Couple Arrested for Homeschooling in New York

[Sol Invictus]

December 5, 2010

Editor’s note: It is illegal to home school without the permission of the state in New York. The government has to sign-off on what you teach your children or you will be arrested and charged with endangering them. It was about the same in Soviet Union. The state owns your kids. They are wards of the state.

Two parents in Montgomery County are accused of improperly home schooling their children.

Forty-seven-year-old Richard Cressy and his wife, 41-year-old Margie Cressy, are charged with endangering the welfare of a child.

The sheriff’s department says the two were home schooling their four children, ages 8 to 14 years old, without the required approval from the school district.

The Cressys were issued appearance tickets to appear in Glen Town Court at a later date.

This article states that the couple were arrested for the crime of not allowing the state to brainwash their children.

[Lady L]

I don't see the big deal. I don't think parents should be able to home school without following some kind of regulations. I've seen parents who claimed to home school that didn't do shit. Very sad.

[Cato]

As a resident of said state, I can tell you that actual teachers, as compared to parents who think that they're teachers, need the proper education, credentials and certification to be teachers. Otherwise, what's to prevent anyone from setting himself up as a "teacher?"

Did the parents have any proper, legal qualifications to home school? The article doesn't say, only that the parents failed to register themselves with the local school board.

[Tony]

In my view homeschooling , like the 1st Amendment and the right to bear arms , is one of the major pillars of American traditional freedoms.
For me it should work the other way around , parents who do that shouldn't be required any official permission unless it's been proven that they're not good at teaching.
How?for example with annual examinations of their children in a public school or even an examination aimed to check the parents' skills , or the 2 things together.
If they fail and score say E or F then they would loose the permission to hoomeschool , plain and simple.

[Cail]

Parents should be allowed to home-school their children, as long as the children take quarterly (4 times a year) exams on standard school curriculum. If the children pass such exams successfully, it indicates that their parent home-school them at least not worse, than the official education. In case they fail these tests, they should be forced to attend a formal school instead.

[Lahtari]

The problem with taking exams in state schools is that some faceless bureaucrate can just one-sidedly decide that "tolerance education", "black history" or any kind of mumbo-jumbo is just as important subject as math and reading..

[Lady L]

In my view homeschooling , like the 1st Amendment and the right to bear arms , is one of the major pillars of American traditional freedoms.
For me it should work the other way around , parents who do that shouldn't be required any official permission unless it's been proven that they're not good at teaching.
How?for example with annual examinations of their children in a public school or even an examination aimed to check the parents' skills , or the 2 things together.
If they fail and score say E or F then they would loose the permission to hoomeschool , plain and simple.

Problem with that however is so many parents don't give a rat's ass about their child's education. So say the child is a brat and throws tantrums every time it's time to go to school, the lazy parent could give in and 'claim' to home school the child.

Another scenario would be the child actually does care about schooling and the parent has a big idea to home school and the parent is not fit to do so.

In both scenarios the outcome will be the child failing the examinations, which yes will prove the unfit parent but it is still so much education time wasted for the child.

Where as if the regulations were in place there wouldn't be all this time wasted.

It would be like handing out driving license before passing the test.

[nisse]

This is all just an attempt to "standardize" everyone and is fundamentally unfair

IMO parents should be able to teach their children as they like...even if they don't believe in numbers, or evolution, or whatever - they should be the ones that decide the child's belief system, otherwise the whole idea of a family falls apart. If parents have to be certified to teach their own children then the family becomes just a convenience for the state, only there to produce some "worker" fitting the state's specifications.

If the parents refuse to teach the children, and won't let them go to school, there will likely be other issues - like actual child abuse, and they can be charged on that. Newsflash - those born on their soil are not their property - in all cases where there is no actual abuse - the government better keep its hands off other people's kids.

[Cato]

Teach a child informally.
Teach a child formally.

There's a difference, friends.

[SwordoftheVistula]

Problem with that however is so many parents don't give a rat's ass about their child's education. So say the child is a brat and throws tantrums every time it's time to go to school, the lazy parent could give in and 'claim' to home school the child.

Another scenario would be the child actually does care about schooling and the parent has a big idea to home school and the parent is not fit to do so.

From what I've seen, those cases are few & far between, since the lazy parents just send their kids to public school.

NY has a standardized test called The Regents, I don't see any problem with making homeschool kids take that, and as long as they pass it's all good.