The Superior Court of New Jersey is shocked. I’m left shaking my head. In an odd opinion delivered in response to a disagreement between divorced parents concerning the education of their seven children, the justices express a clear concern for the neglect of the state in the education of homeschooled children. According to New Jersey law, it appears that homeschooling is not regulated, and the homeschooling parent must only provide “equivalent” instruction. This apparently only affects a parent once an accusation has been made, and then the burden of proof is on the state.
The court cites Justice Schettini’s 1965 opinion (State v. Vaughn),
As in all cases of judicial interpretation, the cardinal rule is that we should find a sensible, workable view of legislation if the language at all permits that.
From this, the Superior Court reasons that there must be equivalent rules and regulations in place to monitor homeschooling families. Bemoaning the lack of state oversight, the court states (pdf, emphasis in original):
…In questioning by this court, the mother made it clear that in ten years she had been home schooling the children, no one from any Board of Education in Montclair (where they lived until October 2006) ever visited the home. Ms. Hamilton never went to any school or board office, no lesson plan was ever reviewed and no progress report or testing of the children was ever performed. This is shocking to the court. In this day and age where we seek to protect children from harm and sexual predators, so many children are left unsupervised. It is further shocking to this court that in September, 2001 the New Jersey Department of Education published answers to frequently asked questions about home schooling as a guide to local school districts that listed the following:
- Parents/Guardians are not required by law to notify their public school district of their intention to educate the child elsewhere than at school.
- The law does not require or authorize the local board of education to review and approve the curriculum or program of a child educated elsewhere than at school.
- No certification to teach is required to be held by the parent.
- No standardized test(s) are administered to the children.
In today’s threatening world, where we seek to protect children from abuse, not just physical, but also educational abuse, how can we not monitor the educational welfare of all our children? A child in New Jersey, who recently was found unfed and locked in a a putrid bedroom was allegedly “home schooled” and because no one, such as a teacher or nurse, was able to observe any abuse in a school setting, it went undiscovered. [source] Because he was not registered or supervised, no one ever knew he existed. This is not what “no child left behind” intended for our children. Even the No Child Left Behind Act, 20 U.S.C.S. §6301 (2001), is silent on the this issue…
The court goes on to outline its vision for how to regulate homeschools to ensure “equivalent instruction,” including registering with the school district, submitting curriculum, parent training and regular testing. I think, perhaps, the coming crisis in citizenship is already here. How well would these justices fare against college seniors in a test of our founding principles? I wonder if they attended one of the handful of American universities requiring a course in the history of our Constitution? Or if perhaps their opinions on the relationship between the individual and the state were formed during one of those one day programs now required by federal law?
Update: My wannabe attorney friend, Jodi, rightly questioned the validity of this decision given a few anomalies in the document. So I dug around a bit and found that it is linked from the New Jersey judiciary’s website which includes the following statement:
Please Note: Decisions are made available for six weeks from the date posted for the convenience of attorneys and litigants, have not been approved for publication by the Committee on Opinions, and thus may not be cited as legal precedent pursuant to R.1:36-3.
So, fortunately, this shall not enter into legal precedent as it currently stands. But I still wonder how these judges can make such an odd ruling.
Hat Tip: MarriageDebate.com
Related Tags: homeschooling, education, homeschool regulation, New Jersey
Gross.
So many thoughts, so little time.
But just gross.
ya think?
Our problems in this country run deep. And I don’t know that there is any real way to counter the trend, other than through education, one family at a time.
I hope there is something left to restore when our children are of age.
Okay, I’ll make a *little* time.
First, Mr. Judge, you are a JUDGE…if you want to write laws, quite your job and run in the next election for a legislator or senator or something other then a judge.
Second, I could care less what their personal thoughts are. The SCOTUS has already said, time and time again, that fit parents are assumed to be acting in their child’s best interests and that there is normally no reason for the state to interject itself into the private relm of the family otherwise. So, Mr. Judge, how do you justify saying “It should not be without state monitoring to ensure that all children receive “equivalent education” without simply accusing EVERY HOMESCHOOL PARENT OF BEING UNFIT FOR SIMPLY EXERCISING THEIR EDUCATIONAL CHOICE (which, by the way, you yourself acknowledged was their right!)
Due process out the window!
I “loved” how he took the example of ONE tradgic event and used it to justify policing all parents. I think I could do better then that with the PS though…From Columbine to the Amish schoolhouse in PA, not to mention all the teachers who…(well, this is a family blog, so lets not go there). So, how does one tradgic event in one homeschool demand a police state for all?
Oh yeah, that’s right. We *DO* now have armed guards and metal detecters in public schools.
I guess it really is “Land of the free, home of the slave.”
TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!
However, I did notice this isn’t signed at the end, nor date/time stamped at the top…are we sure this isn’t a hoax? (I’d normally just verify it myself, but I’m too tired to check…)
Still, GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, I’m going to bed and getting up in two hours. Gross. Just gross.
If this is real, this is just Superior court. She needs to call HSLDA and appeal this. It’s more then simply a disagreement between the parents, that’s a DANGEROUS order.
Maybe HSLDA already knows about this, but if not, and if it’s real, someone needs to tell them.
All the judge needed to do was say “Parents have an equal right to direct the education of their children. Mother, it is in the children’s best interest to maintain the status quo. Since Father contends the education the children have been getting under the direction of both parents has been inadequate, Mother will provide documentation to substantiate that her homeschool program is sufficiently meeting the children’s educational needs.”
That’s ALL he needed to say. One little paragraph. Not ELEVEN PAGES accusing all homeschoolers of abuse unless the state virtually has video cameras in your living room!
(LOL, next time warn me it’s THIS bad!!! I’ve really got to get some sleep!)
There’s the Jodi I know.
A hoax? hmmm…that would be nice, but to what end? And why would the New Jersey Judiciary do such a thing?
It is available via this link from their site.
Thankfully, it also says this, which I didn’t catch the first time:
“Please Note: Decisions are made available for six weeks from the date posted for the convenience of attorneys and litigants, have not been approved for publication by the Committee on Opinions, and thus may not be cited as legal precedent pursuant to R.1:36-3.”
So this is their private ranting and shall be “erased” from the legal precedent conundrum in six weeks. But it is a sign of what is to come, is it not?
I have one thought for this judge:
has regulation of government schools in NJ eradicated child abuse and neglect for those who attend? Can he categorically state that teachers, or school employees, have never neglected or abused a school child?
Regulations do not bring total protection, and homeschooling does not equate to child abuse.
Child abuse and neglect are social issues not education issues. Regulating homeschooling will not prevent abuse and neglect. Those who beat their kids at home will not be following the laws that the judges want to establish.
The homeschool groups in NJ better tell those judicial boneheads this real loud and real soon.
NJ homeschool leaders would also do well to contact Deborah Stevenson of NHELD – she’d have something very helpful to say about the whole situation.
Judy,
I also wonder what he has to say about the 39% of child murder cases that were previously known to CPS but no protective action was taken.
And what he has to say about the abuse which goes on in the public school.
For the moment, this doesn’t look like it really means anything. I don’t know how likely that is to change…I’m not familiar enough with the legal system in my own state let alone NJ’s.
But is this really how the court is to render a ruling? Basically, based on this 1965 opinion, the judge can stretch anything to mean anything he wants and to direct any course of action he wants, even if it is directly antithetical to how the law reads.
I don’t have much to add to what jodi_a4givensinner has already said, except…
This is to be expected in a country where it is quickly becoming accepted paideuma that we are each just cogs in the great socialist American machine.
Welcome to the People’s Republic of New Jersey.
Oh man. This sucks.
It has been said, but I just wanted to say again: Has the state of New Jersey been very successful when it comes to protecting abused children? Has the state of New Jersey been successful in educating children in the public school system?
Unreal.
It has been pointed out to me that this judge yu are talking about was quite wrong:
According to State v. Massa (1966), “equivalency means equivalency of curriculum content (e.g. math, science, history, etc.) NOT equivalency of quality of instruction or outcome.” (STATE of New Jersey v. Barbara MASSA and Frank Massa 95 NJ Super. 382) Citation: State v. Massa is from 231 Atlantic Reporter, 2d series, pages 252-257
The law is NJSA 18A: 38-25
The memos are available from the DOE, CN500, Trenton NJ 08625-0500
The Judge ruled that ‘equivalency’ did not extend to teacher
certification because “I believe there are teachers today teaching in various schools in New Jersey who are not certifed…Had the
legislature intended such a requirement, it would have so provided.”
Another indication of how these judges are either ignorant of the law – or just want to make lots of noise and protests from the bench.
One must always understand that it is more important what statute ACTUALLY SAYS rather than how any one judge interprets it. Judges come out with conflicting rulings all the time.
Thanks, Judy.
And I agree that what the statute says is more important…Judges rulings conflict and are reversed all the time.
But there also seems to be a growing trend in this country that basically holds that the statutes say what the courts say it says.
This statement from the older court, “As in all cases of judicial interpretation, the cardinal rule is that we should find a sensible, workable view of legislation if the language at all permits that,” seems to leave it wide open for the judge to insert his opinion anywhere he likes if it is at all possible to do so.
btw, a question for anyone who knows or who might have some further insight:
What “protest” could any NJ homeschool association have? The end result of the ruling is fully in compliance with what the statute says. If the father has a concern for the educational well-being of the children, there is a legal route to go through and that is what the court lines out.
It is all the stuff in the middle, which isn’t binding on anyone, that is weird. There isn’t exactly anything to overturn, is there?
This is scary. It may be just the opinion of one judge now, but in five years how much will it have blossomed?
Definitely, Summer. Things have a way of starting small. Would this line of reasoning stand in a higher court? I would hope not, but then justices from lower courts tend to get moved up to higher courts as their careers develop. So eventually it might.