June 22, 2008
WND: California Homeschoolers' fate hangs on hearing results
Homeschoolers' fate hangs on hearing results
Court's earlier opinion said parents don't have right to teach children
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Posted: June 20, 2008
6:11 pm Eastern
"The 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles is scheduled to hear oral arguments Monday in the Rachel L. case, the startling ruling released in February in which the judges concluded there was no constitutional or statutory provision for parents to homeschool their children.
The case immediately sparked nationwide outrage, up to the White House and Congress, which approved a resolution calling for a rehearing, and the court panel's judges eventually scheduled new arguments in the dispute, effectively overturning their own earlier ruling.
Kevin Snider, chief counsel for the Pacific Justice Institute, is to argue the legality of homeschooling under both state law and constitutional law as a representative of the private Christian school that provided the overarching program in which the family participated.
An estimated 166,000 children are being homeschooled in California, and their future also will be argued by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation, who represents the father in the case, along with the Alliance Defense Fund.
The Home School Legal Defense Association, the nation's premiere homeschooling advocacy organization, also has been assisting in preparation of the arguments, which will be in addition to the arguments from the various components of California's education industry, education agencies and teachers' unions.
"We are looking forward to this opportunity to defend the thousands of families who are making sacrifices to teach their children at home. The state should be applauding, not threatening, these families," said Brad Dacus, president of PJI."We hope that the court reverses its decision and restores homeschool freedom to California," said Michael Farris, chairman of the HSLDA.
In 1925, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the rights of parents to oversee the education of their children, stating, "The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations," according to Liberty Counsel, which also is working on the case.
The court's earlier opinion originated with a juvenile case, but concluded that parents without mandatory credentials from state agencies and teachers' unions do not have the right to school their children at home.
Liberty Counsel filed a brief on behalf of 19 members of Congress providing an overview of education laws in all 50 states.
In another brief, filed on behalf of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. argued that there's no need to dig into state constitutional issues regarding homeschooling since state laws already provide for that choice for parents.
"Here, this court need not reach any constitutional issues because this petition can be decided entirely on statutory grounds," the brief said. "The Education Code provides a broad statutory basis for homeschooling in California, setting forth three different avenues through which parents may legally homeschool their children."
The brief said the trial court in the case at hand "addressed only the constitutional issues, it never considered the preliminary question of whether the parents had met the statutory requirements for homeschooling under the Education Act."
WND broke the story in February when the original decision was released, and has reported on the various briefs as they have been filed.
Since the case originated with a juvenile court proceeding, some of the arguments and briefs have remained confidential, because of the standard for handling juvenile proceedings. Other briefs have been released publicly.
"HSLDA has also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in conjunction with Focus on the Family and Family Protection Ministries to show the benefits of a home education. These arguments draw on the extensive development of homeschooling and the successful track record of parents educating their children at home," the organization said.
The original opinion was written by Appeals Court Judge H. Walt Croskey and said: "We find no reason to strike down the Legislature's evaluation of what constitutes an adequate education scheme sufficient to promote the 'general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence. … We agree … 'the educational program of the State of California was designed to promote the general welfare of all the people and was not designed to accommodate the personal ideas of any individual in the field of education.'"
Homeschool advocates immediately expressed concern the original ruling would leave parents who educate their children at home liable criminally as well as open to civil charges for child neglect that could create the potential for fines, court-ordered counseling or even loss of custody.
The original California opinion arose from a dependency case brought in juvenile court. In the process, attorneys assigned by the court to the family's two younger children sought a court order for them to be enrolled in a public or qualifying private school.
The district court denied the request citing parental rights, but the appellate court overturned the decision and granted the attorneys' request. The appeals court concluded the parents held neither a statutory right nor a constitutional right to provide homeschooling to their own children.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 5:48 AM
October 3, 2007
Literacy: ch 4 of Liver Cleansing during the Childbearing Season
Here is the next chapter of my video book Liver Cleansing during the Childbearing Season:
Here is the link to the church reading curriculum based on the scriptures. It is titled Ye Shall Have My Words:
Ye Shall Have My Words is a scripture-based literacy course that teaches basic reading and writing skills. President Gordon B. Hinckley said this course “is designed to bring light into the lives of those who can neither read nor write”
Click on the image to get to a sample page from the teachers guide.
Teacher’s Guide
The teacher’s guide provides instruction for implementing the Ye Shall Have My Words course and contains the answers to the exercises in the student manual. This guide is now available in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French. A revised English teacher's guide will be available in spring 2007.
Click on the image to get to the sample page of this manual.
Student Manual
The student manual provides a group study or tutorial program to teach beginning reading and writing skills to students in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French. A revised student manual in English will be available in spring 2007. Text and vocabulary are drawn from the scriptures. (This is not an ESL program.)
Training DVD
The Ye Shall Have My Words Literacy Training DVD is designed to help literacy teachers use the basic scripture literacy course and help train literacy teachers. It illustrates the importance of gospel literacy, demonstrates how to find and meet literacy needs, and models how to teach a literacy class. The multilingual DVD provides content in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French.
If you are interested in learning more about the churchs literacy curriculum, please contact Missionaries from the LDS church who will put you in touch with those who can help you learn to read! Go Here.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 12:18 PM
August 7, 2007
JOY School: Blogger explains Joy School
This mommy blogger has one of the cutest blogs I have ever read. She is gearing up to do Joy school for her preschooler and explains a little bit about it here.
I used Joy School for two of my children. When Jeff and Andy were both four we organized a Joy school with a group of Moms at church and they both enjoyed the experience. I wish I had a group of women to do one for Ben this year, but we just don't have any children his age in our ward. In fact, he is the only four year old in his class right now.
I plan to continue working with him on his Saxon Math and Phonics book all year. Here is a link to a blog entry I did when we began a while ago. We still plug away with it now and then and when school starts I plan to do a daily school session of reading and math with him. He does not start kindergarten until next year when he is five.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 6:24 AM
April 13, 2007
Hugh Hewitt: If you weren't feeling stupid enough, here is the list
Hugh Hewitt had a couple of professors on his radio show and asked them the top books freshman should read in college. The transcript was a good read. Here is the link
And my comment #34:
I thought I would share some of the great LDS literature, links anyway...these would be in my top ten, not a professor, just a mom..
The Book of Mormon
- Perhaps the greatest book ever written on Freedom and what it takes for individuals, families, and nations to be free.
The Doctrine and Covenants
The Doctrine and Covenants is a collection of divine revelations and inspired declarations given for the establishment and regulation of the kingdom of God on the earth in the last days.
The Pearl of Great Price is a selection of choice materials touching many significant aspects of the faith and doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These items were produced by the Prophet Joseph Smith and were published in the Church periodicals of his day.
I would add to the scriptures, these additional works of LDS non Fiction:
Jesus the Christ
The Miracle of Forgiveness
Ezra Taft Benson, A Biography
While a study of the ancients is beneficial and gives a sure foundation in western thought and philosophy, my modern mind revels in the words of fiction writers like Victor Huge (Where was Les Mis???), Chaim Potok, JRR Tolkien, Ayn Rand, LM Montgomery, and two all time favorites, (which were required in my BYU Honors Colloquium Freshman Year, Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which has profoundly impacted my life from the minute I first opened that book.
We did read quite a few of the classics the good professors mentioned freshman year. I shudder to think what my oldest daughter is going to experience fall of 2007...praying for sanity in her freshman college classrooms.
Jenny Hatch
WWW.NaturalFamilyBLOG.com
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 5:56 PM
March 3, 2007
Two Education Posts that illustrate just how deeply Marxism is entrenched
David Horowitz: Indoctrination U: The Left's War Against Academic Freedom
and
The Anchoress: I’d seriously consider home-schooling
IMPORTANT QUOTES:
Mr. Horowitz:
"During the last twenty years, I have spoken at more than three hundred universities, where I interviewed students and professors about the intellectual climate on their campuses. In the course of these visits I became concerned about the changes that had taken place since I attended college half a century ago. I was particularly troubled by the increasingly intolerant atmosphere of the schools I visited and by the relentless intrusion of political agendas into an academic environment where they did not belong.
As a result, in the fall of 2002 I began an effort to address these problems by reviving doctrines of academic freedom that were an integral part of university governance but had been increasingly abandoned as a practice in recent decades. I had first encountered these doctrines during my undergraduate years at Columbia College, in the McCarthy period, when they provided a bulwark against the turbulence of those troubled times.
Their origins could be traced back yet another half century to the Progressive Era, when professors had been forced to defend themselves from the meddling of benefactors who were angered by academic critiques of their business practices. The principles of academic freedom were devised at that time to insure that scholars could publish the results of their professional research without fear of reprisals from donors and politicians who lacked their academic expertise.
In recent years, by contrast, it is faculty members who have intruded a political agenda into the academic curriculum and have sought to close down intellectual discussion and prevent open-minded inquiries into “sensitive” subjects. Ideas deemed “reactionary” and “politically incorrect” are suppressed through “speech codes” and a collective disapproval that renders them verboten. Unlike previous attempts to interfere with disinterested inquiry, the new political assault comes from faculty insiders who regard their scholarship as a partisan activity and the university as a platform from which they hope to change the world.
The radical attempt to turn schools into agencies for social change is a recent development that coincides with the emergence of “political correctness” as the signature feature of a radicalized academic culture. “Political correctness” is a term that describes an orthodoxy or “party line,” in this case reflecting the agendas of the left. Ideas that oppose leftwing orthodoxy -- opposition to racial preferences, belief in innate differences between men and women or, more recently, support for America’s war in Iraq -- are regarded as morally unacceptable or simply indecent. The proponents of such ideas are regarded as deviants from the academic norm, to be marginalized and shunned."
Anchoress:
"If my kids were little and just beginning in elementary school, I would seriously consider home-schooling for a variety of reasons - mostly because now that I’ve seen how quickly it all went, I want more time with them! But I’d have considered it sooner had this been what they were taught."
Just evidence that our Marxist textbooks and indoctrination at teachers colleges have been 100% effective. How to combat this:
I've been wracking my brain over that one for many years. My husband and I homeschooled off and on for five years. When my fifth child was a baby I felt like I was dying, so overwhelmed with everything in my life, so we open enrolled the children in a charter school that still seems to be a good fit, even after four years of attendance.
I know for a fact that our teachers are sharing a variety of socialist views with my children every day, especially in English, History, and Social Studies classes. How can I send them to class knowing they are being propagandized in Communist thought and ideologies every single day?
For me, the benefits of daily spanish language instruction, daily music, band, chorus, and sports outweighs the risks in sending them to school. My three oldest children are at the age when just about everything we teach them is suspect to them. This is normal and healthy development in teens and I pretty much expected it to happen. They have so much regard for various teachers and teachings that Mom and Dads Passion for Conservatism and our Patriotism rings a little hallow for them.
How to keep them from becoming so educated that they don't join the ranks of those americans who are just a little too smart to be patriotic, just a little too degreed to even think of military service as a privledge, so intellectualized that religion and moral living is passe and for the dullards of our society.....
How to do it?
Well, I think we already did it, at least with our four oldest children. We spent years teaching them daily lessons in American History, our Mormon Church history, and we taught them the scriptures (which are all about freedom - The Book of Mormon is especially eloquent in articulating what it takes for individuals, families, and nations to be free) and to love to listen to a prophets voice.
We have filled our home library with patriotic books and occasionally I will see them reading various texts as they conduct research for classes.
Will they stay true? Will they stay filled with light and hope and the promise of Celestial living?
I don't know.
But I do know that I can look my Heavenly Father in the eye and with a heart brimming with hope and pleading for mercy, tell him that I tried my honest best to teach his little ones, these beautiful souls entrusted to Paul and I, true doctrine. They are so busy right now, it is very difficult to find time to teach them the way that we did when we lived the quiet home schooled life. We do read scriptures every morning and have a lesson once a week during Family Night.
I don't know that home school is the be all end all hope for the world. I know many families who believe it is the answer for them, and I heartily salute them for their passion and hard work.
I do believe with all of the false marxist lies being taught to our families from preschool up to the hightest levels of our graduate programs, that the tug and pull of Socialism is eating people alive as they fill their minds up with the feel good notions of collectivism and find themselves enslaved to an ideology that has ruined the lives of millions since its inception and implementation in the various societies who have tolerated and embraced its teachings.
I wholeheartedly Salute David Horowitz for his passion, books, articles, words, activism, and EFFECTIVENESS in fighting this most important fight in our Universities. Perhaps the collective wall that currently surrounds the minds and hearts of our professors and universities will come crashing down the way the Berlin wall fell and communism crashed in the late 80's.
My prayer is that more parents will learn what is at stake when they send their little ones to school to have their minds massaged in communist thought and activism. Perhaps that very awareness will be the antidote we need as a society. Most of my die hard home schooling friends are doing it simply to protect their children from socialist brainwashing.
Some of the best essays on this topic come from a scientist and home schooling father Art Robinson. Go Here for his web site.
If we ever go back to home school we will use the Robinson Plan for the outline for our day. It worked very well for three years and I wholeheartedly endorse and support the goals of the Robinson Plan. I think it is the most mother friendly set up out there in the overwhelming world of homeschooling curriculums.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 10:47 PM
January 28, 2007
C-Span - Hillary Clinton's First town hall Meeting in Iowa
New Feature on the Natural Family BLOG:
As the 2008 Presidential Campaign Season kicks in, I thought it would be fun to highlight certain political debates that show up on C-Span. So I taped Hillary Clintons first Town Hall Meeting in Iowa yesterday and picked the dumbest question that was asked and then commented on it.
Now as I watched this town hall meeting, I was struck by a couple of things. First, it was almost as if the whole thing had been carefully planned and staged. The questioners, the order of the questions, and the way that Mrs. Clinton kept refering back to previous topics to build on her points, it was almost like she had carefully scripted and planned the order of the questions so she could carefully outline her views on a few selected topics.
Most telling point to me, no questions about National Security, International issues and concerns, and/or the War on Terrorism.
As this educrat outlined his disgust with No Child Left Behind I was thinking that it must be a good thing if he was so upset by it.
Here is Mrs. Clintons response to this inane question (with various and assorted comments by me as she is talking)
I was disgusted by her assumptions that testing wether or not a child can read does not serve the child!!! How else are we to learn if the schools are teaching them to read if they are not tested on reading and writing ability??? Testing the children is the ONLY way to hold schools accountable. The only people damaged by testing are those Whole Language Boobies who continue to produce millions upon millions of Americans who are deficient in basic skills.
How can our people be expected to participate in the democratic process and prosper in the Global Economy if they are not able to read at a literate level?
Here is my response to this short portion of her Town Hall:
I pray that Mrs. Clintons pandering to the education lobby, the National Education Association, will expose her as the most extreme form of leftist who is willing to go back to the days of Complete educational failure and top down control of our schools by the Federal Government.
I believe the whole educational establishment should be completely privatized and the control of public schools be put back into the hands of local school boards who are accountable to the voters of their districts.
And those parents who have had the courage to innovate with Homeschool, Charters, and Vouchers should be given a bit of applause for being willing to do whatever it takes to give their children the best education possible.
We home schooled our children for five years. During those years I only had one goal. I wanted to teach our children to love to read. With four avid readers, I can happily say that our home school efforts have been a success. Our kids now attend a local Charter School, and even though I know they are being taught some collectivist thinking, because in America most of our current curriculums are focused on socialism, I don't worry as much about them learning these things, knowing they can read and can sort it out in their own minds.
I was brainwashed in the Michigan Public Schools during the hey day of the 70's and 80's Socialism and watered down Communism in the schools and I still came out a raging conservative. We studied the Communist Manifesto more than The Constitution at my schools. I think the reason why the movie Ferris Buellers Day off resonated so well with my generation is that right at the beginning of the movie he dissed Socialism. He said he wanted to skip school that day because he had a test on European Socialism.
One of the reasons that those of us who are parents now are so fed up with education is because we experienced the worst of collectivist propaganda during the years we were in high school and college. Heck, many of us are still paying off student loans for educations that could only be considered full scale communist indoctrination, and we don't want that sort of an education for our children.
When educrats are talking about educating the Whole Child, what they mean is that they have goals for education that move way beyond basic skills. They want to massage the childs brain in Secular Humanism and train them to think and feel certain ways when a particular topic is debated. They have largely been effective in these efforts at all levels of American Education and I believe it is time for it to STOP!
We are Americans, and our posterity deserves the birthright of freedom that was bought and paid for with the blood of our ancestors.
When the literacy rates hit 99% in our society then I believe we can confidently say that our one hundred year experiment in Socialistic education that John Dewey Launched at the beginning of the 20th Century is "safely dead".
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 10:26 PM