the collective, of small government staying out of peoples’ way instead of large government intruding/controlling peoples’ lives, and on the Constutution as the ruling law of the land. It’s a brief summary, but to the point.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with religion, fundamentalist or other.
You people are just plaiin goofy when it comes to religion.
You are aware, aren’t you, that some of the most fundamentalist Christian religions are very closely affiliated with what you somehow never bother to identify as the Religious Left? Take a look at the churches where Bill Clinton openly campaigned, why doncha? Where the pastors instructed the congregation to vote for him? Ditto for Gore, ditto for Kerry. Just wait till Hillary and/or Barack hit the campaign trail.
And the issue of the thread is not, and never was, religion. Your desperate efforts to spin this into a debate on evolution is just proof of your obsession with those who do not share your own peculiar belief system, who have resisted your evangelical zeal to convert us all to the Leftist version of fundamentalism, in which the State is All, and All is the State.
You just never quit, do you? You are so smug about your perceived manipulation of Mark into what you believe are debate dead ends. You really are quite impressed with yourself, aren’t you?
But then you come up with something as inane and insane as this: “home schooling at least in the last 20 years was a scheme devised by fundamentalist Christians as their way to combat scientific public education..” and you strip away any possiblity of seeing you as anything other than a preening, self-satisfied, idiot.
“scheme” “devised” “to combat SCIENTIFIC public education” What a load of crap.
And paranoid to boot. Great, just what we need—another radical rabid paranoid delusional egomaniacal Lefty.
Do us a favor and stop psychoanalyzing conservatives, stop projecting your werid paranoid theories onto conservatives, stop inventing all these cockamamie reasons to explain everything based on your perverted view of the world.
If you have ever found one willing to allow you to contribute to the gene pool, then you go right ahead and expose Nutsy Jr to all the sex, violence, perversion, political indoctrination, and oh by the way total lack of real education offered by so much of the public system. But please stop pontificating about other people and their decisions to not subject their children to “educations “which include directions on how to put condoms on bananas (followed by comments on how condoms take the “fun” out of sex) or how they should really experiment with drugs, booze, and promiscuous sex of all types.
There are plenty of people who simply want their children to learn the real history of our great land, not some claptrap about how the Japanese “had’ to bomb Pearl Harbor to defend themselves against the evil “imperialist” U S of A. Maybe some parents don’t want their children to go to geography class only to be held captive while a nutball “teacher” goes on for most of the period about the alleged war crimes of the President. Maybe they want their children to learn actual grammar and spelling, and don’t want them subjected to the next wackadoo “scientific” educational experiment.
Maybe they don’t want them to turn out like you.
36. Casper | March 8th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche,
“The reason that we veered into this discussion was due to my asserting that home schooling at least in the last 20 years was a scheme devised by fundamentalist Christians as their way to combat scientific public education.”
I disagree. There are lots of reasons that people homeschool their children. Religion is only one. Most homeschoolers that I know are parents that really care about what kind of education their children receive and are willing to put in the time and work that it takes to give them a good education. There are exceptions of course, and those are the ones I worry about.
TiredofLibBullSh**,
“The government schools in most places have become nothing more than indoctrination centers for leftist propaganda.”
Prove it.
37. What? | March 8th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Wow, TiredofLibBullsh** is right!
To think that all these years I thought I learned something in public school. What a fool I’ve been.
Don’t worry TiredofLibBullsh**, it will take a while but I will try to unlearn all that leftist math, leftist English, leftist physics, and leftist foreign language study those dirty leftists indocrinated me with.
As for the future, I think we should hand our children’s education over to the private sector. Leave it to the private sector to figure out how to provide our children with the cheapest, most efficient and thus most profitable education school vouchers can buy.
38. js | March 8th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
The Chinese Communists do the same thing. They did it in the USSR. And the still do it in Cuba. I suspect Venezuela is going toward this as well.
But America? NO WAY. This should raise a lot of eyebrows for sure. Its about as American as Lenin.
39. js | March 8th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
You libs gotta be stupid to miss the conotations this has. Anyone can teach a moron how to count. The state has no business forcing them to do it though.
40. JPL | March 8th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
To all Californians who don’t want their kids indoctrinated by the socialistic, athiestic, statist Church of Multiculturalism, Anti-Firearmism, Heterophobia & Global Warmism: Move to another state that still believes in freedom. There are still a few.
41. Eric T | March 8th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Just in the Detroit News about a week ago. “Graduation rate 32% Detroit public schools”
That ain’t a very good rate, 7 out of 10 dropping out!
I don’t think the REAL issue is quality of education at all. It may be Securing Liberal Domination in Education? Big victory for teachers unions? Maybe just a massive tax increase, charging who knows what for certifications, fees, renewals ect…?
I think it goes much deeper than that.
What This really is, a PRIME example of big government eliminating freedom, eliminating choice, options. Liberals tend to forget this country was founded on freedom. Do you think that freedom is outdated, no longer needed?
How do you liberals call yourself pro-choice, with you guys there is no choice, there is the liberal standard. Everyone that is not a rubberstamped, carbon copy and exactly the same is outcast and now criminalized. Criminalized for wanting to teach your kid.
Your REAL motive is polluting young minds with liberalism and cranking out generation after generation of people that can’t think and will vote for the likes of Obama or Hillary.
42. pelirrojo | March 8th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Wow, this thread has bounced all over the place.
But let me ask you right wingers a small question, you have a kid, you want to teach them yourself, cause no stinkin liberal is gonna teach your kid. Now your kid is 16, and has to learn calculus, geometry, physics, chemistry, etc. Just how do you plan to teach them all of this?
Yes removing the right to home school a child is removing a right from the parents, but it gives a right to the child, the right to have an education.
(hint, most people couldnt teach all of the above things, thus said kid loses a chance at an education because of the family they were born into).
43. js | March 9th, 2008 at 12:02 am
“but it gives a right to the child, the right to have an education”
What education? Lies about homosexuals? Lies about evolution? How to tie your shoe, english is a second language for 16 year old students?
95% of the kids in public schools “NEVER” get calculus, chemistry is a watered down version from just 20 years ago, ya, not enough interest from spanish kids that havent mastered english as a second language.
Go bite your lip, if you think the quality of education is so high in public schools, you belong in a mental institution!!
44. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 9th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Phnx-
32. phnx | March 8th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Nip, MS, Neo Clown, and Canuck Guy,
Your paranoia is showing.
We’re paranoid?!?!?!?!? I laugh at that diagnosis. This is paranoia……
“33. TiredofLibBullSh** | March 8th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
The leftists’ courts must protect the government indoctrination centers and the teachers’ unions at all costs.
The government schools in most places have become nothing more than indoctrination centers for leftist propaganda.
Well, in began in colleges and universities, why stop there?”
40. JPL | March 8th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
To all Californians who don’t want their kids indoctrinated by the socialistic, athiestic, statist Church of Multiculturalism, Anti-Firearmism, Heterophobia & Global Warmism: Move to another state that still believes in freedom. There are still a few.
45. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 9th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Eric T-
“I think it goes much deeper than that.
What This really is, a PRIME example of big government eliminating freedom, eliminating choice, options. Liberals tend to forget this country was founded on freedom. Do you think that freedom is outdated, no longer needed?”
Eric there is no “freedom” for anyone in ignorance. You’re failing to see that removing your children from a free public education because you don’t agree with the scientific facts they’re teaching is taking away the child’s choices. Keeping children ignorant is not helping them. Plus with vast array of knowledge out there tell me how one parent can give the best quality of tutorial in subjects as wide and varied as calculus, physics, science, english literature, foreign languages, social sciences, etc etc. The home schooling idea is serious lacking when it comes to developing an in depth and well rounded education. I’ll say that you may be able to get some basics in, and very little of that, but for true education you need more than just the basics.
46. js | March 9th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Report: 1.2 Million Students Fail to Graduate High School
2006-06-21 - NSTA–Kristin Collins
http://www3.nsta.org/main/news/stories/nsta_story.php?news_story_ID=52205
Its not that the government is doing such a great job in schools, because they are not. Most home schooled children end up far ahead of public schooled systems as a matter of fact.
47. js | March 9th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Reality;
If our public school system is so darn good, why they heck do our tech industries have to hire away all the talent from 3rd world countries?
Its because our kids are taught BS in schools and are not prepared for the future!!
The same situation exists in health care and other degree-requiring professions. The Federal Government needs to GET OUT of the education system because since they started getting involved, the level of education in America went from one of the best in the world, to mediocre at best.
There is absolutely NO reason for the Federal Government to force their substandard education on America.
48. js | March 9th, 2008 at 12:32 am
45. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche
Your about as clueless as an avacodo pit about homeschooling NIP.
49. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 9th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Alimaranta-
“Hey, Nutso—conservatism is a political philosophy which is based on the ideas of the power of the individual rather than that of the collective, of small government staying out of peoples’ way instead of large government intruding/controlling peoples’ lives, and on the Constutution as the ruling law of the land. It’s a brief summary, but to the point.”
Liberals are against individualism?!?! You know I hear you conservatives talk a lot of game about this on here but it always leaves wondering a few things.
So then please tell me how is it an anti- individualist but a collectivist idea to say that a woman has a right to choose what to do with her own body?
How is it collectivist to say that a terminally ill person has the right to decide for themselves wether or not to continue living?
How is it collectivist to say that a person has the right to marry someone of the same sex if they so choose without the government or the religious community at large trying to stop them?
How is it collectivist to say that the government should stay out of the bedrooms of it’s citizens?
How is it collectivists to say that the government doesn’t have the right to monitor our telephones without warrants or proving cause?
I have lots more but i’ll stop there for now.
You know you conservatives really amuse me. You are a study in unresolved contradictions. You demand unfettered individualism but then the minute you see someone trying to exercise their individualism you deride them, fight them, and then try to crush them.
Pardon me but I don’t believe you , meaning conservatives, value individualism at all. What it sounds like to me is you wish to be an individual and present the illusion of individuality but only in the safety of……..the group.
50. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 9th, 2008 at 12:55 am
…..make that the accepted predominant group.
51. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 12:57 am
NiP,
Yeah, whatever…
That is from the 13th century, NiP, and it far exceeds your conceptions of matter, and where it comes from. We Christians have been pondering these matters far longer than you secularists have, and we benefit from not paying attention to the psuedo-history taught in schools these days.
52. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 1:04 am
Canuck,
You should really read what I write before you comment.
53. Yakki.PsD | March 9th, 2008 at 1:04 am
Mark: That would be a pretty poor parent…but, on the other hand, its none of your business how a parent seeks to educate her child.
I guess it’s none of our business if a parent wants to beat their children. Or if a parent wanted to whore his children out. Or if a parent wanted his children to run down to the streetcorner and buy dope for him/her.
Yeah,it’s none of our business. Okay. So how about Wingnuts keep out of people’s bedrooms? Or stay out of other people’s faith?
See,that sword cuts more ways than one,and is just as useless an ideal as putting pearls on a pig.
Conservatives want our country to succeed. They want to be acclaimed as a country of the “best and brightest”,yet want to start off by not teaching children what they need to know. And no,I’m not talking about religion,but the basics of what they need to survive in the world.
So tell you what,all the wingers pull their kids out of public school and homeschool them. Then let’s test them right alongside the public school kids. Wingnuts can teach however and whatever they want. Let’s see how it goes,eh?
54. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 1:05 am
NiP,
And I note, with great care, that you still haven’t told us whence comes the right of the State to tell parents how their kids will be educated, or even if they will be educated at all?
55. Almiranta | March 9th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Putzy strikes again. OK…
“So then please tell me how is it an anti- individualist but a collectivist idea to say that a woman has a right to choose what to do with her own body?”
Typically for a rabid Lib, he tries to conflate one thing with another. He might as well bleat “how does thinking the Constitution is the ruling law of the land, blah blah blah”.
If you are capable of actually reading what I wrote and processing it, which I doubt as your “scientific” public school education obviously left you only marginally literate given your random use of the Rogue Apostrophe and inability to match the number of your noun with the number of your verb, you would see that I clearly stated, regarding my extremely limited list of conservative positions, “It’s a brief summary….”
No, the determination that a woman has the right to control her own body is not related to a collective vs an individualist philosophy. As a matter of fact, conservatives agree that a woman has the right to control her own body. It’s when she extends that to the control of the very existence of another human being that we draw the line.
“How is it collectivist to say that a terminally ill person has the right to decide for themselves wether or not to continue living? ”
Again, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the collective/individualist issue. Again, a total miss.
Now for Strike 3—-”How is it collectivist to say that a person has the right to marry someone of the same sex if they so choose without the government or the religious community at large trying to stop them?”
This is a big fuss about nothing more than a temper tantrum thrown by a few activists who insist not on the ability to have the same protections under law that heterosexual couples have, which is overwhelmingly approved by conservatives as well as Liberals, but that they be allowed to hijack a historically and culturally significant word to describe it. Irrelevant, both to the thread and to my comments. Has absolutely nothing to do with collective/individualist philosphies.
“How is it collectivist to say that the government should stay out of the bedrooms of it’s citizens?”
Gibberish. See above. Not to mention that the government DOES “stay out of the bedrooms of it’s (sic) citizens..”
“How is it collectivists to say that the government doesn’t have the right to monitor our telephones without warrants or proving cause?”
See above. Besides, no one says the government has that right. You really should spend more time learning how to accurately process information and less on passionately emoting online.
56. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Casper,
No doubt about it, that child’s prospects are poor if the situation is as you describe (understanding that from an outside point of view, you may be missing some hyper-important element needed to render a final judgement) - but when we talk about a young girl getting pregnant, probably out of wedlock, and thus breeding another generation of underclass people for us to deal with, the problem there isn’t school/no school, but a fundamental problem of the break down of the family and the enforcement of societal norms.
Furthermore, given that a lot of public schools pass out condoms and take kids to get abortions without parental consent, I can’t see that the risk of pregnancy is a cause for taking a kid out of home schooling. Additionally, given the number of sexual escapades between students and teachers in the public school system, the worry that a parent may be sexually abusing a home-schooled child cannot be used as a cause for taking a kid out of home schooling.
Then there is the fact that kids learn differently one from the other - as it turns out, I knew how to read before I went to school (my theory is that I learned it, quite by accident, from my older sister); given this, school immediately started out as a bore, and didn’t improve as time went on because I was almost always off on subjects other than the ones the teachers wished to educate me on. Would that I had been home-schooled! I could have wallowed in my father’s library and gotten far more advanced by the time I reached 18 than I actually was, given all those hours a day I wasted in school learning stuff I either already knew, or was entirely uninterested in knowing.
My primary objection to the “free and compulsory” (and there’s a emblemmatic liberal thing - “free and compulsory”; as if anything is actually free, and as if you can really compel someone to learn) education is that it fails to take into account the fact that the kids are human - no two alike; all of them gifted in different ways and all of them to have a unique calling in the world. Certainly, wisdom dictates that we ensure that the basics are imparted - how to read, write and do basic sums…but beyond that, we should leave the field open…
Perhaps a kid is gifted with math…he’s going to learn it, even if his parents are math dunces. Perhaps a kid is gifted with story telling…teach him to write, and he’ll start writing stories. Perhaps a kid is gifted with mechanical skills…let him tinker with tools and machines rather than suffocate him with a boring course on Shakespearean plays. On and on it goes - and the best people to figure out what a kid is gifted at is not a teacher who has 20-40 to deal with and is hemmed in by varied regulations, but by a parent who sees her child every day.
True enough, some kids will slip through the cracks - incompetant or wicked parents will put a lot of kids behind the 8 ball in life…but this is certainly no worse than the number of kids completely ruined by a failed public school system. And, meanwhile, there is the fundamental point here - what gives anyone other than the parents the right to decide how a child shall be educated?
57. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 9th, 2008 at 1:25 am
Mark-
Whence comes the right of the state to tell you what you can do with your own body such as using cocaine or say committing suicide?
What gives the state the right to tell you that you have to drive at a certain speed or obey any traffic rule?
Quite simply because it is better for all.
Education has proven throughout history to be a benefit to the individual as well as to the greater whole. Therefore I have no problem with compulsory education. The parent can and should choose which school will educate their children but that education must be update and not polluted with myth masquerading as fact. You want to teach myth then teach it as myth.
58. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 1:26 am
Yakki,
Home-schooled kids do very well on standardised testing and in some cases have far outperformed public school children. It has to do with some really basic things such as: who is more likely, all things being equal, to care about a child - the parent, or the teacher?
And don’t be a fool - no one has a right to abuse another human being. If we found out a parent was prostituting her child, then that parent would naturally be sent to jai…but the exceptional is not what we’re discussing here…not the one in a million, but the 999,999 out of a million; average, every day parents who love their children and try to do what is best for them…and the subject here is for this broad mass of parents who are trying to do the right thing, does the State have the right to over-ride parental authority?
59. Almiranta | March 9th, 2008 at 1:29 am
“Prove it.”
Oh, come ON, Casper. You live in one of the most conservative states in the Union, so you may not have been exposed to this ver much, personally, but please don’t play all naive and uninformed and pretend you don’t know it goes on all over the country.
If you’re going to quibble—-and face it, as time goes on you are becoming more of a knee-jerk quibbler—-you can quibble over the use of the word “most”. But it’s so prevelant, TOLBS can be excused for thinking it IS “most”—and when it comes to college campuses, it most definitely IS “most”.
You’re close enough to the Front Range of Colorado to have had plenty of exposure to the shenanigans in the Boulder County High School. Ever heard of David Horowitz? You really owe it to yourself to read some of his stuff, regarding the way he has been treated on college campuses. It is easy to track down story after story of indoctrination in school after school: Students given the assignment to write an essay on why George Bush is a war criminal and being failed for writing that there is no proof he is, students being told lies about our history, elementary students being instructed to make posters about how wrong it is to be in Iraq—-it goes on and on.
So maybe there is no empirical proof that “most” schools are just places for the indoctrination of students into Leftist philosophy, at least at elementary and high school levels—but it’s widespread, and parents are fighting it the best way they can, through magnet schools and charter schools where possible and through home schooling where it is not.
How many schools right there in Casper are teaching anthropogenic Global Warming as a scientific fact? How many are teaching that the Geneva Convention covers un-uniformed combatants representing no country in no declared war? How many Casper students think that the government is engaged in illegal “wiretapping”? And so on. It’s insidious.
60. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 1:31 am
NiP,
I don’t think there are any laws on the books against suicide - I believe you’re thinking of physician-assisted suicide, and the reason we ban that is because of the inherent risk that such a practice will be abused for personal gain.
As for the laws against cocaine - a reasonable argument can be made that the use of cocaine is detrimental to the overall health of the bedrock of society, the family - and thus society, a collection of families, has a right to intervene. I’m doubtful of the logic of the war on drugs, but I’m not about to say that being in favor of it is an illogical or wrong position. Its a debatable thing.
As for traffic laws - all actions in public must be well-regulated in order to proect public safety. Liberty is only liberty when it is a well-ordered liberty.
But what I’m talking about here is the family - mom and dad produce children and are responsible for their upbringing, and here you come and say, “don’t you dare teach your child “X”, because I think it a myth…so, off your children go to the public school, where I can teach them that your beliefs are lies”.
Doesn’t that in the least strike you as, well, stupid?
61. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 9th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Almiranta-
If you wish to side step the issue of (pseudo) individualism then just side step it without resorting to insults.
I think with your rather arrogant defense of the gay marriage bans you proved my point on “individualism” and the predominant group. Also you have no idea what these people wish to have so please don’t presume to speak for them. If a religious institution agrees to marry these people, which some have, the government has no right whatsoever to step in and say they will not recognize it. If religious institutions wish to battle this issue out on religious grounds then that is their right not the government’s. But that debate is not for here.
62. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 9th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Mark -
It is my belief attempted suicide was against the law up until about the 1960s. I could be incorrect about that though. In any case the point is the government did at one time have laws against it.
Physician assisted suicide is illegal currently and I think of that as a negative because all it does is rob a terminally ill person of access to a professional who can supply a peaceful and painless end. Simply saying that something COULD be exploited is not the same as something actually being exploited. To put laws in place before you actually have evidence is premature. Both cocaine and driving fast were at one time legal in this country. They were only made illegal when they showed to contain more detriment than benefit. So you and I are in agreement that they should be illegal, I think even our views on the drug war are very compatible but I’m not ready to say that physician assisted suicide would go the same route mind you. Again this isn’t a debate for here though.
63. What? | March 9th, 2008 at 3:49 am
Mark,
Under the U.S. Constitution police powers are reserved for the states. Police powers give states the power to regulate the general public welfare of their citizenry. This power includes the power to educate citizens. So arguing a state providing education to its citizens is constitutionally outside the states’ power doesn’t fly.
64. Freedom1 | March 9th, 2008 at 3:58 am
This California court ruling against parents homeschooling their children is evil.
65. What? | March 9th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Freedom1 writes:
“This California court ruling against parents homeschooling their children is evil.”
Because …
66. Yakki.PsD | March 9th, 2008 at 6:21 am
58. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 1:26 am
Yakki,
Home-schooled kids do very well on standardised testing and in some cases have far outperformed public school children. It has to do with some really basic things such as: who is more likely, all things being equal, to care about a child - the parent, or the teacher?
Proof Mark. That means numbers. like I said,if they do so much better let’s see the test scores. Let’s see the numbers. If a kid is homeschooled,I got no problems with it,but they get tested like all other children on the basic requirements.
That is all I’m saying on that particular topic.
The other,addressing what is “right” is opinion. You got one,I got one,and then the law has one. What the law says under our Constitution,until such a time as it’s changed,goes.
So if a court finds those homeschools lacking on the educational front,that’s tough. They should have been teaching their children what was needed to compete in life. Bible study isn’t one of those prerequisites. It’s OPTIONAL,and not school curriculum.
No matter how much fundamentalists want it to be so.
67. js | March 9th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Major findings include: the achievement test scores of this group of home school students are exceptionally high–the median scores were typically in the 70th to 80th percentile; 25% of home school students are enrolled one or more grades above their age-level public and private school peers; this group of home school parents has more formal education than parents in the general population; the median income for home school families is significantly higher than that of all families with children in the United States; and almost all home school students are in married couple families.
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n8/
Significant issue here.
Smarter people tend to home school.
I guess thats why the liberals oppose it, eh? Because they are not that smart…..
68. js | March 9th, 2008 at 7:24 am
2 things NIP.
1-”In any case the point is the government did at one time have laws against it.”
prove it
and 2- isnt that off topic!!
lol, grab hold of the Liberal Express!! It is comining after you @!!!
69. js | March 9th, 2008 at 7:38 am
66. Yakki.PsD
“Proof Mark. That means numbers. like I said,if they do so much better let’s see the test scores. Let’s see the numbers.”
If one were bright enough, one could spend about 2 minutes and find out that such knowledge is common. You must be the results of public education, because your first act was to deny common knowledge instead of making sure you were right first….
PROOF is easily had, however, your honor is about shot.
70. js | March 9th, 2008 at 7:42 am
” The Grade Equivalent Scores (GES) corresponding to the median DSS scaled scores for home school students are shown in Table 3.5. These GES scores indicate the performance levels of home school students in terms of student grade placement nationwide. The median composite scaled score for fourth-grade home school students, for example, is 217. This is comparable to the median score expected of students nationwide in the ninth month of fifth grade. Compared to students nationwide, the median fourth-grade home school student test performance is 1.1 grade equivalents above his public/private school peers. By 8th grade, the median performance of home school students on the ITBS/TAP is almost four grade equivalents above that of students nationwide. Similar trends hold for all subject areas”
same link.
I expect that homeschool kids are far closer to thier EU counterparts, because by 8th grade they have the equivalent of a public high school diploma.
8th grade is before public schools start teaching high school….ewww….leaving it up to the Governement is NOT such a bright idea!!
71. Kahn | March 9th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Dems - good. Rrun on this.
“It takes a village!” No - we really mean it. Not a family, a village. And we’ll take your kids away from you if you disagree strongly enough.
We control the schools! We control the courts! Give us your children! Worship us! Worship us!
72. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 9th, 2008 at 10:21 am
js-
“2 things NIP.
1-”In any case the point is the government did at one time have laws against it.”
prove it”
OK……
Regarding suicide……
” Historically, various states listed the act as a felony, but all were reluctant to enforce it. By 1963, six states still considered attempted suicide a crime (North and South Dakota, Washington, New Jersey, Nevada, and Oklahoma that repealed its law in 1976). By the early 1990s only two US states still listed suicide as a crime, and these have since removed that classification. In some U.S. states, suicide is still considered an unwritten “common law crime,” that is, a crime based on the law of old England as stated in Blackstone’s Commentaries. ”
……..so tell me is being proven wrong in a public forum a pathologically addictive need of yours? It’s seems to happen you often and you just keep asking for it.
73. FmrMarine | March 9th, 2008 at 11:14 am
>>>>>he second group of parents that homeschool are those that are trying to hide something. There is something going on in the home that they don’t want anyone else to know about, whether it be drugs, abuse, or lack of parental supervision.<<<<<<
What a load of crap.
PROVE these allegations, and not……one family……
74. FmrMarine | March 9th, 2008 at 11:19 am
>>>>>The whole “home schooling” scheme was just a ruse devised by fundamentalist Christians to take their kids out of the public school system to teach them Christian dogma.<<<<
MAYBE just MAYBE;
some feel the public school system is a marxist, feminist, athiest, homosexua,l RUSE to indoctrinate
their children the above mentioned dogma.
75. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Yakki,
There have been several studies over the years, all of which show that home schoolers, on average, do fine…the flaw in your worldview is that you presume that only so-called experts can know what is best. Throughout human history, however, the most common place for a person to be educated was in the home with only higher education being taken care of in a professional setting. Somehow or another, the human race survived…
The primary problem with public schooling is that it cannot take into consideration the specialised needs and abilities of the children. By necessity, a school which proposes to educate 500, 1,000 or 5,000 kids all at once must apply a rigid curriculum and shoot for the lowest common denominator. This is not a recipe for education - real education, where a child developes his talents.
What is at stake here is basic human liberty - if we don’t have the right to educate our own as we see fit, what rights do we really have? A parent who can’t decree his child’s education program is a mere caretaker, not a parent…and the child is a ward of the State, not a burgeoning citizen.
76. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
What,
The authority of the police to ensure public order is not the same thing as the right of a parent to educate his child - police are a coercive arm designed to deter crime…education is a voluntary act. You’re comparing apples and oranges…also, you do realise your are justifying every totalitarian regime of the 20th century, aren’t you?
77. What? | March 9th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Former Marine writes:
“MAYBE just MAYBE;
some feel the public school system is a marxist, feminist, athiest, homosexua,l RUSE to indoctrinate
their children the above mentioned dogma.”
It is paranoid people who believe the schools are a leftist ruse that justify public education. Society has a valid interest in seeing its citizens are exposed to a variety of ideas and not cloistered in homes with parents who present them a ciriculum of conspiracy theories and false science.
What is most interesting about your post is its underlying implication that you plan to indocrinate your kids by denying exposure to those ideas and beliefs which you don’t hold.
Are you so unsure of your beliefs that you are unwilling to have your children even hear opposing arguments to them? If you really believed in your ideas, shouldn’t you have enough faith that your kids will follow them?
You either lack faith in your ideas or your kids. So, which is it, Former Marine? Are your kids so weak minded that they are duped into believing anything presented to them? Or are your beliefs and ideas so fragile and bizarre that even the slightest exposure to contrary beliefs makes them appear absurd?
78. What? | March 9th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Two points
1. I believe home-schooling can be a good thing as long as the parents’ motivation is to give their kids an education from a ciriculum that is comparable to that which they would receive in a public or private, accredited school. If the parents’ motivation is to prevent their kids from being exposed to ideas and beliefs contrary to their own both society and the child are harmed. A parent should be able to give his or her child a good education, whether through the public schools or other means. They do not have the right to brainwash the child with nonsensical ideas, be them ideas from the left or the right.
2.
Mark,
“Police powers” in constitutional law is not limited to police power in the layman sense. It includes regulating the general health and welfare of citizens. So police powers, in the constitutional sense, include law enforcement, public safety laws, unemployment laws, environmental laws, building code laws etc. It also includes providing services such as public tranportation, public housing, and public eduation. Sorry, but on this one you are wrong and do not know what you are talking about.
Also, how am I justifying every totalitarian regime in the 20th century?
79. js | March 9th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
72. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche
Y’know what NIP? All that lip flappin you did, and you still missed the overall point. If a crime occured, then people are punished. Tell us, exactly who has ever been put in jail for attempting to commit suicide?
Wake the FU flake bag. You are sooo shallow…
Q: What’s the punishment for suicide?
A: Life imprisonment.
Q: What’s the punishment for attempted suicide?
A: Hanging
80. js | March 9th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Public education isnt so hot. Albert Einstein didnt even graduate from High School, and most of his early intelligence was self taught. Yet, as an adult, Einstein only had 2 pairs of shoes, 7 pairs each of Underwear and T-shirt, 2 coats, and 7 suits, shirts and ties. Everything but the shorts, t-shirt, and shirt (white) were black. When asked about this, he said it confused him, so he just wore the same thing, every day.
“If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies…. It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.
They want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits. - Albert Einstein when his wife asked him to change clothes to meet the German Ambassador “
81. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche | March 9th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
js-
You asked for proof that the government had laws on the books against suicide. Well you got your proof. I know it’s hard for you to accept that a liberal can speak the truth but there it is. Now if the government has never imprisoned someone for attempted suicide thats another issue.
Next time maybe not letting your anger get the better of your judgement might help.
ps: your Q & A example is actually a well known joke about suicide laws. I have to say I chuckle a little every time I hear it. I guess the absurdity of a law against suicide is the reason why most of the laws were repealed.
82. Tractatus | March 9th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Do us a favor and stop psychoanalyzing conservatives, stop projecting your werid paranoid theories onto conservatives, stop inventing all these cockamamie reasons to explain everything based on your perverted view of the world.
This is why you’re so endlessly funny, ‘Ranty. You spew this without any idea that what you’ve done is project a fantastic description of yourself upon others. Please don’t ever gain self-awareness…it’d be a shame to lose out on all this comedy.
83. lilly06 | March 9th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Well this one’s is a tough one. The majority of parents want the best for their children and a public school system does not necessarily offer that. Lets look at children who are the product of the public school system today who are still fairly illiterate at 16. Its not fair to judge that an alternative form of education is any better.
I believe that as alternative to homeschooling, parents should increasingly consider enrolling their children into the many christian schools available with small classe sizes(classes size of 10 of less).
This at least gives parents that confidence that their children are being taught by a qualified teacher who practices the christian faith and it still offers that social interaction which I believe is essential to the development of any child.
84. Yakki.PsD | March 9th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
75. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Yakki,
There have been several studies over the years, all of which show that home schoolers, on average, do fine
Show them then. That’s simple enough,right? Show me what studies you speak of.
My entire point is that as long as homeschooled children are actually TAUGHT the same basic set of skills(reading writing and arithmatic,history,science,etc..) as public schooled children,I have no problems. I do have problems when they are in what constitutes as a Christian madrassa,without the benefit of any of those basics that a child will need in life,in the business or scientific world.
Now,as far as your assertion of special needs,this I agree with. Often a child needs more aggressive curriculum,and in such situations I totally agree with an accellerated home schooling situation.
Accellerated bible studies does NOT fall into that category however. That is up to parents to teach,and is not a part of curriculum. And frankly,I don’t want public school teachers teaching religious subjects of any stripe,other than the basic histories as needed. We’re America. We don’t have a state sponsored religion. (please note: I am NOT accusing you of advocating the latter mentioned,simply making an open statement)
Mark,the final question I have re: your post is,do we have the basic liberty to raise stupid children? Is that what it comes down to? If so,my point initially still stands. If we have the right to implant “stupid” into our children,surely we have the right to whore them. Or to beat them. Or whatever we want.
Society sets standards. Thats all of us,including you. These societal standards are what we all want and expect to reach excellence. If a child can get that by homeschooling,great. But there must be some sort of litmus for it,otherwise why expect anything at all?
Just throw them in the pool to play,let them play dumb,and we can forget about them.
85. Yakki.PsD | March 9th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
22. BARRASSO | March 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
This is far more than just a christian home schooling problem, I have friends who home school their kids in staunch atheism. I also have friends who were homeschooled in devout christian homes, both types of homeschooling will produce a great kid who is smart and able, as long as the parents give a shit. The problem is with the crackhead style homeschooler who are abusing their kids. How does one decide to step in to end abusive parenting?
Thank you sir. Excellent post and EXACTLY what I mean.
I also have friends who were homeschooled. Some were raised in a Christian style homeschool,some were not. It’s a mix as to how they turned out,and it’s all based on parental dedication.
One of the fellows I know was homeschooled by his mother and father,in a Christian environment. And I would put his intellect on par or above anything produced by public schooling. Several of the others,however,are dumb as a stump. Their parents beleived in no curriculum,and just willy-nilly whatever’d their way through it.
86. Yakki.PsD | March 9th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
69. js | March 9th, 2008 at 7:38 am
66. Yakki.PsD
“Proof Mark. That means numbers. like I said,if they do so much better let’s see the test scores. Let’s see the numbers.”
If one were bright enough, one could spend about 2 minutes and find out that such knowledge is common. You must be the results of public education, because your first act was to deny common knowledge instead of making sure you were right first….
If one were bright enough,they would know that when debating issues they have to supply the references for their assertions,unless deemed “personal opinion”. Do not blame me for Mark’s,or your lack,of ability or willingness to back up your arguments.
Sad copout js,and you know it.
87. Yakki.PsD | March 9th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Link to JS’s quote:
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n8/
Ahh yes,wouldn’t you know it. Data for one year,and that is 10 years old. 1998?
88. FmrMarine | March 9th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
what?
<<<<<Or are your beliefs and ideas so fragile and bizarre that even the slightest exposure to contrary beliefs makes them appear absurd?<<<<<
That TRIPE does not work on me. Tell it to your NAMBLA, GLT buddies.
My “kids” went to private schools through the 8 th grade, then to public high school.
The king of trash was just beginning to filter in at that time.
Read this and tell me this is YOUR values - if it is then YOU are MY enemy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1982912/posts
89. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Yakki,
No, society doesn’t set standards - there are standards, and society adheres to them, or it doesn’t. Standards are not something which human beings can make, because if that were so, then your standard (ie, teaching religion makes dumb people) is different from other’s standards (ie, failure to teach religion makes for destructive heathens).
It isn’t wrong for a person to be illiterate - just as it isn’t right for a person to have a PhD in English…these are conditions people are in which are value-neutral. It might be nice to be literate but, quite honestly, how often does literacy really affect the average person’s day to day? There are, in our scoiety, people who are functionally illiterate - can’t read a word, yet they manage to get on very well. Certainly, a person who is illiterate has shut themselves out of various fields of endevour, but it isn’t the end of the world.
You have to get yourself out of mindset which thinks that because we have hot, running water and atomic bombs that we are better than people 1,000 years ago who only bathed once a month and thought of a crossbow as high tech. It probably is the case that out of 100 18 year olds in 1008 there were a higher percentage of happy people than among 100 18 year olds in 2008. And happiness if what we’re after - and this happiness may or may not entail a six-figure salary after obtaining a post-graduate degree.
You disparage the teaching of religion save as a myth - so fearful are you of religion that you are downright angry that a parent may decide to teach it as fact…you claim this will make kids dumb…and yet Thomas Aquinas was religious, and clearly a man of rare genius - this modest monk being the man who re-introduced Aristotle to a revived Europe in the 13th century. All the philosophers since Aquinas have been in large part cobweb spinners - mostly people cooking up reasons for disagreeing with Aquinas because they can’t get ’round his arguments directly. To think that being a deeply religious person - a person who accepts the Bible as fact - makes for a lack of intellect is, well, mindlessly bigoted.
And, even so; even if teaching a person religion made them into veritible drooling idiots - how does it become your office to prevent it? Matter of fact, the more drooling idiots there are out there, the more likely a non-religious genuis like you will be in charge, right? They’re happy with their mummery, you’re happy being in charge - what is the harm in that?
Ah, but you do consider it a harm…and for the real reason for this, I suggest you look deep into your soul and ask yourself why you fear God so much that you are trying to hide from Him, as Adam and Eve did in the Garden.
90. Casper | March 9th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Yakki.PsD ,
If you are really interested in the research, go to the following;
http://www.eric.ed.gov/
Do a search for homeschool and you will find the latest research.
91. What? | March 9th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Former Marine,
I love how you send me to the Free Republic as if they are giving you the whole story.
The play discussed in the article won the Pulitzer Prize along with numerous other accolades. So apparently I and most of the literary world are your enemy.
Your post only proves my point. I don’t want someone like you sending their kids to the Free Republic and telling them it is gospel. That is not education, it is indocrination. I want your kids to read the play and decide for themselves whether it is trash or not. You are clearly afraid your kids will read it and tell you that it actually is not that bad and makes a valid point.
If anyone wants to indocrinate America’s kids it is you. I want children to form their own opinions after exploring both sides of the issues. If they decide homosexuality is evil after examining both sides of the issue, so be it. What is so wrong with this viewpoint?
92. What? | March 9th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Mark writes:
“How often does literacy really affect the average person’s day to day?”
Mark, this has to be the dumbest thing you ever wrote. To be illerate in America practically guarentees a person will perform menial labor for the rest of their lives. I would say that amounts to an affect on a person’s day-to-day life. Also, please try to imagine not being able to understand credit card agreements, sales contracts, instruction books, tax return forms, legal complaints, food labels, rental agreements, e-mails, newspapers, websites, menus and the thousands of other pieces of text that enter the average person’s life on daily basis.
I’ve seen illiteracy up close. I use to teach adults how to read and believe me it is wrong for a society not to teach its citizens how to read. It’s cruel to the person and detrimental to society as a whole. Reading in modern Amercia isn’t just a “nice” thing to be able to do.
In closing, it is statements like this one that undermine everything you and your followers post here.
93. phnx | March 9th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
It interesting to note that the leftists who are against the right of a partent to educate their children at home, base their opposition to some bogus idea that home schooling is some ruse to teach religion. While they provide no proof of this, they demand to see proof that homeschoolers do better on average than public shcool children, despite the citations above which show this.
In addition, they fail to acknowledge the failures of our public schools. Granted, some public schools do produce gifted children, and many public school teachers are dedicated to providing good education.
I’m sure that Casper can attest that the success or failure of a child’s education depends greatly on parental involvement, and interest. Many parents use the public school system and the head start program as government providede baby sitting services. This is very clearly illustrated by the percentage of parents who attend parent/teacher nights. Every teacher knows this so why, one might ask would the teachers union be against home schooling. Are they simply interested in the welfare of the kids??? I doubt it.
The California ruling is part of an NEA campaign against home schools. The NEA looks at students as a commodity. The greater numbers in class the more money they can extort from the public.
94. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
what,
Really? You sure about that? A person cannot become a sculptor unless they can read? Cannot become a farmer unless they can read? Cannot become a rancher unless they can read? Cannot become a painter unless they can read? Cannot become a plumber unless they can read? Cannot become blacksmith unless they can read? What is your definition of “menial”? Would it be “jobs ‘what’ thinks are undignified because he’s got a narrow minded, bigoted view of what is good and bad”?
True enough, in modern society our general intent in basic education should be to teach kids to read, write and do basic sums - but “illiterate” doesn’t mean “will be unhappy”‘; no more than “literate” means “will be happy”. What you’ve done is bought the rather ignorant notion that life was miserable until liberals came along and provided “free and compulsory” education for the masses.
Ignorance coupled with arrogance is a terrible thing - and you need to stop it and start to learn and be humble.
95. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
phnx,
Their worldview disallows it - they got it in their heads that it took a government program to make things better…to listen to them, you’d think that everything we did was horrible until a liberal in DC started doing it…
96. What? | March 9th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Mark,
All those jobs require some degree of literacy in today’s society. For example, today a sculptor would need to know what his lease agreement says, he would need to read contracts of sale for his work, he would need to understand his banking statements, he would need to write e-mail to arrange showings etc. This goes with any of the jobs you listed above. These kinds of barriers put illiterate people in food service and other low wage jobs.
But this is my favorite:
“What you’ve done is bought the rather ignorant notion that life was miserable until liberals came along and provided “free and compulsory” education for the masses.”
No I have not. Stop it with the straw man arguments. I never said life was miserable prior to public education. Public education arose out of a need for it. In agrarian 18th century America, formal education was not a priority for the vast majority of people who were either small farmers or subsistence farmers. As America industrialized, it needed an educated workforce. Additionally society simply became more complex. Thus reading became more important in people’s everyday lives. It isn’t that our ancestors were miserable, it is that they simply did not not greatly suffer from not being literate and thus did not need a society that provided formal education.
As for your petty jab at the end of your post I suggest you heed it. I am not the one telling people who can’t read that it’s not that bad.
97. Ricorun | March 9th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Mark: A person cannot become a sculptor unless they can read? Cannot become a farmer unless they can read? Cannot become a rancher unless they can read? Cannot become a painter unless they can read? Cannot become a plumber unless they can read? Cannot become blacksmith unless they can read?
I think you should run a special open thread where only illiterate people got to comment. That’ll show the skeptics.
98. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Ricorun,
Touche’ and ROFL!
99. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
what,
No, the public school system arose in America out of the Know-Nothing desire to pull Catholic kids out of Catholic schools…until then, primary education at public expense wasn’t considered all that important but, good Lord, those Irish kids were being taught Popery, and the WASPs weren’t going to have any of that…had to stop the parents from teaching the kids a whole bunch of obviously false religious nonsense! If only my Protestant brothers back then could see where it all led…
Anyways…
The point I’m making in the post is that there is no right for the State to dictate to parents how or if their child shall be educated - what I’m pointing out to you that it is the height of arrogance and ignorance to presume that only your own definition of education is valid.
Oh, and I forgot to mention in my last - I fail to see how the ability to read a legal document is helpful…oh, ok, helpful to lawyers if they can lawyer the sh** out of everything and make everything a cluster fu**, but for rational people, all we need are simple, clear laws which even the most ignorant can understand…
100. Ricorun | March 9th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
…but for rational people, all we need are simple, clear laws which even the most ignorant can understand…
Yeah! Like, say, e=mc**2.
101. Casper | March 9th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
phnx,
“I’m sure that Casper can attest that the success or failure of a child’s education depends greatly on parental involvement, and interest.”
Actually, I don’t have to attest to anything. You are correct. There is considerable research on the subject. found here;
http://www.eric.ed.gov/
“The California ruling is part of an NEA campaign against home schools. The NEA looks at students as a commodity. The greater numbers in class the more money they can extort from the public.”
Here is where we disagree. I would like to see some proof the NEA is part of this.
Mark,
“A person cannot become a sculptor unless they can read? Cannot become a farmer unless they can read? Cannot become a rancher unless they can read? Cannot become a painter unless they can read? Cannot become a plumber unless they can read? Cannot become blacksmith unless they can read?”
Really, have you looked into any of these professions? I have several cousins who are farmers. I believe all of them would disagree with you. Do you know how difficult the plumbing codes are. I haven’t met a plumber that can’s read.
A person would have a very difficult time being successful in our society without being able to read.
102. Casper | March 9th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Ricorun,
“I think you should run a special open thread where only illiterate people got to comment. That’ll show the skeptics.”
it would be the shortest thread in Internet history. LOL
103. Mark Noonan | March 9th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Ricorun,
That makes more sense than this bit randomly pulled from US copyright law:
104. Ricorun | March 9th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Casper: A person would have a very difficult time being successful in our society without being able to read.
Heaven knows it’s been a trial for me.
105. What? | March 9th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Mark,
You have your interpretation of why public education came into being and I have mine. Mine seems more plausible.
As for the second paragraph, you are wrong. The State does have the power to regulate education. The Constitution does not contain a clause preventing the state from not doing so. It is also possible for the Federal Government to do so through the tax and spend clause. See No Child Left Behind.
I see your underlying argument is that a person should be able to raise their child as they see fit. This should only be true to a point. Just because you have a child does not mean you can do whatever you want with him or her. If I wanted my child to be thinner I couldn’t starve him till he reached the weight I preferred. If I wanted my child to work in the fields or a factory, should I be able to do so? Of course not. Similarly, if I sat around teaching my child nonsense or nothing at all, I am harming him and should not be allowed to do it.
It is child abuse if I home schooled my child by letting him play video games all day instead of teachung him how to read.
Also it is not my definiton of education that the state promotes, it is the definition agreed upon by people appointed by elected officials.
And as for the last paragraph, you may be surprised to learn that not everyone can afford a lawyer when they are sued. Our government does not provide them in civil cases. This leaves it to the individual to figure out what the court order they were just served with says. And no, there are not enough lawyers to do the work pro bono.
Finally I like this line:
“but for rational people, all we need are simple, clear laws which even the most ignorant can understand…”
Fair enough but will these new laws be drawings instead of words? That is the only way an illiterate perosn will be able to understand them. So how would you draw some of our secuities laws or water rights laws? Oh, how about our tax laws?
106. Casper | March 9th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Ricorun,
Believe it or not, there was a point in my life where I thought I was stupid because I couldn’t sound words out. The funny thing about it was that my comprehension skills were pretty good. My biggest fear when I begin teaching was that I would mess up my students by not pronouncing words correctly. Thankfully, I was able to learn along with kids.
107. Freedom1 | March 9th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Bravo! Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, bravo!!!
108. js | March 9th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
81. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche
and you are still about as shallow as all that
If you smart enough to ask, and dumb enough not to look for answers, then I guess you really dont have any business askin ya lazy bum.
its no cop out, its the truth.
109. js | March 9th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
72. Nietzsche-Is-Pietzsche
Cmon Nip, you copped out. You said the “government”, not individual States. And, if some thing is a crime, you should be able to show us how many people were tried for the crime.
Yet, all you do is piss and moan.
You dont have any substance. I guess thats why you follow Obama, eh? The hollow shirt….
110. js | March 9th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
87. Yakki.PsD | March 9th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Link to JS’s quote:
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7n8/
Its a lot more than you brought with you though, isnt it? And nothing shows its not valid….you think somethings wrong there? Do you think the stat’s are lying? Do you have a better study that shows different?
Or is your lips just flapping again, like NIP’s????
111. Ricorun | Ma