Home instruction is becoming more common and public school officials oppose it. They point to parents' deficiencies as teachers and the importance of group experiences for children's personal and intellectual growth. Both groups must learn to communicate and cooperate if legal action is to be avoided. (JOW)

Addresses the litigation giving rise to the right to home school and the emerging right of home-schooled children to attend public schools on a part-time basis. At present, the courts seem unwilling to allow families to use religion to first argue their way out of the public system and then turn around and use the same argument to get back in on a…

The number of parents who have chosen to educate their children at home has increased dramatically in recent years. Moreover, although less than one percent of school-aged children in the United States are schooled at home, a combination of judicial challenges and legislative activism have allowed advocates of home schooling to make major…

Reviewing recent court decisions on home schooling, the author points out that it should reflect public school classroom activities. (MD)

Reports on the establishment of a charter school in Michigan that serves home-schooling families and stresses a creationist curriculum. Describes the legal action taken against public funding of the charter school. (DDR)

School board members should undertake thoughtful and informed deliberations on the issues involved in home schooling. (MLF)

Examines state laws and the actions of various courts on home instruction and unauthorized educational programs. Suggests reforming the regulation of private education through legislative action that requires periodic testing as an alternative to compulsory school attendance. (Author/MLF)

Participation in sports, in some instances, is considered a right which grants students the opportunity to be involved in extracurricular activities. Discusses the potential violation of home-schooled students' constitutional due process and equal protection rights and the pertinent laws regarding students and their ability to participate in…

Many parents critical of public education have removed their children from public schools and are schooling them at home. Home schooling has generated a number of lawsuits. Controversies have arisen over the definitions of "school" and of "equivalent instruction," parents' qualifications to teach, and religious exemptions from…

State attendance laws that provide for home instruction typically specify (1) home instructor qualifications; (2) curriculum; (3) amount of daily instructional time; (4) number of instructional days during the year; (5) required standardized tests; and (6) parental reports to verify legal compliance. Reviews court decisions and state legislation.…

Reviews state policies regulating private education and home instruction that limit parental choice in education. Criticizes judicial response to parental challenges, suggesting that parental interests have been underprotected and state interests have been overprotected. Suggests reasonable bases for state intervention. (FMW)

Contends that a constitutionally grounded fundamental right of privacy protecting parental choice of home education is built on a reasonable construction of existing Supreme Court case law and a reassessment of state interests vis-a-vis the parental right of privacy. (147 references) (MLF)

Neil Devins, in part 1 of this chapter, discusses state regulation of home instruction. A different perspective on this subject is presented by Perry A. Zirkel in part 2. Parents have claimed that state regulations deprive them of their right, protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, to direct their children's upbringing.…

The controversy over whether parents should have the right to determine in detail the type and scope of their children's education harks back to colonial times and has been manifested more recently in court cases considering home instruction in lieu of public school attendance. This first chapter of a book on school law objectively examines both…

Discusses philosophical arguments relevant to the question of teaching creationism, especially with regard to developments in the debate since the early 1990s. Considers what the relevant differences for the policy question for private, public schools, and home schoolers are. Discusses the main legal arguments that have ruled in the case of public…