Every Man's Fight for Freedom

I sometimes meet members of the Texas Home School Coalition Association who say that they support THSC because we work hard to protect parental rights and the freedom to home school so they can focus on other things. While I appreciate the kindness of their comments, the reality is that no one person or group alone can effectively defend the freedom of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

We are able to accomplish much in defending home schooling and parental rights in Texas because of our experience and the relationships we have with elected officials across this great state, but we can't fight every battle alone. Just this week, we were successful in forcing a community college to change its policy of refusing to allow home school students to take dual credit classes. While this may see like a local issue, the underlying problem was with state law, which requires that every student be treated in the same manner. After ignoring letters from THSC, the college officials responded when we contacted state legislators and the offices of the governor and lt. governor for assistance. Rather than threaten them with legal action, we brought political pressure to bear, and the issue has been resolved.

In a similar way, with the help of the governor's office, I met yesterday with the new commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to ask for help on a couple of problems that home schoolers have encountered recently with CPS. The commissioner's staff responded to a letter I had written a couple of weeks ago, asking for a ruling on whether or not home school groups are exempt from childcare licensing as educational groups. CPS caseworkers had ruled that home school co-ops were not exempt, because they were not accredited schools. DFPS officials agreed with me and will correct local CPS officials; they will be giving us that ruling in writing. Again, this issue was based on state statutes and the incorrect interpretations of CPS workers at the local level.

Some battles, however, must be fought and won at the local level. Daytime curfews are a good example of this. Unfortunately, state law allows cities and counties to adopt daytime curfews that can be detrimental to home schoolers. Since state statute allows this, the only way to defeat these measures is political opposition at the local level. A great example of this is the battle in the Dallas area to rollback the daytime curfew there. We join a lot of local home school leaders across the state in working against these measures. We provide information and advice on tactics and strategy to these leaders, and many have been successful in defeating daytime curfews in their cities or counties. While we write letters to some of these governmental entities at the request of local leaders, most local officials couldn't care less about the opinion of a home school organization not in their city. These efforts are almost always defeated by a good number of voters who express their opposition with well reasoned arguments and facts. Cities in which no opposition is expressed end up with such ordinances in place, to the detriment of the freedom of parents in the area.

THSC Association continues to work at the state level to oppose proposed legislation that will erode our freedom and to challenge state officials when they wrongly interpret laws. Our success is, and will continue to be, due to God's grace and to home schoolers across Texas who respond when it is needed to protect or promote our freedom. Each of us needs to be attentive to the actions of our government at the local, state, and national levels to make sure that we don't wake up one day and realize that our freedom has been lost. One way to stay informed is to subscribe to the weekly THSC PAC E-Newsletter, that relays many news items related to these types of issues.

Driver Education and Teen Safety

Next Tuesday, March 3, the Public Education Committee in the Texas House will hold a hearing on HB 339, which is authored by State Representative Larry Phillips. This bill is designed to address teen driver safety and includes almost everyone's ideas about how improve it. One of the ideas it contains is a suggestion of Pat Barrett of Driver Ed in a Box®. His idea is that the state would be required to publicly post on an annual basis the teen crash rates of every entity that offers driver education. This would allow the public to examine each school or program and see what kind of record their graduates have. This would be similar to public schools being rated on the performance of their students.

We support this because in 1995 Texas passed a law allowing parents to teach their children to drive using a program approved by DPS (Department of Public Safety). Before it was even implemented, leaders in both the Texas House and Senate tried to repeal the law, and it was the home school community that killed that effort. In almost every legislative session since then, the commercial driving school lobby has sought to make it more difficult for parents to teach their children to drive, and the Texas home school community has killed each and every attempt.

Two years ago they tried to pass a bill requiring parents to take a course before they could teach driver education to their children. Just before the bill was heard, a "study" was released claiming that parent-taught drivers in Texas were much more likely to be involved in fatal accidents than other drivers. THSC issued a press release pointing out the weaknesses of this "study," the purpose of which clearly was to support the effort to make it more difficult for parents to teach their children to drive.

We pointed out that Driver Ed in a Box® paid for a survey of the graduates of their program, and the crash rate of those students was one fifth of the state average. Obviously some parent-taught programs work, and rather than making it illegal or more difficult for parents to teach driver education, the state should take a "free market" approach to the problem and simply report to the public the results of each and every school or program. Then the market will take care of the problem, and the schools and/or programs that do not produce safe drivers will be out of business.

This bill will be considered by the House Public Education Committee on Tuesday, March 3, beginning at 2PM. I urge you to contact these committee members and tell them you support the free market approach of HB 339 to hold entities that teach young people to drive accountable. Read the bill. It contains a lot of measures, and some may not make it through the process, but in my view, the most important element is to let the public know which providers produce safe drivers.

A Tale of Two Cities

The daytime curfew issue continues to raise its ugly head across the state of Texas as more and more cities decide the statute that the legislature adopted to allow cities to deal with crime is a good "tool" to use to circumvent the compulsory attendance laws of the state of Texas.

In most cities in which this issue is raised, home schoolers tend to lead the opposition, as they are aware of the stories of the abuse and misuse of such ordinances by overzealous law enforcement officers. In fact, over recent years THSC has written many letters intervening for families with city or county officials regarding daytime curfews.

Home schoolers are not the only group, however, who have a problem with such ordinances. The minority community is often the target of the selective enforcement of such ordinances, as demonstrated in Houston. In addition, many business owners are opposed to such ordinances, which often include penalties and fines for businesses that do not report to the police young people on their premises.

Some communities have decided that they don't need daytime curfew ordinances. Georgetown made such a decision a few months ago, and just last week the sheriff of Williamson County decided to drop his request for a daytime curfew because of strong opposition from the home school community, which happens to be very active in election campaigns in the area. One home schooler shared, "He stopped me to tell me that he has removed the daytime curfew from consideration. He admitted that he had no idea the home schooling community was so large in Williamson County ... he decided any perceived benefits of the curfew would not outweigh the negative feedback from such a large portion of the population. His words were, 'There will not be a daytime curfew as long as I am sheriff ...' He also encouraged me to send an e-mail to the homeschool community and pass along the news."

This incident shows that an active and involved home school community can have a great impact upon the protection of our freedom. In Dallas, however, the mayor continues to move forward with his plan to adopt a daytime curfew, complete with detention center and $500 fines. Here, too, home schoolers are leading the charge against the ordinance, as reported in a recent TV interview. Home schoolers continue to battle the daytime curfew in Bedford, which was adopted without a public hearing. Leaders there have even started a blog to help educate people on the issue.

One thing has become clear; if no one opposes these measures or people are unaware of them until they are adopted, it is much more difficult to reclaim our freedom. Be vigilant about what goes on in your city and county government, and be ready to oppose a daytime curfew in your area if it surfaces. For more information on daytime curfews, go to the THSC website.