[school-discuss] Homeschoolers and the Law

[Joel Kahn <jj2kk4@xxxxxxxxx>]

Here's another article about the "Rachel L."
homeschooling case we were discussing earlier:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=994

While _First Things_ is a journal heavily
focused on religion, and this essay naturally
has that emphasis, I hope it is clear that
this topic goes far beyond both religion and
homeschooling--a point I tried to stress in
my original posting on the FindLaw article.

I think that Knippenberg covers a lot of useful
ground--far more than I could talk about in one
message. There is only one thing I want to
comment on: the issue of ambiguity in the law.
One of my all-time favorite quotations from a
US Supreme Court opinion is this: "The dividing
line between what is lawful and unlawful cannot
be left to conjecture." (Source available upon
request). As Knippenberg makes depressingly
clear, the current situation with both courts
and legislatures leaves homeschoolers with
dangerously little clear guidance as to what
they can and cannot legally do. Perhaps this is
what deserves the greatest amount of attention
and action in the near future.

Joel



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