In California you are a criminal if you home school your children without a "credential" from the state:

. . . the appeals court said state law has been clear since at least 1953, when another appellate court rejected a challenge by homeschooling parents to California’s compulsory education statutes. Those statutes require children ages 6 to 18 to attend a full-time day school, either public or private, or to be instructed by a tutor who holds a state credential for the child’s grade level.

“California courts have held that … parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children,” Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28. “Parents have a legal duty to see to their children’s schooling under the provisions of these laws.”

Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said.

“A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare,” the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.

The ruling was applauded by a director for the state’s largest teachers union.

The reason for this law is perfectly and clearly stated: to train school children in loyalty to the state. Education is not about cultivating the unique desires and talents of each individual student, it is about inculcating a uniform government-approved attitude of obedience and reverence for the state. Moreover, it is the state that makes all decisions about how your child is to be educated; you, as a parent, have no say in the matter. This is entirely totalitarian. Just because some politicians and judges say that parents do not have the right to educate their children as they see fit, does not make such a right disappear. Rights are prior to laws. The people should be marching in the streets at this outrage.

Anyone understand why the teachers’ union would applaud the court’s decision? Let’s not always see the same hands.