Ed Wood "The Right Stuff" Published June 25, 2003

Government run amok

I wrote recently about the success of home schooling here in Tennessee, and the challenges it presents to students and parents alike. But it also presents a challenge to the public school system. It presents competition, something unheard of for generations. But that is changing, and changing for the better. Home schooling, and private schooling, is proving that there are other ways of getting it done.

So how are the public, or government, schools reacting to the challenge? Some are watching and learning. Some are resisting, through their opposition to vouchers for private or parochial education, and other means. Still others are going even further, using the might and power of the government to impose their will on the unwilling.

There's a news story out of Waltham, MA which illustrates what can happen when the all-powerful government steps in to protect its educational bureaucracy. The story involves a brother and sister, George Nicholas Bryant, 15, and his sister, Nyssa Bryant, 13. They are products of home schooling. But for six years now, the Massachusetts Department of Social Services has demanded they take a test specified by the Waltham Board of Education. Their parents believe the results of a test prepared for students in public schools would not properly reflect their children's educational level, so they have refused to permit their children to take the public school test.

So the Department of Social Services (DSS) took legal custody of the children, threatening to place them in foster homes and send them to public schools. DSS worker Susan Etscovitz, flanked by four police officers, told the parents, "We have legal custody of the children and we will do with them as we see fit! They are minors, and they do what we tell them to do!"

Even though the DSS threatened to take their children from them, the Bryants maintain that the city and state do not have the legal right to force their children to take the tests. "Private school students do not take these tests. Why should our children be subjected to this, against their will?" asked George Bryant.

"Show me a law that says our children need to take these tests, and they will comply," said Bryant. "We want these issues aired in the open, in public. The DSS and the school system have fought to keep this behind closed doors."

Apparently, the public airing is having an effect. Last Thursday, a note from the DSS was placed on the door of the Bryant home stating that a court hearing, originally scheduled for Friday, June 13, will be "discussed at a later time." Both sides agree that the children are in no way abused mentally, physically, sexually or emotionally, but they will remain under the legal custody of the DSS until their 16th birthdays.

"This is just another day that we sit and wait and hope that nothing happens," said Bryant. Sit and wait and hope, and maybe call in the press, is about all any of us can do against a government bureaucracy once it becomes obsessed with its own power.

· · ·
Ed Wood is a resident of Sparta, TN. His column is published each Wednesday in the Crossville Chronicle. He can be contacted at edwd@blomand.net