Why you should not vote for Leo J. Martin for California Education Superintendent
My wife Sandi just ran across a blog post written by a homeschooling parent who made contact with Leo J. Martin, a candidate for Superintendent of Instruction for the State of California in this year's upcoming California elections.
In the blog post Mr. Martin is quoted as saying in reply to his position on homeschooling:
Home schooling’s appropriate for children who have special difficulties that make it impossible for them to participate in traditional schooling. But under California law, a parent has the right to home school provided the parent is qualified to offer instruction. Personally, I believe nearly all kids would benefit more from being in traditional schools. Many parents home school for religious reasons, because they still hold outdated views on race or ethnicity, or for what they consider to be moral reasons. Since we have provisions for students to attend a school outside of their local community when there are legitimate reasons to do so, home schooling as an alternative to “unsafe” campuses is hardly a legitimate alternative. For the most part – overwhelmingly – the public schools of California are not only safe but are providing a high quality education. Yucca Valley should be no exception. If it is, as Superintendent I would like to hear the
complaints.There has also been a tremendous amount of fraud connected with home schooling. Corporate organizations have sprung up to drain precious taxpayer dollars from the state budget to “supervise” home schooling. That has been to the detriment of those children, who by necessity, must be home schooled.
My advice? Send the kids to a traditional public school.
Needless to say there are many points in his response that I take issue with as a homeschooling parent, such as:
- Home schooling’s appropriate for children who have special difficulties that make it impossible for them to participate in traditional schooling.
According to who? Appropriateness of homeschooling, location of education or educational curriculum should really only be defined by the parent of the child being educated or the adult who is seeking education. Just like many adults find that educating themselves at home is appropriate, so do many parents find educating their children at home appropriate. To say that homeschooling is "appropriate for children who have special difficulties that make it impossible for them to participate in traditional schooling" is completely ignorant and alienates a huge segment of the population of the state. Elected officials should know better than to call their constituents stupid. Candidates need to know this. Any person who would reveal such extraordinary ignorance in dealing with parents and their decisions on educating their children has no business being in a leadership position over the educational structure and development of an entire state. - Many parents home school for religious reasons, because they still hold outdated views on race or ethnicity, or for what they consider to be moral reasons.
I actually had to read this sentence a few times to see for my own eyes that Mr. Martin did indeed say these words. Apparently he is completely out of touch with the reality that our kids face in public schools today, like issues of crime, drugs, rampant promiscuity, inability for staff and administrators to effectively discipline children, lack of values placed on education within the public school system and an increasing student to teacher ratio throughout the state at all levels of education. None of these have anything to do with religion, views on race, views on ethnicity or morality. These are all issues that our kids face in California public schools today, issues that all parents should be aware of and concerned with. These are just some of the reason parents choose to homeschool, and none of them are religious in nature nor indicative of outdated views on race or ethnicity. - Since we have provisions for students to attend a school outside of their local community when there are legitimate reasons to do so, home schooling as an alternative to “unsafe” campuses is hardly a legitimate alternative.
Who gets to decide what is a legitimate reason for a student to attend a school outside their local community? Someone who believes homeschooling instead of sending your student to an unsafe campus is hardly a legitimate alternative? If this is the attitude of the highest ranking educational leader in our state, I'd rather not educate my kids in this state. With this statement he is in effect saying that just because your local campus is unsafe doesn't mean that he agrees with your decision to homeschool. Thanks Mr. Superintendent sir. Is there a way you could be less concerned about my child or my desire for him/her to be safe at school? - My advice? Send the kids to a traditional public school.
And my advice to you? Stay out of office. Your incredible disregard for parents and their children would be comical if not so incredibly alarming. Parents in our state need an advocate against our government. What we don't need is an advocate for the government against our parents and children.
Mr. Martin's response to an another email inviting him to look closer at homeschooling and to see for himself why so many parents choose this route for their children's education was met with an equally alarming and ignorant response:
I did not expect any home schooler to be satisfied with my response. Nor will I change it to appeal to the thousands of home schoolers who are voters. If this election were in the 1950s I would have received a question from someone representing tens of thousands of parents who opposed the racial integration of our public schools. They would have been looking for a candidate who agreed with them. My response would have turned them off and they would have urged me to read all the arguments in favor of segregation. I know those arguments, as I know the arguments for home schooling. Now, I’m not equating home schoolers with segregationists, but the situation is the same. As I would not edit my response to the segregationists to win their votes, I will not shape my response to home schoolers to seek their votes
either.I explained before that there are legitimate reasons for home schooling. If you meet those conditions, I fully support home schooling. But that is not why most home schoolers engage in it. And while they have a legal right to do so, I do not support home schooling in those situations.
Best Regards,
Leonard J. Martin
I am not going to go into my take on this response of his. All I will ask is that if you are a homeschooling parent in California, please spread the word that this man is bad for our state's educational system. All homeschooling parents and children will suffer if this man is elected. Let's do our part as a free state to see to it that he never makes it into office.
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June 7th, 2010 - 19:50
I HAVE READ YOUR BLOG ON TOMORROW’S ELECTION FOR STATE SUPERINTENDENT AND AM COMPELLED TO ASK YOU WHERE IT IS YOU LIVE? ASSUMING YOU LIVE IN THE INNER CITY WHERE WE ALL AGREE LIFE IS UNSAFE, AND THAT INCLUDES THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, WHY DON’T YOU MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE? IF YOU LIVE IN A SUBURB,, SUCH AS GLENDORA WHERE MY GRANDKIDS GO TO SCHOOL, NONE OF THE ARGUMENTS YOU RAISED AGAINST THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS WOULD BE VALID.
SO WHERE IS IT YOU LIVE THAT SCHOOLS ARE SO BAD YOU HAVE TO HOME SCHOOL? OR WOULD YOU HOME SCHOOL NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVED? MY TWO SONS BOTH WENT THROUGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS NOT SO LONG AGO, IN A VERY AVERAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND RECEIVED SUCH A GOOD EDUCATION THAT ONE OF THEM WENT ON TO GRADUATE FIRST IN HIS LAW CLASS AT ONE OF THE BEST PUBLIC LAW SCHOOLS IN AMERICA AND SERVED A YEAR AS LAW CLERK TO A CONSERVATIVE JUSTICE ON THE U S SUPREME COURT. THE OTHER KID WORKS AT THE JET PROPULSION LAB AND SUCCESSFULLY LANDS LITTLE ROVERS ON MARS.
SO WHERE DO YOU LIVE AND WHY, FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR KIDS, DON’T YOU MOVE IF IT’S THAT UNSAFE? COME OUT HERE TO WORKING CLASS CHARTER OAK, WHERE MY BOYS WENT TO SCHOOL, AND LET YOUR KIDS GET AN EDUCATION THAT WILL REALLY PREPARE THEM FOR SUCCESS!
June 7th, 2010 - 19:56
NOTE: My response to the above comment is also part of an email I sent in response to this comment. The commenter was not able to post this comment originally so I did that for him and had some correspondence over email, which I am posting here as it appeared in my response.
Thanks for taking the time to comment/email me, Ralph. Because you asked for a personal response I will give you one. Let me start with the questions you asked me before moving on to your email.
“If there is a link to the answers that theother candidates sent back in response to the query- How do you stand on home schooling? – please give me the link.”
I don’t know that the poster of the original article asked any other candidate about his/her view on homeschooling. However, if I run across any resources addressing this question, I will be certain to post them.
“Martin was honest, thoughtful and upfront. Did the other candidates offer platitudes and/or iffy answers?”
I agree with you that Mr. Martin’s answers were honest and upfront. I disagree with the term thoughtful however simply because of the nature of the words he chose to use in his answer. If those words are indeed indicative of his view on homeschooling then he is addressing much more than homeschooling. He is addressing parents and their decisions regarding the education of their children. I don’t fault Mr. Martin for his answers. In fact, I appreciate that he even took the time to respond. And while I don’t agree with his response, I would totally agree with your assertion that his answered honestly and upfront. But it is my opinion that he didn’t put any thought into his response as it relates to the many parents and families that have chosen to conduct their children’s education at home. Instead he seemed to respond with why he thinks parents choose to home school their children and why those reasons are flawed. That I do take umbrage with.
“WHERE IT IS YOU LIVE?”
Northern California, East Bay Area
“ASSUMING YOU LIVE IN THE INNER CITY WHERE WE ALL AGREE LIFE IS UNSAFE, AND THAT INCLUDES THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, WHY DON’T YOU MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE?”
I don’t live in the inner city, but even if I did, moving is not a viable option. How many inner city families do you know of that have the resource to move to a better place so their kids can go to school? And why should a family have to move to go to a safe school? Shouldn’t the school itself, or the district or even the board of education, do everything it can to make the school safe so the kids that have to attend it can do so safely?
“IF YOU LIVE IN A SUBURB,, SUCH AS GLENDORA WHERE MY GRANDKIDS GO TO SCHOOL, NONE OF THE ARGUMENTS YOU RAISED AGAINST THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS WOULD BE VALID.”
On the issue of safety, I can see your point. However there were many other points that I touched on in response to points that Mr. Martin brought up that didn’t necessarily involve school safety. I happen to live in a fairly safe, affluent neighborhood. The region of the district I live in is pretty popular and many families actually move here to try to get their kids enrolled in the schools in our neighborhood. So I wouldn’t believe them to be unsafe. However, in addition to the legitimacy of home schooling as an alternative to unsafe campuses, I responded to Mr. Martin’s point that A) home schooling is only appropriate for children who have special difficulties; B) parents home school because of outdated views on race/ethnicity, religious or other moral reasons; and C) his advice to send kids to traditional public school. So while I can see your point on the safety of schools not being the only reason to educate a child at home, I still don’t believe he can make the assertion that campus safety is hardly a legitimate reason to home school your kids. It is a legitimate reason, but not the only one.
“SO WHERE IS IT YOU LIVE THAT SCHOOLS ARE SO BAD YOU HAVE TO HOME SCHOOL? OR WOULD YOU HOME SCHOOL NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVED?”
Again, where I live the schools are top class. I choose to home school. I’m not forced to.
“MY TWO SONS BOTH WENT THROUGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS NOT SO LONG AGO, IN A VERY AVERAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND RECEIVED SUCH A GOOD EDUCATION THAT ONE OF THEM WENT ON TO GRADUATE FIRST IN HIS LAW CLASS AT ONE OF THE BEST PUBLIC LAW SCHOOLS IN AMERICA AND SERVED A YEAR AS LAW CLERK TO A CONSERVATIVE JUSTICE ON THE U S SUPREME COURT. THE OTHER KID WORKS AT THE JET PROPULSION LAB AND SUCCESSFULLY LANDS LITTLE ROVERS ON MARS.”
I don’t doubt this. Many children each year receive a wonderful education through our state public school system. I was one of those kids myself, as was my wife. I’m not knocking public schools. I choose to home school for various reasons, only one of which is a reason Mr. Martin decided to highlight. What my biggest issue is with Mr. Martin is his view on homeschooling and the ignorance in which he describes it. The man is running for the highest elected education post in the state. Home school education is a legal, legitimate, viable alternative to traditional public school education as well as private school education. He fails to see that and according to his views, has essentially ostracized a fairly large segment of the California voting population.
“SO WHERE DO YOU LIVE AND WHY, FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR KIDS, DON’T YOU MOVE IF IT’S THAT UNSAFE?”
Again, I choose to home school my children. It isn’t a matter of safety.
“COME OUT HERE TO WORKING CLASS CHARTER OAK, WHERE MY BOYS WENT TO SCHOOL, AND LET YOUR KIDS GET AN EDUCATION THAT WILL REALLY PREPARE THEM FOR SUCCESS!”
Thanks for the invitation, but my kids are already getting an education that will really prepare them for success.