LOS ANGELES — In a huge win for thousands of Christian families in California and nationwide, a California appeals court reversed itself Aug. 8 and ruled that parents do in fact have a right to home-school their children even if they lack teaching credentials.
The three-judge panel received nationwide attention and criticism in February when it ruled that “parents do not have a constitutional right to home-school their children.” It based its ruling on a nearly 80-year-old law by the California legislature. But in the decades since that law was implemented, the panel ruled Aug. 8, the legislature has implicitly accepted home-schooling as legal.
The February ruling said parents could home-school their children only if they had a “valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught” — something that many if not most home-schooling parents do not have. The panel announced in March it would rehear the case. The original decision drew criticism from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who pledged legislation if it wasn’t overturned, as well as from State Schools Superintendent Jack O’Connell, who said he supported the rights of homeschoolers.
There are an estimated 166,000 home-school students in California. More than a dozen organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the court to reconsider its ruling. Technically, the court case involved alleged abuse within a family who had home-schooled their children. But instead of ruling on that particular case, the court issued a broad ruling that covered all home-school families in the state. The latest ruling drew wide praise from home-school organizations.
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