Lawmakers are now promoting legislation that will require families to submit to regular state inspections of their home and interviews with their children to assure their wellbeing. Advocated for under the guise of preventing child abuse, the government would be allowed to invade the family home without a warrant and inspect it for signs of neglect.
The Maryland bill, HB-1798, is called, “County Boards of Education – Home Instruction Program – Observation of Instruction and Reporting of Abuse and Neglect,” will require parents registering to homeschool with the state to undergo the same type of oversight and inspections to which public schools are subjected. Unannounced, uninvited visits will be given to homes to inspect their educative progress and make sure their homeschooling is being done according to state standards.
According to reports:
This bill would require parents to annually inform their county school boards of their homeschool child’s primary instructor and of the primary location where homeschooling is taking place each year. Furthermore, in order to legally homeschool in the state of Maryland, parents would be required to allow a representative of the county board to observe instruction at the family’s primary homeschooling location at least twice a year. Finally, this bill would require county school board employees who observe a family’s instruction and who believe a homeschool child has been subjected to abuse or neglect to report their suspicion to the proper authorities.
Of course, public schools are open to inspection by state officials because it is – by nature – public property. Searching a home without a specific warrant by a judge due to credible observations of wrong doing on private property is explicitly against the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Last month, a similar law was proposed in California, which would require homeschool families to be interrogated annually to search for signs of abuse or neglect.
Currently, about 3.5% of children nationwide are educated at home, and studies show that these children regularly and statistically out-perform their government-school-educated peers in virtually every category. In the meantime, violent crime, rape, abuse, neglect, and drug-use in government schools are at an all-time high.
[Editor’s Note: HT The Free Thought Project]
