In 2000 it became official. Public schools are under no obligation to educate public school students. Denver Parents Association brought a lawsuit against Denver Board of Education and its superintendent for breach of contract. They were not suing for monetary gain, but for changes to be brought about and remedy the situation. The court decided that because it is a public school, it had no contract with any of the parents and therefore could not breach a contract where one does not exist.
I read about this case way back when I first started to really research homeschooling and it left me very confused. When parents send their children to school they send them there to learn as that is what we are taught schools are for. Now, however, this court is saying that even though that’s what school is for, if they don’t accomplish this too bad. If public schools are not accountable to the parents of the children they are supposed to be teaching, whom are they accountable to? Now of course there is “No Child Left Behind” and while not a perfect system, they at least have some accountability but this was before it went into effect. So in other words, we are basically ordered to put our children in schools who don’t have to educate them or jump through hoops to be allowed to give them a better education at home.
This case also brings about the question of homeschoolers being accountable. In the states where homeschoolers are monitored, whom are homeschoolers accountable to? Homeschoolers are accountable to the public school in one way or another, usually the superintendent. What confuses me about this situation is the fact that homeschoolers are accountable to the institutions who are not only not obligated to educate our children, but also not held accountable for the lack of education.
Homeschooling and educating my child is not an obligation to me it is a privilege. It is not a job or work to me, it is a pleasure.
Why Homeschool?: Personalization