Posted by Howard Richman on March 18 2008 at 12:05:30:
Here´s how my commentary begins:
Seventy years ago, persecuted homeschoolers would flee from the East Coast to California, the state that left you alone.Back in 1988, when I co-led the battle that legalized homeschooling in Pennsylvania, we had the same two options under our compulsory education law that California still has today: (1) instruction by a qualified private tutor or (2) instruction by a private school. The difference was that Pennsylvania wouldn´t let homeschoolers come under the private school option, while California would.
We had to get a statute passed in Pennsylvania to specifically legalize homeschooling to end the persecution of homeschoolers. But in California homeschoolers would either homeschool under the supervision of an existing private school, or they would start their own private umbrella school simply to oversee homeschooling, or the individual family would start a private school.
California used to believe in freedom of all sorts. They were not only the haven for educational freedom; they were also the haven for sexual freedom. But recently, leaders of the sexual freedom revolution decided that they no longer just wanted freedom from the government, they now wanted the government to endorse their lifestyle....