ARTICLES
May 1999 ARTICLESLETTERS
Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
HOME SCHOOL ALERT
Assembly Bill May Make 'Educational Neglect' a Form of Child Abuse
By Sandra Guzman
California Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Fred Keeley from Santa Cruz on February 24 introduced a bill that worries home schoolers. Assembly Bill 804 would introduce "educational neglect" as a form of child abuse ("the child...has suffered educational neglect as a result of wilfull or negligent failure of the child's parent...to enroll the child in school or to ensure regular school attendance..."). Particularly worrisome to them is the state department of education's position that home schooling is illegal. California does not have a home schooling statute, and families either join a private school independent study program or form their own school which they register as a private school. Under the new bill, any allegation of educational neglect would have to be investigated by Child Protective Services.
The Home School Legal Defense Association is urging California home schoolers to oppose the bill though "at first glance, it seems that home schoolers who are properly enrolled and attending under the private school exemption should not fear the bill." The association thinks that social workers could take the department of education's stance and conclude that the child is being abused because he is not enrolled in a conventional school.
The minutes of the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, dated March 10, discuss such a situation: "AB 804 would provide that, if parents fail to enroll a six year old in school and/or fail to assure that their children are in school on a regular basis, that would be grounds for the dependency court to take jurisdiction." Penny Weiss, assistant director of the council told the Mission that the committee had never thought of home schooling when they looked at the bill. Weiss seemed skeptical of home schooling. She said that as a former social worker she had seen cases where children were "home schooled" in order to take care of younger siblings. She then referred this reporter's legal questions to Judge Terry Friedman, a dependency court judge who authored the bill. Judge Friedman did not return the Mission's call for comment.
Assemblyman Keeley's office has received scores of calls protesting AB 804. When this reporter called Keeley's Sacramento office, the receptionist asked, "are you calling to oppose AB 804?" Upon learning that the call was for comment for a newspaper story, she said that she was not an official spokesman for the assemblyman.
Assemblyman Steve Baldwin, a Republican from La Mesa, said, "this is a very dangerous bill. What is neglect? Obviously it's going to be those evil Christians... Putting Child Protective Services in charge of education is dangerous." Similarly, Assemblyman Bob Margett from the San Gabriel Valley, told the Mission that AB 804 "sets a dangerous precedent and allows the abuse of power" by Child Protective Services.
I called the California Teachers Association, one of the bill's sponsors, for comment. Mike Myslinski, spokesman for the association, said that the bill's intention was "not to ambush home schooling...we basically believe that all children are entitled to an education." Myslinski also added "educational neglect is hardly a novel idea; over 50 percent of the states list educational neglect as a form of child abuse."
As it turns out, the source for the statement that over 50 percent of the states list educational neglect as a form of child abuse, is from a 1990 article published in Iowa Law School's law review. Kenneth Whitehead, a former assistant secretary of higher education for the Reagan Administration, reviewed the law review article and stated: "This is merely the opinion of one law student in Iowa. The student is advocating that [the definition of] child abuse include educational neglect. All this article does is advocate this idea...this should not be the basis for passing such laws."
Professor Douglas Kmeic of the Pepperdine School of Law noted: "Quite fundamentally, this is a bad idea...one that will largely lend to reassigning the authority that is more properly in the household and the family, to the government." Professor Kmeic said the law review article was a "credible but typical effort by a law student to look to expand the law. They don't necessarily have the legal maturity [to frame laws]. This is a student that found the fact that many states throw in educational neglect as an add-on to child abuse laws. The student didn't think through [the possibility of ] interference with family life. I did not find that anywhere this subject is treated by mature legal scholars, but [the law review article] is rather a student's notes. Law review articles are really not intended to be directly incorporated into law."
At an April 6 Judiciary Committee hearing on AB 804, the bill passed with a 8 to 5 vote, with the stipulation that the language be amended. One Sacramento insider told me that Keeley's bill "would be very different" after the amendments. (On April 19, it was announced that 804 is "tabled for this session.") Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian from Carlsbad told me that he was very concerned about AB 804 and would challenge it in the Human Services Committee, of which he is a member. "It is a very dangerous bill...educational neglect is not definable. We [the state school system] are graduating functional illiterates. This bill seeks to punish private schools, Catholic schools, and home schools, which are graduating the cream of the crop. This bill allows a faceless bureaucracy to determine what education is."