Loyalty to the State
POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Monday, March 31, 2008 03:34
VIEWED: 19263
PAGE 5 of 27
It's not the schools responsibility to do that, nor is it properly or meaningfully within their authority to do so.
If the The Family and Children's Services believes there is a problem and has sufficient probable cause to believe so - then the responsibility falls entirely to them, not shoving it off on a public school to save them the bother of doing their own job.
It smells to me like they are using this case with an ulterior motive behind it, as homeschooling vs public schooling is not whatever a part of the problem nor it's legal resolution, this is an investigator with an agenda, who decided to process it outside the bounds of his authority and his agencies - I am myself NOT unfamilar with this process, nor collusion of the public school system with the state.
All too many times a child winds up yanked from a decent family for the horrible "crime" of self defense, and shunted off to those hellhole teen bootcamps, via an intentional and willing collusion of that sort - the school wants rid of a boat rocker, and uses social services as the hammer to get it done.
Abuse or no, that is a SEPERATE investigation, having nothing whatever to do with the public school system, and to have involved them in any respect at all positively smacks of someone in the process having an agenda.
And the fact that the school system in question did not reject it out of hand, means there is likely collusion on both ends.
The investigator and their agency needs to do their job, the school needs to butt the hell out, and the State needs to keep it's grimy paws off and LET the investigator do their job.
Neither of the latter have any interest that is anything less than ulterior, or they'd not be involved in the first fekkin place.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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No, I haven't read the decision, so In all real senses I can't say I disagree or agree with the decision. I was really just arguing semantics to be a thorn in the side of others who argue semantics
When there are no heroes where will we turn?
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Quote:I did read the article, but the Ninth Circuit has a history of controversial rulings that are often politically motivated. In fact, this court that has driven the concern for judicial legislation. So I have my doubts that this ruling was made with the interest of the people of California and probably more in line with the interests of a political agenda. That being said, I agree that the real issue hear is the failure of the legislation to properly define the law.
Originally posted by Geezer:
So obviously, no one involved in this discussion has actually read the entire article and related court decision.
The whole thing started when one of the minor children reported emotional and physical abuse by the father. The Family and Children's Services attorney representing the children asked that the two youngest be sent to public school so they could have an outside source checking for continued abuse. As part of the trial court ruling (unfortunately no link available) the judge, while deploring the quality of the children's homeschooling, assumed the parent's constitutional right to homeschool. The appeal of this judgement is what generated the decision that most homeschooling is not legal under current California law.
So we do have the children, or at least one of them, acting in their own behalf to complain of abuse (good for them). We have the State requesting that the children be sent to public school as a method (one option among several) of checking for continued abuse. And we have the Appelate Court finding that laws passed 50 or more years ago on who can teach children have been pretty much ignored (pretty sloppy, I'd say). Looks like it's time for the State legislature to review the laws on the books and see if changes are needed.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
Although, I'm not entirely sure that I don't agree with Court in this case. I'd need to understand what the Court describes as poor education, but if some parents are abusing homeschooling, then maybe attention needs to be drawn to this.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
If the The Family and Children's Services believes there is a problem and has sufficient probable cause to believe so - then the responsibility falls entirely to them, not shoving it off on a public school to save them the bother of doing their own job.
It smells to me like they are using this case with an ulterior motive behind it, as homeschooling vs public schooling is not whatever a part of the problem nor it's legal resolution, this is an investigator with an agenda, who decided to process it outside the bounds of his authority and his agencies - I am myself NOT unfamilar with this process, nor collusion of the public school system with the state.
I don't disagree with this, but I suspect that it's more a function of money than dogma. Providing the number of social workers needed to monitor all possible child abuse, absent the admittedly less than perfect substitutes of school counseling and teacher observation, would bust any social services budget. I suspect that the system sees getting the child away from continuous observation by a parent, where they would at least have the chance to report abuse, as the best of a bad lot of choices which could be covered by their budget.
I was more interested in the fact that California has had, since the '50s, laws on the books effectively outlawing most home schooling, but has failed to either enforce or change them. No doubt one motive behind these laws, passed during the Cold War, was to educate the kids to be good little freedom-loving Americans and resist the Socialist menace (as noted in the 1961 quote). Wonder how the authors of these laws would feel about the use California is putting them to now. Be interesting to see the legislatures reaction to all this.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:Sarge, I wish you'd follow up on this. I've repeatedly seen parent neglecting their responsibilities: leaving kids out unattended in the yard in T-shirts in cold weather while "mom" does drugs, yanking the kids from apartment to car to street because mom AND dad do drugs; being entirely uninvolved in their children's lives for years because mom or dad is passed out on the couch; abusing and intimidating the kids because of childhood abuse; being unable to participate because of medical problems.
I'm making it because I've seen, personally and repeatedly, parents neglecting their responsibilities as a direct result of their rights being interfered with.
I could go on because I lived it and I've seen it directly. But really, I don't know how this fits into your mold of parents not having the "rights" that would help them fulfill their responsibilities. When it comes to abuse or neglect, it all seems to be about drugs, alcohol, a chain of abuse and (rarely) health problems.
So what did you mean?
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Let's party like it's 1929.
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Drug abuse is an adequate reason as far as I’m concerned for the state to become involved.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Sarge, I wish you'd follow up on this. I've repeatedly seen parent neglecting their responsibilities...
I think what you're describing is more properly described as abuse. I'm talking about something different. What I've seen is a general attitude of powerlessness that seems to be the accepted norm. Parents don't see themselves as guardians. Having bought into the notion that "it takes a village", they've happily outsourced their responsibilities to others (teachers, police, psychologists, etc...).
As a case in point, I was talking with a friend of my girlfriend about the ADD thing. I was talking about my own decision to ignore the advice of teachers and avoid the temptation to treat my sons' boredom in class as a disease. That's a different debate, but the relevant point was in her reaction. It was inconceivable to her that a parent had the right to "just say no" in such an instance. Of course it really blew her mind when she found out that I'd pulled my kids out of junior high and set things up so they could learn on their own. Again, it wasn't the particulars of my decisions as much as the fact that I'd made them that was so surprising to her. She actually uttered the phrase "didn't you get in trouble!?", two or three times during the conversation. That attitude, and the fact that so many parents adopt it, is just heartbreaking to me.
This is why I'm turned off by your condemnation of parental authority as an issue of property rights. I think that, for many parents, seeing their kids as property, albeit an ultimately precious kind of property, would be a vast improvement in the situation.
Several years ago, I was talking with a co-worker about a grade-school shooting that had occurred in Chicago, I proposed the apparently outrageous notion that the child's parents should be held accountable, even to the point of criminal culpability. Of course he disagreed and, after some discussion, he settled on his principal objection to the idea: he didn't think parents could be held responsible because "you just can't control your kids". His view was, essentially, that "the village" was the responsible party. He cited the influence of the schools, the child's peers, even the television, as contributing factors outside his control. It didn't even dawn on him that he could, in fact, control these influences.
So, all this informs my main point, which is that the diminished authority of parents is ultimately more dangerous than the abuse that can result when they are "allowed" to be in charge. And really, on the whole, I don't think the bulk of abuse comes from parents who jealously guard their authority over their kids. Even when those folks are religious nuts who believe in corporal punishment and won't let their kids be immunized, they at least take their role as guardians seriously. Kids in such a situation might not be raised the way you'd prefer, but they aren't unloved and ignored.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Quote:Oh c'mon. First of all, the judge didn't just say, "Let's pay more attention to this." If that is what he had said, it wouldn't be in the news.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
.. but if some parents are abusing homeschooling, then maybe attention needs to be drawn to this.
People abuse everything in the world. You can't penalize millions of legitimate homeschoolers because some people abuse homeschooling. Hell, more teachers abuse schooling than parents abuse homeschooling, and despite "attention drawn" to it, it keeps happening. Yet no one is calling for the end of public and private schools. Because the fact is, MOST schools do an adequate job despite the abusers.
Sig, children are not parental property. I find that concept offensive. Children are sovereign individuals who do not have the experience and maturity to exercise their sovereignty. They need to be nurtured and protected until such time that they can make independent choices. The question is, WHO should be the default nurturer and protector? The obvious answer is the parents. IF the parents fail, THEN the state may step in to protect their sovereignty (rights). IF...THEN. Not before.
Of course, the next question is, what constitutes parental failure? How much neglect and abuse has to occur before the state steps in, and to what extent does the state step in? Well, that's a judgment call our legislators and judges make--and a different debate.
The issue at hand is, it's ALL about the children. It can ONLY be about the children.
Hell, if you can convince me that another set of parents can love, nurture, protect, educate and understand my kids BETTER than I can, I will give them up. I'll miss them, but if they can have a better life without me, so be it. It's about THEM, you see? However, as my daughter says, "All parents have flaws, Mom. Other parents may be better than you in some areas, but they aren't better than you in ALL areas."
And that is imagining amazing, loving parents out there. A lot of the time, what foster kids get are adults who don't mind an extra kid in the house for the extra money they get paid. So if you have the best interests of the child in mind, you have to always ask, "Yeah, what the kids have is not ideal. But can the state do better?" If the answer is no, leave the kids alone. Don't mess with the kids on the principle of the thing.
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The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off chance that it is in another direction--a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory--who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unfashionable point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself.
--Richard Feynman, Nobel Lecture, (11 December 1965)
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Quote:Public and private schools don’t shelter children away so that they can’t be evaulated and treated for potential abuse. We should have mechanism in place to try to prevent abuse, not just hide behind statistics. And if it is the case that the legislation in California has not defined the law well enough to provide that some mechanism exists to assure that homeschooled children are receiving minimal education, then perhaps the legislation needs to go back and review the law.
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:Oh c'mon. First of all, the judge didn't just say, "Let's pay more attention to this." If that is what he had said, it wouldn't be in the news.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
.. but if some parents are abusing homeschooling, then maybe attention needs to be drawn to this.
People abuse everything in the world. You can't penalize millions of legitimate homeschoolers because some people abuse homeschooling. Hell, more teachers abuse schooling than parents abuse homeschooling, and despite "attention drawn" to it, it keeps happening. Yet no one is calling for the end of public and private schools. Because the fact is, MOST schools do an adequate job despite the abusers.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:These are two separate and distinct issues. First is the concern that kids to be "checked on" by the public to rule out physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Second is the concern that kids need to receive a minimum education; they need to be protected from educational neglect, as it were. The ruling of the appellate court in this case concerns the second issue, not the first. The requirement to have a credentialed teacher has no bearing on the first issue.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Public and private schools don’t shelter children away so that they can’t be evaulated and treated for potential abuse. ...Quote:...to provide that some mechanism exists to assure that homeschooled children are receiving minimal education
The "abuse" I was referring to (and thought you were referring to when you said "abusing homeschooling") is educational neglect. School teachers engage in this type of abuse all the time. They are charged with providing a minimum education, and for whatever reason (hey, parents have excuses too), they fail. It gets in the news, we get all up in arms, and the govt passes some law or another to "draw attention" to it. And still children get "left behind." It happens. But the majority of schools do provide a minimum education, so millions of schooled children should not be penalized for the few credentialed educational abusers. By the same reasoning, most parents do an adequate job providing the same minimum education at homeschools, so millions of homeschooled children should not be penalized either.
I hope that clarifies what I meant.
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Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily.
--Robert Heinlein
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