Home-School Advocates Push to Blunt, Reverse California Ruling

Home-school advocates are scrambling to reverse or blunt the impact of a California appeals court ruling late last month that parents do not have the right under state law to home-school their children, drawing support from top California politicians and education officials.

“We believe that the court erred in ruling,” J. Michael Smith, the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said in a recorded message to parents calling the group’s Purcellville,Va., office. Urging parents not to “panic,” he notes that “this is how home-schoolers have been home schooling for over 20 years.”

The state education department has been barraged with calls from parents, and even picketed by protesters,...