Illegal education? Intimidating homeschoolers.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Citings

SANDRA AND DAVID Sorensen, were recently threatened with prosecution by the San Juan Unified School District under California truancy statutes for home-schooling their 10-year-old son. But as often happens in such cases, the case was dropped before getting to court. So why do local school boards keep trying?

California's Department of Education maintains that you can't homeschool your children unless you hold credentials as a tutor. Carolyn Pirillo, the department's deputy general counsel, says, "If everyone in the state without teaching credentials could say, 'I'm a private school,' there would be no standard whatsoever. It would be tantamount to repealing compulsory attendance law."

The blithe method that Pirillo refers to is the one followed by most California homeschoolers. State law allows three options for kids to abandon public schools: enrollment in a private school, which requires filing paperwork known as an R-4 affidavit; participation in an independent study program through a public or private school; or tutoring.

The R-4 affidavit offers a loophole big enough to drive a homeschool through. Nothing in the law prohibits a home from defining itself as a private school, homeschoolers insist. Unlike with tutoring, the teachers for private schools need not have official certification; they must merely be "capable...