It takes a court to educate a child?

The sixth in my series of op-eds for Liberty Features Syndicate, this cleared back on September 11th.

Ten-year-old Amanda Kurowski was probably pretty nervous last week, as most girls that age are when faced with the prospect of starting at a new school. While she joined thousands of school-age children in having to make that adjustment, the reason young Miss Kurowski needed to make the change is rather unique.

In July, a New Hampshire District Court judge ordered that Amanda be sent to public school because her mother was homeschooling Amanda with a too “rigidly” religious focus. Judge Lucinda V. Sadler made the decision at the behest of Amanda’s father, Martin Kurowski, who argued that being taught in such a manner was preventing Amanda from receiving other, more secular viewpoints.

Yet while Amanda Kurowski was being homeschooled in basic subjects along with Bible study, she was also attending supplemental public school classes in art, Spanish, theater, and physical education, and active in extracurricular sports. Certainly she was not being completely sheltered from the outside world, and Judge Sadler agreed that Amanda’s schooling has “more than kept up with the academic requirements” of the public school Sadler compelled Amanda to attend.

While the tug-of-war over custody and affection between father Martin Kurowski and mother Brenda Voydatch has consumed most of Amanda’s young life – the couple divorced in 1999 – this spat is noteworthy because of its religious aspect. Amanda, like her mother, is a devout Christian whose homeschooling has helped shape her religious beliefs.

The ruling by Judge Sadler fails to account for a number of factors, though, and sets a poor precedent for future jurisprudence. It’s clear that Amanda was not living in a bubble because she was interacting with other children in both academic and athletic settings, nor was there any apparent physical or mental abuse in the case. Essentially the decision came down to the personal preference of both Judge Sadler and a court-appointed guardian for Amanda, who both believed that strong religious beliefs were not correct for a ten-year-old child to have. To them, it seemed better for Amanda Kurowski to worship at the altar of Hannah Montana and be exposed to the coarseness of public school culture several hours a day – conveniently they found an ally in Amanda’s father.

Over the last couple decades more and more parents have decided to take refuge from failing public schools by homeschooling their children, and often they turn out to be our best and brightest. In many states teachers’ unions have pushed back by making it more difficult to educate children outside the realm of organized schools, whether public or parochial, while federal law has shaped a curriculum which rewards teaching to a test rather than students learning how to think for themselves.

Judge Sadler’s ruling, which wasn’t based on rectifying any educational harm but simply showed a desire to instill a “tolerance for different points of view”, was an unnecessary incursion into the affairs of one family. In that bid for “tolerance”, Judge Sadler clearly failed in not attempting to mediate the middle ground of an appropriate parochial school where Amanda could continue her education in a setting with other children but reflective of her and her mother’s faith.

Brenda Voydatch attempted to raise her daughter with values of God and not necessarily of men, but political correctness prevailed in Judge Sadler’s court. In a culture which defines deviancy down, hopefully Amanda’s exposure to public school will be mercifully brief and her parents will find a more suitable learning environment for her.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.