Do children have "rights" independent of their parents?

[elfs]

There's a paper circulating around the upper eschelons of education lobby groups entitled Testing the Boundaries of Parental Authority over Education, by Professor of Education Robert Reich of Stanford University. This paper apparently makes a lot of people, mostly homeschoolers, unhappy.

Homeschooling has gotten an interesting boost during the Bush years, one that I'm sure BushCo isn't at all unhappy to see. Conspiracy theorists have the following to say about BushCo's "Education Initiative": the unfunded testing and standards mandate will automatically cause some schools to close-- those schools that cannot meet the standards. Those students will have nowhere to go-- neighboring schools won't have the capacity to take them. Ultimately, BushCo will have the perfect excuse to provide vouchers and plenty of arguments to shoot down any objections. It's already happening-- middle-of-the-road parents are pulling their kids out of schools, alienated by the "test, test, test" attitude and "teach to the test" policies that deny their kids any real chance at an education worth its name.

Now comes the counter-blow to homeschooling. "Children are owed as a matter of justice the capacity to lead lives-- adopt values and beliefs, pursue an occupation, endorse traditions-- that are different from those of their parents." Seems more or less obvious to some of us; once they've left the home, our kids are free to do what they want. We only hope that the traditions we've shown them and the examples we've set for them serve them well enough. But Reich takes his contention futher: "Because the child cannot ensure the acquisition of such capacities and the parents may be opposed the state must ensure it for them."

By this latter part, Reich intends to formulate a theory of "just education" that requires home schoolers to follow social education mandates handed down to public schools. "The state cannot relinquish its regulatory role in education in cases where parents invoke their religious beliefs as a bulwark against secular authority," Reich writes. It's a direct attack against those who homeschool for religious or philosophical reasons:

"At a bare minimum one function of any school environment must be to expose children to and engage students with values and beliefs other than those they are likely to encounter within their homes. Because homeschooling is structurally and in practice the least likely to meet this end, I argue that while the state should not ban homeschooling it must nevertheless regulate its practice with vigilance."

I, for one, do not feel that the state has any legitimate authority over children, which is what is being asserted here. There is no compelling evidence that any given state's "secular authority" is functionally superior to the authority given in the home. The state no more has the right to make sure that kids get a "mandated" amount of exposure to "alternative points of view" then it does to ensure that kids get exposed to some arbitrary amount of advertising. Above and beyond the watchdog role of making sure parents do not visit upon their kids what they cannot legally visit upon other people by initiatory force, the state has no business "providing alternatives" to children.

Comments

Middle Ground

[redhipple.livejournal.com]

I have to take the middle ground on this topic. Parents have the right to teach whatever values to their children as they see fit. Speaking as a recent product of public education, its not always the best enviorment for children. Granted, children need diversity and socilization to be well rounded individuals, but that can always be obtained in places other than public schools. A few tests a year to make sure they can read and write and have aquired the basic skills that education is supposed to impart to them while still allowing parents the freedom to choose exactly what point of view and belief system to choose from is the best option. The government has no right to 'step in'. That is not right... For two hundred years now the federal government has given us the benefit of the doubt and the trust that we could raise our children. Why should they seek to change it now? Is it any so different from the frontier families who had no schools for their offspring yet managed to teach their children reading and arithmetic? From such salt of the earth is our society built on. It is a paren'ts perogative to impart whatever beliefs to their children they wish. When the child matures and is in the process of maturing, they will usually find other sources of info. Be it books, television, web sites, etc. , he possibilities are vast that a child will invariably form their own opinions regardless of what their parents teach them. I certainly don't think the government needs to step in and take a hand in what children have been accomplishing for themselves for such a long time wih no help from anyone. Bush (and here I bite my tongue from all the profanities I usually name him with) should just leave well enough alone. Give the homeschooled children a few tests as we've always done to make sure they have some working knowledge of the world but leave the rest up to their parents. Parents who I might add have spent several years investing time, money, love, caring, responsibilty, effort, and such things into a desire to raise their families in what they view as the correct way. No one has the right to take that from them. Not even Washington.