The Regulation of Education

Comparison of compulsory education in America from its establishment to today:

	1852 ~ 1900	Today
Compulsory Education Laws	The first compulsory education law was adopted in Massachusetts in 1852. No other state followed for 15 years.	As of 1918, all 50 states now have laws requiring compulsory education.
"Reasons" Behind the Laws	To level disparity between poor and wealthy, to “Americanize” immigrants, to improve the situation for children following the outlaw of child labor.	“Education is far too important to be entrusted to the common man.”
Compulsory Age Laws (Minimum)	Most states did not require attendance until age 8, but Ohio and South Dakota did not require attendance until age 10. And only one state (New Hampshire) required attendance of 6 year olds.	Today, 28 states require attendance of 6-year-olds, and Arkansas, D.C., Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia require compulsory attendance of children as young as 5!
Compulsory Age Laws (Maximum)	In 1887, only Washington (state) required attendance of 18 year olds.	Today, 14 states require attendance of 18 year olds.
Length of the School Year	In 1887, the average school term was only 130 days.	The average school term is now 180 days.

Education is very important … to a point. When parents cannot even make decisions about what should and should not be taught to their children and what ages said children will be taught, the state has overexerted its power. As Chesterton says in his book The Well and the Shallows, “The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.”

Emphasis needs to and should always be on subsidiarity. As Pope Pius XI says, in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, "Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do." Since the family can educate (as proven for millennia in human history and today through homeschoolers), then the government is “gravely wrong” for taking away that right from the families.

Almost every week I read an article about the shocking things the schools are now teaching, or allowing or disallowing. Just yesterday I was reading about the boys who were not allowed to go to their prom after taping a “… will you go to prom with me …” sign to the front doors of the school! A few months ago, I read multiple articles about how schools in Texas (without parental consent or vote) were now going to teach Islamic culture and religion. (But not Christianity which is True, believed by more citizens, older – as a form of history, and originates from the same region. See “Contempt for Christianity” for more.)

In his Illustrated London News column on September 7, 1929, Chesterton says, “The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.” If that doesn’t prompt you to change your ideas about public schools, consider what the Home School Legal Defense Association states in its September/October 2000 issue of Court Report,

“Is it merely a coincidence that the two countries [Germany and Japan] whose educational system we have most admired gave rise to totalitarian states in the 20th century, bent on world domination? Looking into the dying embers of two world wars should remind us that the utopian impulse that lures men to entrust control of the individual—including compulsory attendance and state control of education—to the wisdom of the state, sets the stage for corrupt and domineering governments. And, as experience should have taught us, this can lead to horrible results. Although today’s proponents of compulsory attendance will argue that their purpose is benign, when the power to control education is concentrated in the hands of a few, it can easily be turned toward objectives which are not all benign.”

Even homeschoolers are not completely free of the government’s hand. Eighty percent of states have laws requiring homeschoolers to at least notify officials of their intention to homeschool. Many states have laws stating exactly what subjects you must teach your children. (You should see the list of required subjects for North Dakota!) Looking at the table below, it is easy to see how much control has been taken away from the families. Twenty-seven of fifty-one states (includes the District of Columbia) require parents to submit either test scores or a professional evaluation of the student.

	Description	# of States
States with high regulation	Requires parents to send notification, achievement test scores and/or professional evaluation, plus other requirements (e.g. curriculum approval by the state, teacher qualification of parents, or home visits by state officials)	6
States with moderate regulation	Requires parents to send notification, test scores, and/or professional evaluation of student progress	21
States with low regulation	Requires parental notification only	14
States requiring no notice	No requirement for parents to initiate any contact	10