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State should not interfere with home-schooling
By: Maria Elena Kennedy, Community Contributor
Description: Home-schoolers are spelling bee winners, math brains and Harvard grads
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Posted by maria
Wed Aug 11, 2004 16:18:00 PDT
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It's back-to-school time again. Time for kids to pick out new clothes, shoes, bookbags and school supplies. Soon, the long, lazy days of summer vacation will come to an end. Soon parents and kids will rush out early in the morning to beat the morning school bell.
Yet a growing number of people will not join the ranks of these harried parents and students. These individuals, who will only have to go to their dinning room table to attend school, are home-schoolers.
Home-schooling is growing in California and across the country by leaps and bounds. Fueled in part by dissatisfaction with a broken public school system, more and more parents are taking charge of their children's education. So who are these kids who stay at home and study under mom's watchful eye?
They are first, second and third place winners at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. They are top contenders at the American Mathematics Competition each year. They are accepted by Harvard, Stanford and the California Institute of Technology. Granted, not all home-schoolers go off to Harvard, but neither do all public school students.
Home-schooling is not for everyone. Often times finances prevent families from home-schooling, and it's a big commitment. Yet for those who do wish to home-school, the state should not interfere. Educational innovations should be encouraged by the state, not hindered. To recall the words of the United States Supreme Court in the Pierce decision, "The child is not a mere creature of the state."
