Free Republic

It all started with an unwanted knock on the door by a government worker and it’s being answered with a $60 million lawsuit. A New Jersey family is suing the state child-protection agency after it allegedly sent a caseworker to their home to interrogate them on everything from their son’s homeschool education to questions about vaccines and guns in the house. Christopher Zimmer and his wife Nicole of Belvidere filed a civil rights complaint in April in U.S. District Court in Trenton alleging “unlawful and unconstitutional home intrusion.” “I won’t forget that morning for a long, long time,” said Christopher...

BELVIDERE—A Warren County family is suing the state's Division of Child Protection and Permanency for alleged unconstitutional home intrusion and civil rights violations. Christopher Zimmer and his wife Nicole, of Belvidere, filed a civil rights complaint in United States District Court in Trenton yesterday against DCP&P, a DCP&P supervisor and one of its case workers for an alleged "unlawful and unconstitutional home intrusion of their home." "I won't forget that morning for a long, long time," said Mr. Zimmer, thinking back to a Tuesday morning in January that began with a caseworker pounding on their door. .... Mr. Zimmer said...

In the wake of the tragic murders of two Michigan children whose mother tortured them before stuffing them into the family’s freezer, lawmakers are calling for more stringent regulation of homeschooling in the state. The proposed legislation from state Rep. Stephanie Chang, a Detroit Democrat, would require homeschooled children to be inspected twice per year by a licensed social worker or law enforcement officer. The bill would also require homeschooling parents to register their children — like dogs or sex offenders — with the superintendent of the school district in which they reside. Michigan is one of eleven states that...

(WXYZ) - A new homeschool bill was introduced this morning after a young brother and sister were found dead in their mother's freezer last month. If passed it would require every child being homeschooled to be registered with their school district. The schooling would be able to take place at any appropriate location. "I believe this bill not only will have a part in monitoring children's education. ..in some cases, save lives," said Stephen Berry and Stoni Blair's grandfather John Blair. John was standing with family members and state and local leaders outside of the Spirit of Detroit Statue at...

April 10, 2015 (BreakPoint.org) -- Already this year, we’ve seen a lot of evil: suicide bombings, the attacks in Paris, religious persecution, Boko Haram and ISIS. These have all outraged the world—and rightly so. But here’s a question worth pondering: will our kids be able to recognize evil when they see it? Do they even believe in moral facts?Well, that’s the question one educator asked recently in The New York Times after making a surprising discovery about what his child was learning in school.Justin McBrayer, an associate professor of ethics at Fort Lewis College, says he couldn’t figure out why...

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) after a Town Hall Panel Discussion hosted by Steve Deace at the NICHE Homeschool Iowa Capitol Day at the Holiday Inn Des Moines-Airport/Conference Center in Des Moines on Thursday, Apr. 9, 2015.DES MOINES — The debate over religious liberty in Indiana spilled over into Iowa Thursday as four presidential hopefuls pledged to defend the rights of parents who home-school their children to worship as they choose and educate their children as they wish. Religious liberty is the “civil rights issue of...

The superintendent of the Watchung Hills Regional High School District in New Jersey has confirmed that she sent an email to fellow superintendents Tuesday about her concern that education publishing giant Pearson is “monitoring” children’s social media accounts for possible leaks about the Common Core-aligned PARCC tests.

Source: TopMastersInEducation.com

How was it that 48 governors entered Race-to-the-Top without knowing outcomes? It was one of the many “crises” exploited by the Obama administration. While the public was focused on a series of radical moves coming in rapid-fire succession, like the health care bill and proposed trials and imprisonment of 9/11 terrorists on domestic soil, governors, worried about keeping school doors open, signed on. Many politicians and pundits praised Obama on this singular issue, repeating the official rhetoric about raising standards. It stands to reason, though, that education policies would be consistent with Obama’s agenda. After all, one of his most...

What began as an investigation ignited by an anonymous report turned into a nightmare for an Arkansas homeschooling couple and seven of their children last week – and it's not over yet. Arkansas sheriff's deputies in Garland County have "stolen" seven homeschoolers from their parents in a home raid spurred by an anonymous caller who told authorities the family's house contained a "poisonous substance" — which turned out to be a mineral supplement/water purifier that isn't FDA-approved. It's been more than a week since the officers and the Department of Human Services (DHS) seized the seven homeschoolers. They remain in...

A Virginia school district has decided to scrap a policy that allowed it to interrogate Christian homeschool teenagers and their parents about their religious beliefs.Last November Douglas Pruiett and his wife received a letter from Goochland County Public Schools about updated procedures to the district’s requests for religious exemptions for homeschool students.Under the updated rules, once a child turns 14-years-old, the district requires that homeschool parents reapply for a religious exemption to public education.The Prueitts have seven children, three of whom were impacted by the revised policy.“Each application must be completed along with a statement of your bona fide religious...

Virginia parents are outraged over a new policy that demands homeschooled children justify their religious beliefs to a school board within 30 days of their 14th birthday. The controversial rule passed by the Goochland County School Board states, “Any student who together with his/her parents seeks an exemption from compulsory attendance due to their bona fide religious training or beliefs must submit a written application to the school board, setting forth the reasons for the request.” […] The Home School Legal Defense Association says the school board’s policy violates Virginia state law, which allows children undergoing religious training to be...

Why Does HSLDA Oppose the Treaty? Promoting equal rights and protections for disabled persons around the world sounds like a great idea. But let’s take a closer look at what the treaty actually says and how it would impact the United States. Here are some of our most serious concerns. The CRPD could threaten homeschooling rights and parental rights. It would surrender parents and caregivers’ decision-making ability on behalf of their disabled children to unelected and unaccountable UN bureaucrats. The CRPD would override existing state laws, seriously damaging states’ rights. The CRPD would surrender our nation’s sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats.

Home-schoolers represent the only authentically radical social movement in the United States (Occupy Wall Street was a fashion statement) and so they must be suppressed, as a malevolent committee of leftist academics and union bosses under the direction of Governor Dannel Malloy is preparing to do in Connecticut, using the Sandy Hook massacre as a pretext. The ghouls invariably rush to the podium after every school massacre, issuing their insipid press releases before the bodies have even cooled, and normally they’re after your guns. But the Malloy gang is after your children. Malloy’s committee on the Newtown shootings is recommending...

HARTFORD – A 16-member commission of educators, local and state officials and behavioral experts assembled by Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy after the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre is calling for more oversight of homeschooling. Sandy Hook School SignMalloy “charged the panel with making recommendations to reduce the risk of future tragedies,” according to the New Haven Register. Its chief recommendation is “tighter scrutiny of home-schoolers … to prevent an incident such as the December 2012 slaughter of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,” the Connecticut Post reports. “Given the individuals involved in the tragedy that...

My interest in homeschooling was first sparked nearly 20 years ago, when I was a socially awkward adolescent with a chaotic family life. I became close to a conservative Christian homeschooling family that seemed perfect in every way. Through my connection to this family, I was introduced to a whole world of conservative Christian homeschoolers, some of whom we would now consider “Quiverfull” families: homeschooling conservatives who eschew any form of family planning and choose instead to “trust God” with matters related to procreation. Though I fell out of touch with my homeschooled friends as we grew older, a few...

When a Kansas City family pulled their son out of a public elementary school to homeschool him, the local school referred them to the district attorney’s office for truancy. A homeschool advocacy organization intervened, and the school was forced to back down and apologize. In Kansas, as in several other states, families must register their homes as “private schools” to homeschool their children. The family followed the law exactly, naming and registering their school and notifying their son’s elementary school in February that he would be withdrawing. But a few months later, in May, the school sent the family a...

An appeals court in Germany has ruled that a family court's decision to keep legal custody of four children away from their parents, Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, was wrong, and ordered that complete custody be returned to the family. However, the court maintained that homeschooling endangers children and they should go to school. "We have won custody and we are glad about that," Dirk said in a statement released by Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association, which has been assisting the Wunderlich family since their children were taken on Aug. 29, 2013. The court said taking the children away was...

At the end of her seventh grade year a few months ago, my daughter was of the opinion that she had not received the education that she should have, so she determined to find courses online that she could take over the summer. What she found (completely on her own) turned out to be a full time public school- online! She starts tomorrow at Connections Academy Texas. With her mother and I both working, she'll be attending school at her Grandmother's house for the time being. I'm very excited about this- my child is *very* intelligent, and with self-paced courses...

As conservatives, we seek to build on past successes wherever we can rather than start anew. Fortunately, when we look at the question of education, the next conservatism quickly finds a lot to build on. The existing conservative movement has done some things right in this area. The most important achievement is the home schooling movement. Today, over a million American children are getting real educations at home instead of being propagandized in the public schools. Unfortunately, a new problem has cropped up which the next conservatism needs to take on now, before it gets bigger. Political Correctness, which is...