In a unanimous (3-0) decision today, the California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District reversed its previous ruling that would have required parents to be certified teachers in order to home-school in California.
The full text of the Court’s ruling reads:
We will conclude that: (1) California statutes permit home schooling as a species of private school education; and (2) the statutory permission to home school may constitutionally be overridden in order to protect the safety of a child who has been declared dependent.
It seems that what muddied the waters in this case is that, unlike 30 other states, home schooling is not specifically addressed in California law. The LA Times reports that California has generally left it up to local school districts to ensure that compulsory education is occurring for minors. Another excerpt from today’s ruling reads:
It is important to recognize that it is not for us to consider, as a matter of policy, whether home schooling should be permitted in California. That job is for the Legislature. It is not the duty of the courts to make the law; we endeavor to interpret it. (Cf. In re Marriage Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757, 780.)
Our first task, interpreting the law of California, is made more difficult in this case by legislative inaction. As we will discuss at length below, home schooling was initially expressly permitted in California, when the compulsory education law was enacted in 1903. In 1929, however, home schooling was amended out of the law, and children who were not educated in public or private schools could be taught privately only by a credentialed tutor. Case law in 1953 and 1961 confirmed this interpretation, and specifically concluded that a home school could not be considered a private school. While the Legislature could have amended the statutes in response to these cases, to expressly provide that a home school could be a private school, it did not do so.
Perhaps, as Governor Schwarzenegger has suggested, the CA Legislature should act.