Homeschoolers Beware: Parental Rights Under Attack

Yes, our parental rights are under attack. They have been for quite some time but only now are some of us waking up and beginning to see the light.

Nowhere other than the fight against the Common Core does this assault on parental rights become more apparent.

While parents who utilize the public schools are busy yelling about how developmentally inappropriate, federally heavy handed and basically bad in every way the Common Core standards are, I believe the government is slowly moving its left hand to set precedence for the undoing of homeschooling as a parental right.

Homeschoolers are waging a battle unto themselves as of late.  The Romeike’s battle brought them from Germany, a country that has made homeschooling illegal, to the United States in hopes of receiving asylum so they may educate their children in the way choose to do so.

Eric Holder’s corrupt DOJ has decided that although the German family was initially granted asylum it’s now actively seeking to deport the Romeike’s back to Germany.

The answer to the DOJ’s stance begs the question: Why would an American Department of Justice not stand behind a parents’ right to determine their child’s education?

Many homeschoolers believe that this is our American government’s way of setting a dangerous precedent to be used against her own citizens.

The DOJ clearly states that parents have “no fundamental right to homeschool.”  Homeschoolers across the country were dismayed by this verdict from the DOJ but many assume their regular posture, which is to keep their head down and keep on doing what they have chosen to do.

Many American’s will dismiss this statement by the DOJ as pertaining to a foreign family. Surely the American justice system would never turn on its own citizens!

And here is where we will visit the latest instance of the corrupted government who has forgotten its place as servant to its citizens.

A Florida family is the most recent target of a system running afoul of what America stands for in the first place. The basic right to decide how you want to educate your children, which should be left to the parents and the parents alone.

According to one article, Steven and Kristina Spell of Tallahassee are charged with several second-degree misdemeanors for failing to require school attendance, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and failing to provide a proper education for their children. According to the court documents, the district received multiple reports that the couple’s five children have not been enrolled in any kind of school for more than a year, nor are they properly registered as home school students. State Attorney Sean Desmond.

Well it surely sounds as those these parents are whacky and abusing their children, doesn’t it? Their children must be running around in primitive clothing with dirt streaked faces. They may not even know proper English; perhaps they only speak in grunts and their own made up version of sign language!

Or, perhaps, a family member with a grudge turned them in under false premises and the Tallahassee Florida government offices are running with it and trying to make an example of this family.

Let’s take a look at the other side of the story as we all know there is always another side. This article portrays what I believe is the more accurate account of the Spell family.

“Kristina explained that she was in fact homeschooling her five school aged children and proceeded to show the representative [from the local school district] her paperwork, proving that her family was covered under the umbrella of a private school that is registered with the Department of Education. Meaning, the Spell family was indeed homeschooling their children but they were accountable to a private school, which kept records for them and allowed them to participate in activities such as sports and field trips.

The Spell family followed the letter of the law when it came to their choice to home school their children and they felt confident when confronted by their county’s school system but regardless of the evidence, these two homeschooling parents were arrested in front of their six children for simply choosing to educate them at home.”

This family has been slowly raked through the judicial system and has been bankrupted trying to defend themselves from the overreaching hand of the government. Even though the family has continually complied with the state’s demands they still face trial and if convicted they could face up to ten years in prison leaving their 6 children parentless.

Forget turning to the federal government any sort of help in this case. The DOJ has very boldly stated its opinion on the subject:  Families have no fundamental right to homeschool.

This is a very frightening scenario and if you homeschool this should bother you greatly.

Homeschoolers have often been viewed as a group of people easily cowed by the larger and more powerful federal government. They keep their head down because when they stick it up they’re afraid it might get lopped off by the bureaucracy guillotine. They keep the defensive posture to protect their families.

Not only are homeschoolers very way of life threatened by a government who does not support their rights in their choice of education but they are also threatened by the looming SATs and ACTs that could render their child unable to enter college due to their inability to pass a test rewritten by feds. We certainly cannot put it past the government to stack the deck against homeschoolers in an attempt to get them into the public educational system.

As a fierce advocate for public schools because not every family has the ability to homeschool, I have been guilty of holding the homeschoolers at arm’s length, believing they would just be quiet, do what they’re told, or not, and it didn’t affect me.

But that is where I was wrong. It does affect me. It affects every parent, grandparent and family out there.

While a large and thankfully growing number of us fight the government and corporation’s blatant takeover of public education we need to remember our homeschooling counterparts that are also being threatened. Conversely, the homeschoolers have to remember that what affects public education will eventually affect them. We have to shake off the negative feelings we all have been made to have about each other’s choices in the education of our children and lock hands together, side by side.

Homeschoolers have long been the rebel due to their choice to buck the governmental system of public education. I posit that homeschoolers need to go back and revisit that original rebelliousness that led them to home educate in the first place. Instead of being on the defensive, let the homeschoolers come out on the offense.

This is a call to everyone affected by education. I believe that would be every American citizen because today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders.

Being a rebel at heart, I would proudly stand with my homeschooling counterparts and pound the drum of parental rights right next to them!