Homeschooling is Not a Crime

by James Akin

The subject of homeschooling has caused a bit of a flap recently in the pages of some orthodox Catholic publications. It has been claimed — inaccurately — that Catholic homeschoolers are violating Church law if they choose to homeschool their children when Catholic schools (or at least acceptable Catholic schools) are available to them.

Here we will examine the various legal and nonlegal arguments that have been brought forward to urge Catholic homeschoolers to put their children in parochial schools.

In the interests of laying my cards on the table, I should mention that I am a strong advocate of homeschooling. Should I be so fortunate as to marry and have children, I plan to do what is necessary to make homeschooling possible.

That being said, I recognize that homeschooling is not the best option for every child or every family. The particular educational experience that is best for a child depends on a wide variety of academic, spiritual, emotional, and cognitive factors.

Educational Diversity

It is not the case that one form of schooling fits all students, even one that offers the kind of individualized attention and customization that homeschooling does. Children who are deaf or blind or dyslexic or otherwise learning disabled may be best served — particularly during parts of their education — by specialized programs that can impart skills for which their parents may not be the best teachers.

Some children may need a full-time environment in a specialized program. Certain adolescent boys, for example, do better in the environment of a military academy than in other school settings.

The educational needs of students also change over time. Those of a six-year-old are very different from those of a college freshman, and this must be taken into account. This means that a student will need different educational environments at different times in his academic career.

Even the strongest advocates of homeschooling do not advocate awarding doctoral degrees in microbiology or particle physics in a homeschool environment. Even if the parents were the ideal teachers for these subjects and somehow could afford the technical apparatus that students in these disciplines need to use, most employers would not honor such degrees. Thus social factors — such as whether a school is accredited — also play a role in determining what will be the best educational environment for a child at a given stage of his academic career.

The best kind of educational experience for a particular child may be one that the parents — for familial, financial, or legal reasons — may not be able to provide. Virtually every parent would like to be able to provide even better for his children than he is able to.

All of this — the widely varied educational needs of children plus the limited resources of the parents — adds up to a situation where there is no one ideal educational solution for each child and each family.

The Catholic Church recognizes this. As a result, it does not seek to impose a single educational model upon Catholic families. Indeed, as we will see, it is a strong advocate of parental choice when it comes to the education of children.

Catholic Schools

In the Code of Canon Law, the canons governing schools are 796-806. They cover the rights of parents, the rights of the Church, and the qualifications and role of teachers.

Canon 803 spells out what constitutes a Catholic school: "That school is considered to be Catholic that ecclesiastical authority or a public ecclesiastical juridical person supervises or that ecclesiastical authority recognizes as such by means of a written document."

In other words, there are three ways in which a school can bear the title of being a "Catholic school." First, it can be supervised by ecclesiastical authority (such as the diocesan bishop). Second, it can be supervised by "a public ecclesiastical juridical person" (such as a religious order). Third, it can be supervised by someone else (e.g., a group of parents who run it) but have received written recognition as a Catholic school by the competent authority.

What is at issue here is the right of a school to call itself Catholic. The Code goes on in the same canon to recognize that schools can be Catholic in substance but not be allowed to use this title when advertising themselves. Thus the Code says: "Even if it really be Catholic, no school may bear the title 'Catholic school' without the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority" (803 53).

This tells us which schools may call themselves Catholic. What kind of Catholic schools may the Church establish? Canon 800 states that "the Church has the right to establish and supervise schools of any discipline, type, and grade whatsoever."

There is even a responsibility on the part of the diocesan bishop to establish suitable schools when they are lacking: "If schools imparting an education imbued with the Christian spirit are not available, the diocesan bishop is to see to it that they are established" (CIC 802 §1).

A bishop might fulfill this responsibility, for example, by encouraging another party, such as a religious institute whose proper mission is education, to establish such schools in his diocese (cf. CIC 801). Or he might establish the schools directly.

The range of schools that the bishop may be called upon to establish or seek to have established is quite impressive: "The diocesan bishop is to provide for the establishment of professional schools, technical schools and other schools required by special needs whenever such would be advantageous" (CIC 802 §2).

Responsibility of the Faithful

Regardless of whether Catholic schools are founded by the diocesan bishop, by a religious institute, or by another party, what is the faithful's responsibility toward them?

This is spelled out in canon 800: "The Christian faithful are to foster Catholic schools by supporting their establishment and their maintenance in proportion to their resources."

Though one can support a school by volunteering, the principal thing the Code has in mind here is support in the form of donations of either money or material goods.

The Code thus specifies a general responsibility on the part of the faithful to provide material support for Catholic schools. But the only specification found in the provision is that the faithful support Catholic schools "in proportion to their resources." This presumably means that those who have many resources should provide more substantive support for schools than those who have few resources. That leaves the precise determination of amounts up to the individual.

It also doesn't create a legal obligation to support any particular Catholic schools. The provision is part of canon 800, which deals with the right of the Church to establish schools, not the role of the diocesan bishop in doing so.

While it may be presumed that most of the faithful will support Catholic schools in their own diocese, there is nothing in the canon specifying that this is where they are to direct their support. There is nothing in the canon preventing one from sending his support to Catholic schools outside his own diocese.

Indeed, it isn't clear that the responsibility is intended to be fulfilled by each individual. The condition of the faithful varies widely, and many may not be practically able to devote resources to Catholic schools specifically. They may have other commitments for the resources they have.

It seems then that the responsibility of the faithful toward Catholic schools is rather limited. It includes a generalized responsibility for supporting them financially, but the relevant provision of the law does not generate a responsibility for particular members of the faithful to support particular schools in particular amounts on particular occasions.

Parental Choice

Let's address the options that are open to parents. In particular, is there anything in canon law preventing them from choosing to educate their children in a homeschool?

The answer is no. A general statement of the parents' rights in educating their offspring is found just before the canons on schools: "Parents as well as those who take their place are obliged and enjoy the right to educate their offspring; Catholic parents also have the duty and the right to select those means and institutions through which they can provide more suitably for the Catholic education of the children according to local circumstances" (CIC 793 51).

The circumstances in which parents find themselves vary widely from one place to another. The canon takes note of this fact and acknowledges the right of parents to provide "more suitably for the Catholic education of their children." If a homeschool will do this better than other available schools — even local Catholic schools — then they have the right to use one.

What if there are local Catholic schools that are capable of providing well for the children's Catholic education? Are parents under an obligation to use them?

Again, the answer is no: "Parents are to entrust their children to those schools in which Catholic education is provided; but if they are unable to do this, they are bound to provide for their suitable Catholic education outside the schools" (CIC 798).

Note how the first part of this requirement is phrased: Parents are to place their children in "those schools in which Catholic education is provided" (Latin, illis scholis in quibus educationi catholicae provideatur). Since Catholic homeschools provide such education, they meet this qualification.

The canon does not say that parents have an obligation to place their children in "Catholic schools" (Latin, scholae catolicae) — a concept the Code has not to this point introduced. (Its first mention is in canon 800.) Canon 798 merely requires parents to place their children 3 if possible — in schools that provide Catholic education (and if not possible then to provide for this education outside of school).

The canon doesn't require that children be placed in a diocesan school or a religious school or a cooperative school run by parents with the consent of the bishop. It just requires a school that provides Catholic education. Even a state-run school that provides for Catholic education would qualify, and a typical Catholic homeschool qualifies as well.

Since the Code places no further restriction on the schools to which parents may send their children, Church law does not prohibit using homeschools to educate children if the parents so choose.

Objections

Catholic opponents of homeschooling have raised a number of objections that should be mentioned. First, though, I would like to mention an objection that I have not so much seen expressly drawn out by homeschool opponents but that seems to me to be the most plausible objection that could be raised: The relevant canons in the Code are written in such a way that they presuppose that the school is an institution distinct from the family. This is true. The Code does use language speaking, for example, of parents entrusting their children to teachers who are apparently different from the parents themselves.

It is natural that the Code would speak in this way, because this is the typical situation in which most parents find themselves, and it certainly was the typical situation when the Code was promulgated in 1983, before the homeschooling movement got off the ground.

But this creates no legal barrier to the formation of a school whose teachers and students are all members of one family. Just because the language doesn't specifically reflect this situation does not mean that it is disallowed.

The language also does not reflect situations in which a parent may be a teacher in a public or Catholic school which his child attends, but that isn't disallowed either. Some Catholic schools are so small that teachers cannot practically avoid teaching their own children in certain classes.

A less substantial legal objection could be made from the fact that the faithful are called upon to financially support Catholic schools in canon 800 §2. Wouldn't the best way of doing this be by sending one's children to the school and paying their tuition?

Maybe, but that doesn't create a legal requirement to do so. All canon 800 does is direct the faithful to foster Catholic schools in proportion to their means. That does not say anything about putting one's children in them. The directive is nonspecific and does not require any particular action on the part of any particular person with regard to any particular school. It certainly requires nothing as specific as putting one's children in a local school.

Further, the canon is directed toward the financial maintenance of Catholic schools, and one can support them financially in all kinds of ways besides paying tuition.

At this point, Catholic homeschool opponents might raise a number of nonlegal arguments. For example, putting your children in the parish school sets a good example for others. In response, one might point out that one's controlling duty as a parent is not to set an example for other parents but to provide for one's own children's education, and a local Catholic school may not be the best way of doing that.

To this it might be replied that if there are problems with the local Catholic school, then rather than pull one's children out of it one should work to fix it. "It's your school; fight for it" seems to be the argument. I have little sympathy for this line of thinking. As noted, the controlling duty of parents is the education of their own children, not campaigning to clean up schools.

Even if a school is run by the parents' own parish, that does not make it the parents' school. All too many parents have found local Catholic schools (and even the bishops to whom they are responsible) resistant to fixing problems in recent years. If a given school had only a few problems that could be fixed with relative ease, it could be an act of merit to work to fix them — assuming that was what was in the best interests of the parents' own children.

It is the children's interests that are primary, and parents are entitled to say, "I'm sorry, but I am not going to place my children in an educational war zone that will take who knows how many of their formative years to clean up — if that is even possible."

While the decision of many parents to pull their children out of public and Catholic schools may have been prompted initially by the problems in those schools, many have found that homeschooling simply provides a better educational experience for their children. The small class sizes and the lack of a school bureaucracy allow homeschool students an unparalleled degree of individual attention and customization of the learning program.

Homeschool children are typically able to get through the same amount of material in far fewer hours a day than children in traditional schools. This suggests (as many traditional school students will complain) that there is an enormous amount of time wasted in traditional schools on "busy work" and material that is below the level of the student.

This is what one would expect in a classroom environment where the teacher has a large number of students to deal with. Typically the teacher has to keep the more advanced students busy while he helps the slower ones. By reclaiming these lost hours, homeschool students tend to do as well as or better than traditional school students and get to spend the missing hours on more important things — like relating to their parents, siblings, and friends, thus meeting their socialization needs without the sometimes cruel environment of a typical grade-school classroom.

Thus, even if the local Catholic schools are all sterling examples of what such schools are meant to be, parents still may well conclude that their children's educational needs are better met in a homeschool. Catholic opponents of homeschooling should recognize and respect that "it is necessary that parents enjoy true freedom in selecting schools" (CIC 797).

Jimmy Akin is director of apologetics and evangelization at Catholic Answers. His books include Mass Confusion and The Salvation Controversy.

© Catholic Answers, Inc.

This item 6384 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org