Tom Fudge : The number of kids who are home-schooled in California is small relative to the total number of school age kids. The number is somewhere between 100 and 200 thousand . But some parents deeply believe that home schooling is the best thing for their children. And all parents probably like the idea that home school is, at least, an option that's open to them.
That's why a California appellate court judge raised quite a few hackles when he wrote a decision that seemed to suggest a lot of home schooling parents were breaking the law. Judge Walter Croskey was ruling in a case that began with allegations that a father was abusing his child. But when L.A. County social service investigators began looking into the case, they found that this child was one of a number of kids being home-schooled very badly. That soon became the focus of the case.
The judge wrote that "parents do not have a right to home school their children." He also made reference to a court ruling from the Fifties that rejected a challenge by home-schoolers that they were somehow exempt from the state's compulsory education statues.
So what does the law say? Are home-schoolers now facing much more stringent rules in terms of what they can and cannot do?
Guests
- Shaun Martin , a law professor at the University of San Diego.
- Linda Gross, is a head counselor at Mt. Everest Academy , a local public school that assists parents who home-school their children.
