I wanted to share an appendix from one of my favorite homeschool books, For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer-Macaulay.

Parental Liberty in Education by John W. Whitehead 

In 1925 the United States Supreme Court in the case of Pierce v. Society of Sisters overturned a direct state attack on private education in the form of a state law requiring public school education.  The Supreme Court overturned the law on the basis of the parental liberty over education.  The Supreme Court said:

The act of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control . . .  The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public school teachers only.  The child is not the mere creature of the State;  those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.

At least three basic premises are stated here.                                 

First, the child is not the creature of the state.  By implication, this means that children have an extra-statist existence.  Presumably, in terms of Christian belief, the child is the creature of God.

Second, parents, acting under the authority of God as His stewards, have both liberty and a “high duty” or responsibility to educate their children properly.

Third, the state, whose power is derived from the Creator, has no authority to interfere in the parents’ liberty and responsibility to educate their children.  Instead, the state must allow parents to seek out alternative forms of education to include, but not limited to, private schools and home schools.

This means that the primary institution in terms of educating children is the family unit. Of course, the prime beneficiaries of educational functions of the family are children.  As a consequence, parents are given the responsibility by the Creator of carefully instructing their children in the principles and doctrines of the Bible (Deuteronomy 6:6, 7).  The promise is: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).  This principle is further confirmed in the New Testament (2 Timothy 3:15)

The first actual mention of teaching in the Bible in any form is found in Genesis 18:19 where, speaking of Abraham, God said: “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they will keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment.”

It is significant that this first mention of teaching in the Bible not only speaks of the father teaching, but also strongly implies that the primary content of that teaching was moral and spiritual, rather than vocational or cultural.

The family, then, is man’s first and basic school.  It is where the child first learns religion, government (hopefully, self-government), and a wide range of subjects currently thought to be the sole province of state schools.  The family, then is the primary health, education, and welfare institution of society.

The right to parental or family liberty over education is a fundamental right that, because of the pervasiveness of modern government, is being threatened.  This threat runs contrary to the basic history of world societies and legal precedent such as Pierce v. Society of Sisters.

This philosophy is reflected in the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.  That case, which legalized abortion, has grave implications for the family and for children.  Later cases decided by the Supreme Court on abortion have held that husband’s have no right to consent to a wife’s abortion and that parents, in reality, have no authority to block abortions sought by their children.

The concern with these decisions lies in what they are saying about family and parental rights as a whole.  First, the rights of parents are subordinate to the rights of privacy of their children to have abortions and sexual relations.  Abortion introduces murder into the life of the family.  The Supreme Court, however, has ruled that parents cannot stop the murder of their grandchildren.  What decision could be more important?  Yet it is illegal.  Second, the family is no longer the basic institution for determining education or values for children; instead, this is the state’s province in and through its various agencies.

Therefore, the present times should behoove us to take all the necessary steps to protect the traditional family and its educative function and to protect the lives of our children.  This means that in appealing to state legislatures for protection of home education and through the courts we should seek to guarantee the right for parents to educate their children free from state interference.” 

 Oh yeah, baby!!!  I’m voting for Ron Paul!