Bad news for teachers unions

That means good news for parents of school-aged children. The Supreme Court recognizes the right to homeschool your child. From the Washington Times:

It is no secret that home-schooling is growing and gaining credibility as a viable educational alternative.

More and more colleges are actively recruiting home-schooled students, each year there are an estimated 50,000-plus home-school high school graduates who find work or go to college and thousands of new curriculum products have become available over the past five years. Meanwhile, the number of home-schoolers continues to grow by 7 percent to 15 percent each year, more states are reforming their laws to remove the burdens from parents who want to home educate, and home-schoolers continue to excel in national competitions as well as on standardized tests. In short, home-schooling is a major success story.

Now, for the first time, home-schooling has been recognized in an opinion by a U.S. Supreme Court justice as a viable educational alternative. Morse v. Frederick, which recently made national headlines, involves free speech and whether a public school can regulate what a student says. The 5-4 decision said that the school principal, Deborah Morse, did not violate the free speech rights of Joseph Frederick when she took down his pro-marijuana banner, which said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." The student had violated school policy and was advocating illegal drug use.

While the Home School Legal Defense Association agrees with the ruling in this specific case, it is a reminder to all families that when your child enters the public school, you have virtually ceded your parental rights to the public school.

The clearest explanation of this view was expressed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Fields v. Palmdale, when it said, "While parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child."

This is the reason many parents have chosen to home-school, especially those parents who have a religious worldview, because they know their children will be taught secular values by the public system.

In Morse v. Frederick, however, Justice Clarence Thomas said, "If parents do not like the rules imposed by those schools, they can seek redress in school boards or legislatures; they can send their children to private schools or home school them; or they can simply move."

This is the first time the Supreme Court specifically has recognized home-schooling as a viable educational alternative. HSLDA has worked for 24 years to advance a parent's right to home-school and to promote home-schooling to the general public.

After 24 years, it is gratifying to read the words of a Supreme Court justice who rightfully placed home-schooling on a level playing field with public and private schools. This kind of recognition is tremendously significant to the home-school community.

It's another step on the long road to raise home-schooling to the point where, when the terms public, private or home-school are used in the same sentence, they all will be seen as mainstream educational alternatives.

Home-schooling is a modern education success story and HSLDA urges all parents to carefully consider their educational options. Home-schooling should be front and center because it is a viable alternative that has helped hundreds of thousands of children become mature, productive citizens.

If you don't like how your local government school is educating Little Johnny, you can either move to a different school district, enroll him in a private school, or home school. That's it. Efforts have existed for years by the NEA (leftist teachers union) to eliminate homeschooling, since homeschooling makes their job of indoctrinating and dumbing down your kid considerably tougher.

No, I am not bashing all or even most public school teachers. I am blessed to know far more decent, competent, and dedicated teachers than those who are not. I also recognize that some parents are about as sharp as a velvet bag full of styrofoam peanuts and probably aren't serving their children well by educating them directly. However, I reflexively defer to parents in determining the best interests of their kids until it can be demonstrated that the contrary is occurring.

Maybe homeschooling is for your kids. Maybe it's not. The good news is that it's your choice.

SCOTUS shoots down racial preferences, upholds WA voters' wishes

From Michelle Malkin:

If any of you followed my work at the Seattle Times, you know how closely I covered the battle against government racial preferences in Washington state. You may remember that Washington passed Initiative 200 to ban government racial preferences in public hiring and education. Despite massive establishment opposition (led by my then-publisher), the measure was approved overwhelmingly–even in liberal enclaves like Seattle and other parts of western Washington. As in California and Michigan, the Left fought bitterly to undermine the letter and spirit of the law. One of the areas where inequality in the name of “diversity” reigned was the Seattle public school system. Several parents rose to challenge the racial bean-counting and have fought in court since 1998. Their case reached the Supreme Court, which will issue a decision this morning.
...
10:34am Eastern update breaking:

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected public school assignment plans that take account of students’ race.

The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it leaves public school systems with a limited arsenal to maintain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court’s judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent that was joined by the court’s other three liberals.

Chalk one more up for the good guys! With today's shamnesty vote failing, today is turning out to be a darned good day! :-)

Teachers' free speech trumps union politics

Once in a while, the Supreme Court gets one right. From WND:

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision that could impact millions of public-sector employees nationwide, concluded today the First Amendment right of teachers trumps the speech privileges of organized labor.

The decision, in the consolidated Washington vs. Washington Education Association and Davenport vs. WEA cases, found organized labor, such as teachers associations, have no "constitutional right" to use money collected as "agency fees" from nonmembers for political purposes.

"We are elated that the U.S. Supreme Court has honored the First Amendment rights of teachers by overturning the state Supreme Court's decision," said Bob Williams, president of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, which has worked on the case for a decade. "The court understood that the constitutional rights of teachers should be protected and are not superseded by the union's statutory rights.

"This ruling will help protect non-member teachers from having their agency fees used on union politics against their will," he said.

Booker Stallworth, communications director for the foundation, told WND the case originated with a list of teachers who had a variety of complaints about the Washington Education Association's dedication of its financial resources to help causes to which the teachers objected, including homosexual marriage and abortion issues.

Some of the teachers appreciate collective bargaining but don't like union politics," he told WND. "Some of the teachers are pro-life, some are against homosexual marriage. For a number of reasons they preferred to not have the union speak for them politically and have their own dollars used against them."

Diane Lenning, an English and history teacher, said, "My major objections to the NEA are that there is an operative glass ceiling for moderate and conservative Republicans, independents and Christians."

Added Cindy Omlin, a speech pathologist. "There were many political causes that they were funneling my union dues toward that I found to be very offensive."

"I wanted to be congruent with my beliefs," said Karen Petty, another instructor. "My dues were going to causes that personally I would go against."

The case focused on a Washington initiative, approved by voters, that required labor organizations to get permission from nonmember workers before using mandatory dues for political purposes.

In many cases, workers are not required to be union members but must pay a fee equivalent to union dues because they are the beneficiaries of collective bargaining.

Unions, however, are increasingly active politically, and many times support causes such as homosexual marriage and the abortion industry under the guise of "rights" -- issues Christians and others would choose not to back.

WEA had admitted to multiple violations of the Washington law during an investigation then was fined more than $590,000 for its actions. However, on appeal, the Washington state Supreme Court concluded the "free speech rights" of the union superseded the First Amendment rights of the individuals.

"The agency-fee cases did not balance constitutional rights in such a manner, because unions have no constitutional entitlement to nonmember-employees' fees," the U.S. Supreme Court countered. "For First Amendment purposes, it is immaterial that [state law] restricts a union's use of funds only after they are within the union's possession. The fees are in the union's possession only because Washington and its union-contracting government agencies have compelled their employees to pay those fees."

"As applied, … [Washington state law] is not fairly described as a restriction on how the union can spend 'its' money; it is a condition placed upon the union's extraordinary state entitlement to acquire and spend other people's money," the Supreme Court said.

"The next step is to make sure the law is strongly enforced … to ensure the WEA and other unions are in compliance," Williams said. "The WEA has been busily attempting to undermine the law while it was under Supreme Court review." ...

This is good news for teachers everywhere who object to their unions spending their dues on grotesque liberal policies and agendas.