Pa. Home Schooling Oversight Challenged

[G_j]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4377233,00.html

Pa. Home Schooling Oversight Challenged

Monday August 2, 2004 10:16 AM


By JENNIFER C. YATES

Associated Press Writer

PITTSBURGH (AP) - On any given school day, the five Newborn children might be studying statistics at a local college, learning Spanish from a tutor or watching a procedure at a veterinarian's office. It's part of a curriculum set by their parents, who home school their children because they consider it a calling from God. It all must be carefully documented in a report each year to their local school superintendent.

In cases being closely watched by home schooling advocates across the country, the Newborns and a second Pennsylvania family have filed lawsuits under the state Religious Freedom Protection Act challenging the state's home school reporting requirements.

The act allows people to challenge any laws they believe impose ``substantial burdens upon the free exercise of religion without compelling justification.'' Similar statutes were passed in 11 other states after a federal religious freedoms law was declared unconstitutional in 1997.

``God is in our math, God is in our science, God is in our history. Yet we have to submit to a government agent for approval,'' Maryalice Newborn said.

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