Bill to Mandate Public Schooling
by Robert Russo
Every year some loose circle of academicians bands together with an unsuccessful motion to express their continuing outrage that their doctrine is not universally accepted, as their upbringing in the public school system dictates them to. Removing summer break is a recurring theme, but this bill presented by Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. crosses a new line with logic that is hard to believe. He wants to amend the Constitution to make public schooling a child's "right", by way of a student bill of rights that gives citizenship to young people (right to privacy, freedom of thought and expression), erasing parental authority.*
Surely every Libertarian who hears of this is doing a double-take. Most advocate the civil liberties of parents since they are the victims of government intrusion into the home, and necessary to the practice of homeschooling and the lifestyle of personal responsibility. Some of us advocate the liberties of the child and have called for child citizenship for years to free them from family dictatorship, but not as a ploy to push one institution's political agenda! I personally have never seen a more noble cause presented for a more obscene purpose. Where is this representative coming from that he understands the concept of absolute equality, but equates the dictatorial classroom with that freedom?
HSLDA.org is a good website for viewing cases of infringement on personal freedom and the fight against it. Homeschooling is a prime example of a family's private business, and a time-honored target for those who believe these families have stolen the public commodity of education. In many such cases social workers overstep their bounds as self-appointed "parental investigators", by interrogating homeschooled students to ask if they would rather attend public school.** In one case a building inspector hired to appraise a property appointed himself "family inspector" instead, and reported the parents.*** All of these articles end with the overzealous social worker giving up to try again elsewhere, leaving the reader to wonder what his unpublicized life must be like.
These infringements occur in the Richmond area but are hard to document. While driving one day I saw a banner ad on the back of a GRTC bus asking if I had seen young people who should be in school, part of Mayor Wilder’s crusade against truancy started last year. "Targeted" areas of the city are now patrolled in sweeps to round up these unaccounted for students and put them in disciplinary programs, fining their parents and even sending them to prison. This initiative is ironically called TRAPP (Truancy Reduction and Prevention Program) and makes the most unbelievable statement in the actual proposal that was voted on. "Truancy is often the first sign of trouble in a youth’s life. Research has shown that students who become truant stand a greater chance of eventually dropping out of school and placing themselves at significant disadvantages to becoming productive citizens. ...Students who become truant set themselves up for a lifetime of struggle."****
What exactly is a "productive citizen"? Is anyone who opposes the school system condemning themselves to a "lifetime of struggle"? Such dogmatic wording has no place in a city document. The concept of truancy is that we have one approved form of education in this country and that it is a crime for anyone to stray from it. These are all symptoms of the war between Academia and Alternative education, in which archaic 20th Century notions of education meet modern advances and diversity. This year school districts in Alabama threatened to file truancy against every student enrolled in church schools within two counties.*****
It is the responsibility of those appointed by the state to detect neglect and abuse, not to define those terms themselves by passing judgment. That is not their call. Anyone who cares about child welfare must also abhor the wrongful accusation of good families, and any social worker who does so should face automatic penalties.
It is not homeschooling itself that exempts young people from skipping class. Even if they are not enrolled at all, a single institution with one way of doing things is not compulsary, no more than it is omnipotent. Dropping out is not a crime. Having no political affiliation does not mean someone lacks the rights of a citizen. If young people cannot move about as they please because it breeds criminal behavior, then we live in a broken environment that is not safe for anyone. Did the people who planned this society not go to school themselves?
Emotions rise and fall in the education war to no end. Educators across the state will discuss this hotly but no bill will pass, because in our desire to be contented we have been reduced to obsession over issues instead of action. With the advent of home-privitized education there is no such thing as truancy. Respecting a student's right to attend the institution of their choice, even if it is a public school, is a part of this higher parental calling. This trust is broken when strangers enter the home to pursuade students toward an institution they themselves do not teach for and cannot guarantee. Teaching a generation that the classroom equals citizenship is a ploy to take those rights away from them. Information on this bill can be found at http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200609251.asp. For the full text of Mayor Wilder's anti-truancy program go to http://leg2.state.va.us/dls/h&sdocs.nsf/By+Year/HD482005/$file/HD48.pdf.
*http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200609251.asp
**http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/tx/200608310.asp
***http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/tx/200608090.asp
****http://leg2.state.va.us/dls/h&sdocs.nsf/By+Year/HD482005/$file/HD48.pdf
*****http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/al/200609070.asp
Question of the Week: As a libertarian how do you feel about rights within the home? Do you relate to parents and their right to raise a family without government bureaucracy, or children who have inalienable rights without parental bureaucracy? Do these two beliefs conflict? Please send your opinions to henrico@richmondliberty.org.
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