Principle Over Party

The Wall Street Journal had an Editorial about the homeschool ruling in California. I had previously written about this here and here. Below are a couple of excerpts [Emphasis mine]:

In the annals of judicial imperialism, we have arrived at a strange new chapter. A California court ruled this month that parents cannot “home school” their children without government certification. No teaching credential, no teaching. Parents “do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” wrote California appellate Justice Walter Croskey.
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That so many families turn to home schooling is a market solution to a market failure — namely the dismal performance of the local education monopoly. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, the majority of states have low to moderate levels of regulation for home schools, an environment that has allowed the option to flourish, especially in the South and Western U.S. Between 1999 and 2003, the rate of home-schooling increased by 29%.
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If John McCain wants an issue to endear him to cultural conservatives, this would be it. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama rarely stray from the preferences of the teachers unions, but we’d like to know whether they really favor the certification of parents who dare to believe they know best how to teach their children.

This is the whole crux of the home school debate, are parents qualified to educate their own children or should parents be certified by the State? The answer should be NO to anyone who loves freedom. If you are hesitating to answer No, think for a minute what that means. You are saying the the government has the right to tell you how to raise your child. What’s next, parental discipline certification? parental birth certification? The unintended consequences of this step into parental rights will very likely lead to the complete take over of child rearing authority by the government.

As the quote reminds us, be careful who you choose to elect as our next President. We must elect the candidate who believes in the freedom of the individual instead of the power of the State. It would nice to have each of the candidates weigh in on this question with a straightforward Yes or No answer as to whether they support certifying parents or not.

In a quick update to my post about California Courts ruling that parents don’t have a right to homeschool, there is now a petition to sign if you support homeschooling and want to see this ruling overturned at the HSLDA website. The HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) has a resource page here.

Please consider looking at ParentalRights.org and decide if you want a Constitutional Amendment to protect the rights of parents.