A correspondent shared this situation with TPOL recently:

“John and Breanna Woolard’s Christian faith is central to who they are, and they want to ensure their children receive an education grounded in those beliefs. That’s why they chose to teach them at home.

“California offers a program to assist homeschool families. But the state rejects any work the kids turn in that even mentions faith. A federal appeals court essentially declared their kitchen table a ‘public school.’”

Our friend goes on to explain how a volunteer legal free speech/free religion group is stepping up to help the Woolard family. Good for them.

But…

TPOL pays attention to more than just the overt situation. Why? Because most of us have been or are involved in home schooling and know the damage to people and society caused by government-run, tax/theft-funded schools. And because we see this in other countries, not just our own fifty nations.

There are a number of vital lessons which we can learn (and which many people have learned) from this situation. We’ve long written of these, but we know that we must constantly remind ourselves of these things.

1. Government “assistance” (especially but not just money) always comes with strings. Many of the strings are not identified in the applications and agreements the recipient signs. Many are not even in the statutes and regulations/rules governing the assistance program. Why? Because it is the bureaucrats and the “administrative law judges” and their interpretation that often have the thickest, strongest strings.
2. The “public schools,” their governing boards of education, their administrators, the staff, their vendors (you know, textbook publishers, food companies (especially dairies), construction companies, etc.) and those people who have been brainwashed into worshiping public schools all fear, as in “FEAR” home schooling. So they constantly seek and implement measures to reduce homeschoolers to the “red-headed step-children” of the public schools. And increase micro-management of moms in kitchens.
3. It is not just the States that do things like this. The FedGov justices and courts are full participants in this sort of shell game and creeping tyranny.
4. Most of us continue to pretend that government control, micromanagement, and interference do not already extend the tentacles of government into our kitchens 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Start with the labels on every can and package of food. Government-mandated. Continue on to how your refrigerator, freezer, stove, range, microwave, dishwasher, and even the kitchen sink and its plumbing have virtually every aspect dictated by a federal and state (and even local government). To say nothing of the light bulbs, space heating system, windows, and doors. Or taxes. Or prohibitions: unpasturized milk, anyone?

Just fighting this in courts (and even in public opinion) is not enough.

We must educate one another, and the people around us. Not just the hazards posed by government agencies, and not just the temptations so easily accepted. We must point out that what we have been taught and accepted for our entire lives has allowed governments to get more and more power. And much of that power comes from what government schools, and gullible faculty of private schools, and homeschooling teachers teach the next generations.

It is not just modern and recent American writers that have warned us of this: some of the lessons learned from the writings of Ayn Rand, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and even Leo Tolstoy are about these hazards. But so have those who are the enemies of liberty, even as they made the risks greater. And those warnings go back more than 3,000 years: the unknown writer of Psalm 146: “Put not your trust in princes.” Not all “princes” wear crowns and robes (though many do still wear robes).