Source: Michigan Education Report
DeJonge case allowed parents to home-school without certification
Chris DeJonge was in her second week of homeschooling when the knock on the door came. She opened it to find two employees from the local office of the Michigan Department of Social Services (now the Department of Human Services), who informed her that her children were truants and that she and her husband were breaking the law by teaching them at home.
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The officer already knew her children’s names and ages, DeJonge said, a detail she and her husband, Mark, found both revealing and worrisome. Barely into their first year of homeschooling, someone had apparently reported them to the authorities.
What the DeJonges didn’t know in that autumn of 1984 was that, over the next 10 years, their case would work its way from the local district court through the appellate system and eventually to the Michigan Supreme Court, where a 4-3 decision in their favor would become a landmark in Michigan home-school law.
Nearly 15 years to the day after that ruling, the DeJonges spent a recent Saturday morning talking to Michigan Education Report about their years in and out of the legal system. Now residents of Shelbyville in rural western Michigan, Mark DeJonge is a commercial construction manager and Chris DeJonge is completing another year of teaching her five youngest children. The couple has 10 children and 16 grandchildren in all.
“They were really intimidating,” Chris DeJonge said of her first contact with the authorities. Letter after letter came during the next 12 months, advising the couple that they could be arrested. At the time, state law said that parents who conducted home education for their children had to provide instructors certified by the state.
But the DeJonges believed then – and still do – that the certification requirement violated their right to freely exercise their religion under the First Amendment.
“We were in the Lord’s will. We were going to proceed,” Mark DeJonge said. “If we didn’t home-school in Michigan, we’d have left Michigan.”
Other Michigan parents opposed the law, too, and quietly taught their children at home, trying not to draw attention to themselves.
“If you brought up home-school, people would say, ‘What’s that?'” Chris DeJonge said. “Of course, that doesn’t happen now.”
“We didn’t have a support group at that time,” her husband added. “It was pretty much underground. … But we got connected slowly, family to family.”
The DeJonges were formally charged and convicted of criminal truancy in Ottawa County District Court in 1985, but were granted a “stay of sentence” until their appeals were concluded. During the appeal process they agreed to have their children tested and to provide the results, something they had never contested.
Four years later, the state Court of Appeals affirmed the original ruling. The DeJonges, represented by the Home School Legal Defense Association, then appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court in 1989, which remanded the case to the appellate court, asking it to reconsider its ruling in view of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding individual exemptions from general laws for religious purposes – in that case the use of peyote.
In 1991, the appellate court reaffirmed its earlier decision. The following summer the state Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, and in spring of 1993 ruled in the DeJonges’ favor. In the written opinion, the justices agreed that the state has a compelling interest in ensuring the adequate education of children, but said it had failed to prove that the certification requirement was necessary to meet that goal.
“In sum, the state has failed to provide one scintilla of evidence that the DeJonge children have suffered for the want of certified teachers,” the opinion stated.
“We made court appearances nine times,” Mark DeJonge said of the 10-year stretch. “It was a pretty good educational experience for our children.”
The Home School Legal Defense Association refers to the DeJonge case as a landmark in home-school law. In the wake of that case and others, state lawmakers adopted legislation providing that, “It is the natural, fundamental right of parents and legal guardians to determine and direct the care, teaching, and education of their children.”
Michigan law continues to require all children to attend school from age 6 to 16. However, it provides two options for home-school families. One states that a child is not required to attend public school if the parent is providing at home an “organized educational program” with instruction in core content areas. Teacher certification is not required in cases in which it would violate a family’s religious convictions.
The second option allows parents to register their home program as a nonpublic school, a choice that generally requires more reporting of information to the Michigan Department of Education.
The DeJonges continued to raise their growing family and to teach their children at home throughout their case, hearing from both supporters and detractors by phone, by mail and through the grapevine. Encouraging letters came in from across the United States, Mark DeJonge said, as home-school parents in other regions went through their own struggles.
“We saw we weren’t in it alone,” he said. But it wasn’t outside support that kept them from becoming discouraged, he and his wife said. It was the results they saw in their children.
“Home-school was such a positive thing,” Chris DeJonge said. “When we saw our children learning, and how well they did, it confirmed it.”
On the day they learned about the Supreme Court decision, Mark DeJonge was cultivating nursery trees on their farm and Chris was in the house. The children took to their bikes and pedaled two miles to tell their father the news.
“We’re glad we went through it,” Chris DeJonge said. “We grew as a family and we grew as a couple.”
The family was happy to retire from the public eye when the case was resolved, Mark DeJonge said. On this particular sunny morning, he and his children were at work laying out pipe for an irrigation system in the side yard. Soon it will be time to plant the large garden, where the raspberry plants already are a bushy green.
Ottawa County Prosecutor Ronald J. Frantz said his office recognized “very significant issues” in the DeJonge case and looked to the courts for clarification on the issues of validating religious beliefs and granting exemptions based on those beliefs.
“It’s a weighing of the nature of the religious belief against the interest of the state,” said Frantz, who was not prosecutor at the time the original charges were filed. “We don’t have a bias against home-school.”
Frantz pointed out that the law still requires teacher certification unless the home-school parent objects on religious grounds. How the courts would treat a home-school parent without such religious convictions is a different question, he said, adding that he is not aware of any such case being filed.
Retired state Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Levin, one of the four who voted in favor of the DeJonges, told Michigan Education Report that he doesn’t remember much about the case today. HSLDA attorneys have said they were told that Levin had switched his vote at the last minute, giving the DeJonges the victory. Levin doesn’t recall that, he said in a telephone interview, but he does remember how unlikely it was for a home-school case to reach the highest court in Michigan.
“It’s rarely litigated at that level,” he said.
In general, he continued, “I think there are certain things only government can do, but there are other things government should stay out of.”
Home-school belongs in the latter category, he said, if children are being educated well.
By coincidence, Levin said, shortly before the interview with Michigan Education Report he had watched an episode of the HBO miniseries about the lives of John and Abigail Adams and their son, John Quincy Adams, who was educated at home. By the age of 11 the youth began to accompany his father on diplomatic missions and, at 14, he served as secretary and interpreter for a diplomatic mission to Russia.
“Home-school has a very long and honorable tradition,” Levin said.
Today there are varying estimates on the number of home-schooled children in Michigan. The number has been put any anywhere from 2,000 to 100,000, based on enrollment in home-school associations, number of parents who voluntarily report their enrollment to the state and calculations done by subtracting public and private school enrollment from census figures. Whatever the number, home-schoolers can hardly be considered underground any more. Support groups meet in every major Michigan city; colleges and universities readily accept home-school graduates; textbook companies offer books and supplies aimed at the home-school market; and home-school associations organize their own sport and academic leagues.
In West Michigan, considered a home-school stronghold in the state, Frantz said that, “People are discussing is more freely.” Frantz himself sits on the board of a private Christian high school that enrolls former home-schoolers, he said.
Still, the HSLDA continues to send “alerts” to Michigan parents about any legislation it believes could affect them, most recently House Bill 5912. Introduced by Rep. Brenda Clack, D-Flint, the bill would require all home-schoolers to register annually with their local conventional public school superintendent. The bill’s sponsors said that registration would help public school districts tackle truancy problems – cases in which dropouts say they are being home-schooled but are not. Opponents of the bill said one such requirement of home-schoolers could easily lead to more.
Ten other states are on HSLDA “alert,” including California, where home-school parents were startled by an appellate court decision in February that would have required them to have teaching credentials. The court vacated its own decision in that case and will rehear the matter this summer. Legislation proposed in Washington, D.C., would require home-school parents to submit portfolios of their children’s work.
The tension between competing forms of education is not necessarily a bad thing, Mark DeJonge said.
Though Michigan home-schoolers enjoy what HSLDA calls some of the most favorable laws in the country, “It could be too easy, in a sense,” he said, “if those rights are taken for granted. We oughtn’t to get complacent and lazy.”
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Lorie Shane is the managing editor of the Michigan Education Report, the Mackinac Center’s education policy journal.
Source: Michigan Education Report
I think people should have a choice over making decisions relating to their family and kids. Whether to go for homeschool teaching or enrolling in schools outside the home, should be a decision left to parents. Authorities should step in only if children are not provided education or are deprived from educational opportunities. All the best to Mark and Chris on winning the case.
I think people should have a choice over making decisions relating to their family and kids. Whether to go for homeschool teaching or enrolling in schools outside the home, should be a decision left to parents. Authorities should step in only if children are not provided education or are deprived from educational opportunities. All the best to Mark and Chris on winning the case.
It is very great advice to the parents.Because parents should take thier decisions about thier children.It is very must to them They should care them always till thier maturity.It is very best to the childrens also.By the parents care childrens will grow health and talent.
It is very great advice to the parents.Because parents should take thier decisions about thier children.It is very must to them They should care them always till thier maturity.It is very best to the childrens also.By the parents care childrens will grow health and talent.
The way this couple handled this case says a lot about their ability to educate their children. I go both ways on home-school. It is great if the children are being educated and also have a strong social network around them. I think the social network is an important aspect that is sometimes ignored. The home school networks that are being formed all over the country these days are helpful with that.
The way this couple handled this case says a lot about their ability to educate their children. I go both ways on home-school. It is great if the children are being educated and also have a strong social network around them. I think the social network is an important aspect that is sometimes ignored. The home school networks that are being formed all over the country these days are helpful with that.
Interesting. I didn’t know that you needed to provide certified teachers to home school your children. So then parents can become certified themselves and teach their own children?
Interesting. I didn’t know that you needed to provide certified teachers to home school your children. So then parents can become certified themselves and teach their own children?
All parents must be able to choose what is best for their children. They should be free to decide whether they want to send their kids to school or home school them.
All parents must be able to choose what is best for their children. They should be free to decide whether they want to send their kids to school or home school them.
I think parents who homeschool their children risk denying them opportunities they would have had going to public or private school. For example, the Air Force does not accept home-schooled enlistees. Many colleges do not recognize home-schooling either. What if the child’s goal is to attend an ivy league school? Also, these children are missing out on important socialization skills which can only be learned in a school environment.
I think parents who homeschool their children risk denying them opportunities they would have had going to public or private school. For example, the Air Force does not accept home-schooled enlistees. Many colleges do not recognize home-schooling either. What if the child’s goal is to attend an ivy league school? Also, these children are missing out on important socialization skills which can only be learned in a school environment.
I am getting mixed thoughts after reading this article. On one hand, home-schooling can be a good option as it allows the parents to decide what is best for their kids. But on the other hand, it is restricting the exposure a kid gets at a private/public school. When a kid goes out of home to study, he learns not only the subjects but also to interact with others in absence of his parents.
This development is very necessary for a kid’s personality. I would still say home-schooling has its own disadvantages!
I am getting mixed thoughts after reading this article. On one hand, home-schooling can be a good option as it allows the parents to decide what is best for their kids. But on the other hand, it is restricting the exposure a kid gets at a private/public school. When a kid goes out of home to study, he learns not only the subjects but also to interact with others in absence of his parents.
This development is very necessary for a kid’s personality. I would still say home-schooling has its own disadvantages!
Homeschooling has its advantages and disadvantages, just as every other thing. It should be, however, a right of the parents to homeschool their children, as long as the children follow the same program public schools do (as a minimum). The government should also provide a way to test the homeschooled children knowledge, so that the results of such learning system can be assessed.
Homeschooling has its advantages and disadvantages, just as every other thing. It should be, however, a right of the parents to homeschool their children, as long as the children follow the same program public schools do (as a minimum). The government should also provide a way to test the homeschooled children knowledge, so that the results of such learning system can be assessed.
In most circumstances I do not believe homeschooling is in the best interest of the child. However, the government does not have the right to tell a parent it knows best how to raise their children. As long as minimum requirements are met, we must protect the rights of the family.
In most circumstances I do not believe homeschooling is in the best interest of the child. However, the government does not have the right to tell a parent it knows best how to raise their children. As long as minimum requirements are met, we must protect the rights of the family.
School is where most people learn the basic skills that will carry us through life, but its not in the classroom where we learn such. If its just about education i.e. math reading and such other skills, than home school can give the one on one kids need. But learning to deal with people and social issues are also learned in school, and that can be much harder to learn at home. There is less stress learning at home and learning to deal with stress can be crucial in the long run. Maybe if our nations schools were better over all then ….. who knows if that will ever happen.
School is where most people learn the basic skills that will carry us through life, but its not in the classroom where we learn such. If its just about education i.e. math reading and such other skills, than home school can give the one on one kids need. But learning to deal with people and social issues are also learned in school, and that can be much harder to learn at home. There is less stress learning at home and learning to deal with stress can be crucial in the long run. Maybe if our nations schools were better over all then ….. who knows if that will ever happen.
My chief complaint about homeschooling has always been that it does not allow the children to be educated in an environment that resembles the “real world”. When these children are put in the workplace as adults I often wonder if they fair any differently than their peers that were schooled in public or private schools.
I do agree with some of the other posters here, it is the choice of the parents.
My chief complaint about homeschooling has always been that it does not allow the children to be educated in an environment that resembles the “real world”. When these children are put in the workplace as adults I often wonder if they fair any differently than their peers that were schooled in public or private schools.
I do agree with some of the other posters here, it is the choice of the parents.
i don’t agree with the decision of not requiring some kind of certification, i think a high school diploma at least should be required. i see too many home schooled children at my place of employment. the parent, nine times out of 10 didn’t even graduate high school, on state assistance, doesn’t work, and from their own mouth states: “i don’t know what they do half of the time. their own their own and i just turn the work in”. that statement is tragic and this is why some kind of certification should be mandatory. that may eliminate some of the lazy parents that simply don’t want to get up out of bed to get the kid ready for school. i’m not saying everyone is like that, but i see the majority.
i don’t agree with the decision of not requiring some kind of certification, i think a high school diploma at least should be required. i see too many home schooled children at my place of employment. the parent, nine times out of 10 didn’t even graduate high school, on state assistance, doesn’t work, and from their own mouth states: “i don’t know what they do half of the time. their own their own and i just turn the work in”. that statement is tragic and this is why some kind of certification should be mandatory. that may eliminate some of the lazy parents that simply don’t want to get up out of bed to get the kid ready for school. i’m not saying everyone is like that, but i see the majority.
Sadly, this has happened in more than one state. I’m a die-hard Democrat, but I’ll be darned if I agree with the decision to take education out of the hands of parents. While I don’t know if certification for a parent is the right route, there are definitely other avenues to take, for example a state by state “list” of learning requirements. Parents can then choose to present the materials to the children however they see fit, and the burden is then on the parents to prove that they have successfully done this.
Sadly, this has happened in more than one state. I’m a die-hard Democrat, but I’ll be darned if I agree with the decision to take education out of the hands of parents. While I don’t know if certification for a parent is the right route, there are definitely other avenues to take, for example a state by state “list” of learning requirements. Parents can then choose to present the materials to the children however they see fit, and the burden is then on the parents to prove that they have successfully done this.
I think that many of us home schooling families can be thankful for families like this that helped to pave the way for educational freedom. I do happen to be a certified teacher, but I see many amazing and dedicated families who do excellent jobs educating their children. I am glad to have the freedom to choose what is best for my children and help them excel where needed, and spend more time where needed. Home schooling is an excellent vehicle for providing the best individualized curriculum for each child. My kids are ahead of the game, and it’s thanks to people like the DeJonge’s that we don’t have to worry about knocks on the door!
I think that many of us home schooling families can be thankful for families like this that helped to pave the way for educational freedom. I do happen to be a certified teacher, but I see many amazing and dedicated families who do excellent jobs educating their children. I am glad to have the freedom to choose what is best for my children and help them excel where needed, and spend more time where needed. Home schooling is an excellent vehicle for providing the best individualized curriculum for each child. My kids are ahead of the game, and it’s thanks to people like the DeJonge’s that we don’t have to worry about knocks on the door!
What about the homeschool parent who abuse of the education system i’ve witnessed. This lady does helps her children with each test and especially so on the end of the year test. How is this fair to the child? She doesn’t want her child stress too much. She doesn’t want her child to fail. Therefore she tells the child the answers. How is it fair to children when public schools must have a certain amount of instuction time each day and homeschool children are not? Sorry for those who believe this is the right way to educate a child but I’ve seen firsthand how wrong this method can be.
What about the homeschool parent who abuse of the education system i’ve witnessed. This lady does helps her children with each test and especially so on the end of the year test. How is this fair to the child? She doesn’t want her child stress too much. She doesn’t want her child to fail. Therefore she tells the child the answers. How is it fair to children when public schools must have a certain amount of instuction time each day and homeschool children are not? Sorry for those who believe this is the right way to educate a child but I’ve seen firsthand how wrong this method can be.