Homeschooling In Question

"Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." Ephesians 6:4

On February 28, a California appellate court declared that "under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children."

My children are not yet school-age. Ken and I have not firmly decided what course of education we will pursue for our kids. We may or may not ever homeschool. Yet this news out of California has my temperature rising.

So I've been thinking on this for the past two days to figure out why I'm so hot about a court ruling in a different state that will likely be appealed and repealed. I've boiled it down to this: God clearly calls me to instruct and train my children, so I don't want the government limiting my own influence over my own children. Viewed in this light, the government limiting parental rights is an afront to my faith in Jesus Christ. In short, it is an afront to the Gospel.

Parents are teachers, the most important teachers. Whether or not the state says I am a teacher, or says I am qualified to be a teacher, God says I am a teacher. Whether or not I teach my children well or embrace my role as my children's teacher, God still calls me to teach them.

This is not to say that homeschooling is the only God-honoring choice for a child's education.

However, parents' rights to choose how their children will be educated is a critical piece to biblical parenting and worth fighting for.

For more perspectives on this recent news, see this article in the Los Angelos Times, this Citizen Link article, and read Dr. Albert Mohler's blog.