Christian Family Fights to Home School Without State Oversight
by Jim Brown
September 1, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Pennsylvania family has filed a lawsuit against their suburban Pittsburgh school district challenging the state's home-school reporting requirements.Claiming the government has exceeded its authority, the Newborn family has invoked Pennsylvania's Religious Freedom Protection Act. MaryAlice Newborn, who has five children and is currently home schooling four of them, says she does not object to the state's burdensome paperwork, but rather to the necessity of seeking the public school superintendent's final approval over her children's education.
"It's that approval that we feel is unscriptural," Newborn says. "It's clear to us that God has called us to home school. It's clear to us that Christ is the head of all men and the father is the head of the family, and that [we are not to] give what is holy to the unholy. And yet, every year, we turn over our religious education to the secular school district for their approval."
The home-schooling mother insists that her family does not have an adversarial relationship with the school district. However, she says they do object to the government having oversight in the matter of her children's godly education, which she and her husband view as their biblically-mandated responsibility as Christian parents. That is why the parents have taken the matter to court.
"In our culture," Mrs. Newborn says, "our freedoms are being eroded bit by bit by bit, and this happens to be a small corner of my family in which our freedoms have been eroded. We are to obey authority, and that authority is God. When [government] oversteps its boundaries, we really feel we are being obedient to God by filing a complaint."
The Newborns are being represented by the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association and have filed a complaint invoking the Pennsylvania Religious Freedom Protection Act. Under that law, a person can challenge any local or state law that places a "substantial burden" on the free exercise of his or her religious beliefs.
