Train Up a Child
There are some good things and some bad things happening these days in the area of Christian education and parents' rights to control the upbringing and education of their children. The Christian Law Association is committed to standing with Christian families no matter what their educational choices - whether homeschool, private, Christian school, or public school.
First, the Bad News
Attorneys for CLA sprang into action after learning about an unusual Order issued by a Mississippi judge. A young man had appeared in his courtroom who had been homeschooled, but could neither read nor write and who claimed he had never used a book throughout his homeschooling. The judge became concerned enough to issue an order seeking to compel state school attendance officers to release to him lists of the names and addresses of all children who were being homeschooled within his legal district.
While this judge may have been legitimately concerned about one particular young man who claimed to have been homeschooled, this situation did not provide the judge with a fishing pole to go after other homeschool families. Homeschoolers in Mississippi acted quickly to oppose this ruling. Letters and petitions were filed with the court; and Attorney David Gibbs was able to speak directly with the judge about the overreach his order represented. Even worse, this conversation revealed that the judge also intended to require homeschool parents to provide copies of their curricular materials to the court.
Mississippi law, as in many other states, requires homeschool parents to file a Certificate of Enrollment with their school district attendance officer containing whatever information that state or school district requires in order to make sure all children are actually attending school. If homeschool parents follow this simple notification procedure, they are not legally subject to truancy laws and they may conduct their homeschool as they like without receiving approval for their curricular choices. Some states also require that children be tested occasionally to demonstrate educational progress, but otherwise homeschool families are to be left alone to educate their children.
Generally the only way a court could obtain jurisdiction over a particular homeschool student would be on the basis of an actual truancy complaint filed by a school attendance officer or a charge of neglect or abuse. This is the law in Mississippi; and, in this instance, there were no such allegations and no truancy case pending before the court. Therefore, the judge could not legally require all homeschool parents to provide their names and curriculum material to the court. If a child is educationally neglected or abused, that would be an individual cause of action that would affect only that one child, not all other children being successfully homeschooled.
The Lesson to be Learned
The lesson to be learned from this unfortunate judicial overreach is that Christians and homeschoolers must be continually watchful of their legal rights. We are grateful to Mississippi homeschoolers who immediately sounded the alarm against this unconstitutional order. All homeschoolers need to be alert to attempts to undermine parental freedoms, even from judges. The Christian Law Association assists homeschool families in dealing with just this sort of situation.
Now for the Good News
The good news for educational choice and for parental rights is an important win for the "good guys" at the United States Supreme Court. The Court handed down a significant legal victory in April for those who promote parental choice in education.
The high Court ruled 5-4 dismissing a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against an Arizona school choice program. This program allows state residents to claim a tax credit for donations to private organizations providing scholarships for private school students. Specifically, the Court found that the ACLU plaintiffs lacked the legal standing necessary to bring this lawsuit against the private scholarship organization as taxpayers because the money at issue was private contributions, not government funds.
The Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization is one of more than fifty non-profit corporations organized in that state to raise private funds and distribute private scholarships to more than 27,000 students in hundreds of private schools, including religious schools. These programs involve the private choices and donations of individuals. No government money is involved and these programs actually save the state government money, while helping to relieve educational burdens on Arizona's overcrowded public schools.
The Court's decision to deny the ACLU taxpayers standing to oppose tax credits for these donations is a sound one. The ACLU's lawsuit assumed that the government owns 100% of every American's paycheck. If that assumption is ever accepted by our courts, America will become a nation of government slaves, not of free men and women.
We applaud this Supreme Court decision which will open up opportunities for other states to implement similar programs to help individual students attend the private school of their choice, including a religious school. This is a very important victory.
We need to pray for the next generation as they are being educated. Our hope and prayer at CLA is that every child would receive a Christ-honoring and Bible-based education that would prepare them to stand for Jesus Christ in the days ahead. If we lose the freedom to train the next generation, we surrender the future.
