~ Since I was, at one time, a Pentecostal home schooler, I found this article fascinating. The difference is, my mother was quite good at educating her children. And we went through yearly external evaluations for our schoolwork.
~ St. Louis is the most segregated place that I've ever lived in (of course, I haven't lived all that many places). St. Louis' public schools have lost their accreditation, and so are allowing students to be bused to accredited schools in St. Louis County. It's not surprising (but is horrifying) that race is an issue:
“When I saw them screaming and hollering like they were crazy, I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, this is back in Martin Luther King days,’ ” said Ms. Gladney, 45. “ ‘They’re going to get the hoses out. They’re going to be beating our kids and making sure they don’t get off the school bus.’ ”~ Oh my gosh--I'm totally into babies since Francisco and I have been watching Call the Midwife--a wonderful, wonderful show. (Ironically, despite it being a British period drama, which Francisco tends to adore, and tend to make me a little queasy, I love this one, and he tolerates it. I agree with him--it's a little cheesy and overwrought and designed to make you cry, but I, agreeably, sob right along with every episode.) Anyway, I was reminded of Call the Midwife when I read that a baby was born at the L'Enfant Metro Station:
L’Enfant is French for “the child,” making it an oddly fitting place to deliver a baby (insofar as Metro stations go, anyway).Also: the baby was evidentally delivered minutes after the mother's water broke. Now that is an enviable delivery.
UPDATE: Evidently Metro gave her a $100 Smart Trip card as a baby gift.
10 comments:
That is a really strange article about homeschooling. It's like everyone in the family inhabits a different planet - the father says the kids study religion, some of the kids say they study marine biology, others of the kids say they play video games all day. The father doesn't even seem to be aware that the kids are attending community college. If he is, why would he permit that and not regular secondary school? This does not seem like a major public policy problem; it seems like this one family, the Powells, do not speak with one another.
Also, this is a pretty old and tired line of attack against homeschooling - it's terrible b/c religious yahoos will teach their kids a whole bunch of religious nonsense instead of how to read. I don't think there is any evidence that this is or ever was happening outside of a few cases. America is a pretty literate country; even religious yahoos usually know how to read, often pretty well. Farris is right that the kids at the low end of public education are probably worse off than the kids at the low end of homeschooling - would you rather live in this family or go to St. Louis public schools? Also, none of these naysayers seem all that worked up about unschooling, a secular approach to education that has as its explicit aim not to teach kids standard academic subjects b/c they are oppressive.
Yes--you're absolutely right--it seems like everyone inhabits a different planet. Which to me is somewhat concerning. Also really concerning: "Andrea Powell, a University of Virginia graduate who has managed most of her children’s education over the years, let her husband speak for the family."
So I have two complaints. First, here's the statute: "A school board shall excuse from attendance at school: any pupil who, together with his parents, by reason of bona fide religious training or belief is conscientiously opposed to attendance at school. For purposes of this subdivision, “bona fide religious training or belief” does not include essentially political, sociological or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code." (http://vahomeschoolers.org/guide/religious-exemption/) It seems clear to me that both the child and the parents need to desire the religious exemption for it to apply. This is not to say that the child could force his parents to send him to school--but they would have to operate under normal homeschooling rules, which includes the review of curriculum in VA, apparently.
Second, I don't think that state regulation of homeschooling is such a bad thing. It neither prohibits homeschooling, nor is (at least in my experience in Pennsylvania) at all excessive. The point is just to ascertain that kids' education is being attended to. Sadly, I don't know very much about unschooling, but I would think it would be quite possible to report on your education plan in ways that would satisfy state regulations even with alternative education approaches.
Well, what about the school districts' point about the difficulty of implementing a child's desire - even if children want to attend schools and express this desire, how is a school district actually going to enroll them over parental objections? Should they demand the normal VA homeschool requirement w/ curriculum review as a middle ground in those cases? Or, in the opposite scenario, if a child wants a religious exemption but the parents don't want to homeschool, should a school just send him home anyway? Logistically, the possibility of child-parent disagreement opens this law to craziness that a local school district shouldn't be asked to arbitrate.
In addition, more abstractly, do we really think that the religious convictions of children one way or the other should override those of their parents? What implications does this have for parental authority over a family?
I don't have strong opinions against regulating homeschooling, so long as the burdens of regulation fall on adults to do the reporting rather than kids. Different states have different reporting requirements, including portfolio reviews and standardized testing. The reason Farris is against it is I think b/c in the '80s, when homeschooling was still legally in question, there were efforts to block it (in Michigan, for example) by requiring that all home teachers get state teaching accreditation to teach their kids. This was clearly not advanced out of great concern that unaccredited parents are unqualified to teach their kids, but b/c it was in the interest of school districts and unions to block homeschooling. There is also a worry that allowing states to regulate homeschool curricula will interfere with parents' religious freedom, b/c state regulators will not consider religious curricula like the once-popular (maybe still popular? I'm not up on these things anymore) BJU homeschool materials to be equivalent to secular curricula, and so will force religious parents to teach things they disapprove. As far as I know, that concern hasn't been realized in the past 15-20 yrs and BJU homeschooling carries on. On the other hand, I don't think Farris is wrong to suspect that the conventional educational establishment is very averse to religious homeschoolers and would like to get rid of them if it could. One of the main reasons it can't is b/c homeschooling became popular in secular families, and now there is a big, organized parental lobby for it to take on.
I don't think it's too difficult for the school district to implement the student's desire (and I think that the wording of the statute requires it): it would simply not allow the religious exemption in the case that the pupil and his parents are not both conscientiously opposed. As far as I know, as school district couldn't/shouldn't force parents to send the child to school; however, the normal homeschooling requirements in VA would need to be respected. But I mean that as what I would guess is the legal, not normative, requirement. I do think that the parents have fundamental responsibility for their children's education, but that that responsibility, wherever possible, ought to be carried out within the law. Especially where the law allows homeschooling even when the child doesn't have a religious belief that prohibits him from attending public school.
I think that religious conviction is exactly the sort of thing that overrides the convictions of anyone else. Religious beliefs can't be enforced. Particular practices can. You can force your kids to attend church; you can't force them to believe any of it.
I understand the ways in which homeschool regulation could be inappropriate or dangerous. For this reason, I think Francisco is against any regulation. I'm not--I think that there is a state interest in having educated citizenry. But certainly regulation in order to prohibit homeschooling would be a problem. And I think strict regulation might be a problem (insofar as a parent is likely better situated to adjust the curriculum to the needs of the student and insofar as there are many different ways to teach and learn that aren't captured in public school curriculum).
I have known families who did a really poor job of homeschooling. Certainly, it's vastly in the minority, but I think that some minimal regulation could keep them accountable.
But is education a practice or a belief? Being homeschooled according to your parents' religious convictions seems closer to being required to attend their church than to having your conscience coerced.
Normatively, I think you create potentially big problems by giving children independent decision-making power on questions like the family's religious practices. In general, First Amendment protections do not extend to minors within a family (or, for the most part, a school), and for I think obvious reasons - you don't want children bringing their parents to court to be allowed to do things their parents disallow on the grounds that it's a matter of conscience. (I imagine a lot of amusing "Let me be a Wiccan!" lawsuits clustering around 12-year-old suburban girls. But more serious problems too - what if a kid decides he needs to keep kosher and the parents don't want to re-arrange their lives for this? Can a court require them to do so?) Except in cases where abuse is suspected and the issue of child protection is raised, it seems better to prevent the state from becoming an arbitrator between parents and children as much as possible.
You're right that this particular law suggests that children's views must be considered, but it doesn't explain how. Your suggestion to move to the normal VA homeschooling procedure in cases of conflicts b/w parents and children isn't enforceable in any clear way. How would you get recalcitrant parents to comply? If they won't report or submit to evaluation, what then? The district can go to court on behalf of the student, which is expensive, and then the kid may have to demonstrate the sincerity and seriousness of his religious convictions and why he deserves to be exempted from the government of his parents b/c of them, and the court will mandate a specific home curriculum for the child to be implemented by his unwilling parents, which the school district will be required to monitor? This seems like the least practical solution - it burdens school districts w/ the financial and legal responsibility for students who are not even enrolled in its schools.
It's much more reasonable to impose state-wide minimum accountability on all parents, whether religious or not, as most states have, or to simply defer to parents' religious convictions, on the grounds that the religious convictions of minors don't warrant special legal protection. Even though these policies pull in two different directions w/r/t Free Exercise, I'd back either one of them over giving children an independent say in the question. I'd be curious to see how that aspect of the VA law has been enforced in the past, if it ever has. But on its face, it just seems like a badly-worded law.
You're probably right about not having the state come in between parents and children on religion, although I'd have a big problem with parents preventing their child from attending religious services. On the other hand, there are cults.
I think the how of enforcing this law isn't too complicated--you just don't grant (or withdraw) the religious exemption. And you enforce that the way you enforce homeschooling laws on other people who are for whatever reason uninterested in complying. (I have no idea what that enforcement procedure is.)
I don't think it's illegal anywhere to prevent your children from attending the religious services they prefer (even if it's a totally legitimate religion and not a cult!). I don't know of any instance when Free Exercise protection has extended to children against their parents. I think you pretty much have to work those disagreements out w/in your family, and if your parents are unyielding, you're stuck and have to wait until you reach majority.
As to enforcement of this law, sure, the district could deny the exemption, but the parents can appeal and then you have expensive trial situation. (According to the website you link, all the evidence you have to submit to get the exemption is a demonstration of your family's beliefs and practices, not the children's individual beliefs, so it seems that the law has been interpreted to say that the parents speak for the child.) I have no idea how many people actually challenge the district's rulings on these cases, but I'd think they'd be more motivated to do so if they felt that the exemption was denied b/c their kid thwarted them - wouldn't these be precisely the situations where parents would want more authority over their kids and wouldn't want to cede any to the state?
But that's hypothetical; as I said, I'd like to know if this problem has ever actually been raised in a VA court. It seems like this wording would be either have to be interpreted to be consistent with typical Free Exercise jurisprudence (in which parents speak for children on religious questions), or the law would've been overturned a long time ago.
Cursory internet searching for cases when the districts have been challenged has turned up nothing, but I did find this UVa study: http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2012_fall/child_advocacy_report.htm. Only suggests what I suspected though - most districts don't want to become legal arbitrators of intrafamilial conflicts. Maybe the 1984 case referenced here deals with this?
"In summary, although the Virginia Supreme Court has confirmed the requirement that a school board consider the beliefs of the child, and the opinions of the attorney general advise regular reviews, local school boards are still left in the very difficult position of having to choose between following the law (or at least the guidance of the office of the attorney general) but potentially outraging families by rigorously tracking the evolving religious beliefs of their exempted children, or arguably failing to follow the law by granting the initial request for an exemption when a child is too young to meaningfully hold or express a belief, and never subsequently reassessing those beliefs."
This case just seems simpler than that--when the child goes to the school board and expresses his desire not to be granted the religious exemption, the school board doesn't have to do any rigorous tracking of evolving beliefs.
I suppose emancipation is the only alternative.
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