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Homeschooling parents in California got a pleasant surprise this week when an appeals court said it would rehear a case that ruled homeschoolers must be credentialed.

On Feb. 28, the 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles decided that children ages 6 to 18 must be taught by licensed teachers. The decision stemmed from child abuse allegations against a home-schooling family in Lynwood. (see my story from last week)

The move set off a wider debate over home schooling, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger and California schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell throwing their support behind home-schooling families even as United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy has supported the court decision.

The case will be reheard in June.

won a surprise rhearing of a temporary reprieve from having to show they are credenfiornia won

I spoke to a bunch of parents last week about the $460 million (or more) budget cuts the LAUSD is looking at for next year. But I was only able to speak to a fraction of the people who wrote in, so if you want to vent, this is a good place to do that. Be sure to leave your comment for other parents to see.

If you missed the story, here's a link:
http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_8579454

Here's my story from today's paper on the latest in the homeschool debate.

Anne Leyden has been home schooling her three sons - now 8, 12 and 15 - since they were old enough to start learning.

Leyden chose home schooling not because she thinks the public schools are terrible - in fact, her husband, Bill, teaches at Pacoima Middle School - but simply because she can.

But under a recent California court ruling requiring home-schoolers to have teaching credentials, that right could become more complicated.

The ruling came Feb. 28, when the 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles decided that children ages 6 to 18 must be taught by licensed teachers. The decision stemmed from child abuse allegations against a home-schooling family in Lynwood.

But the move has set off a wider debate over home schooling, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger and California schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell throwing their support behind home-schooling families even as United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy has supported the court decision.

It's not known exactly how many parents in California are home schooling their children. But according to the California Homeschool Network, parents can legally home-school by either establishing a home-based private school, enrolling in a private school independent study program or using a credentialed tutor.

The Pacific Justice Institute, a nonprofit based in Sacramento, said it will appeal the recent court decision to the California Supreme Court, which is expected to decide by this summer whether to review the case.

The nonprofit is filing the appeal on behalf of Sunland Christian School, a private school in Sylmar that offers independent study and correspondence home schooling.

Theoretically, the current ruling would become binding by March 28, and school districts could cite home-schooling families for truancy.

That scenario is highly unlikely, however, and many families in the home-school community say they aren't overly concerned.

"I seriously doubt that this will be upheld, especially with the support of Jack O'Connell and Schwarzenegger," said Tammy Takahashi, a Burbank mom who teaches her three children at home.

"I think the government should stay out of the educational part; they're not doing that great a job now," she said.

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said the debate may work in the favor of home-schoolers by dispelling negative stereotypes and clarifying ambiguities about the legality of teaching children at home.

"In the end, it's going to be a positive because this could get rid of any cloud of fear," he said.

Loren Mavromati, a Torrance home-school mother who is on the board of the California Homeschool Network, said that while she is happy about support from the governor and superintendent, most home-schoolers would prefer that the issue never came up.

"Any time we bring something like this into the public eye, there's more regulation," Mavromati said. "The current law allows us to fall under private school law, and our home-schoolers are thriving."

barbara.correa@dailynews.com

Here's my story from today's paper on the latest in the homeschool debate.

Anne Leyden has been home schooling her three sons - now 8, 12 and 15 - since they were old enough to start learning.

Leyden chose home schooling not because she thinks the public schools are terrible - in fact, her husband, Bill, teaches at Pacoima Middle School - but simply because she can.

But under a recent California court ruling requiring home-schoolers to have teaching credentials, that right could become more complicated.

The ruling came Feb. 28, when the 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles decided that children ages 6 to 18 must be taught by licensed teachers. The decision stemmed from child abuse allegations against a home-schooling family in Lynwood.

But the move has set off a wider debate over home schooling, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger and California schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell throwing their support behind home-schooling families even as United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy has supported the court decision.

It's not known exactly how many parents in California are home schooling their children. But according to the California Homeschool Network, parents can legally home-school by either establishing a home-based private school, enrolling in a private school independent study program or using a credentialed tutor.

The Pacific Justice Institute, a nonprofit based in Sacramento, said it will appeal the recent court decision to the California Supreme Court, which is expected to decide by this summer whether to review the case.

The nonprofit is filing the appeal on behalf of Sunland Christian School, a private school in Sylmar that offers independent study and correspondence home schooling.

Theoretically, the current ruling would become binding by March 28, and school districts could cite home-schooling families for truancy.

That scenario is highly unlikely, however, and many families in the home-school community say they aren't overly concerned.

"I seriously doubt that this will be upheld, especially with the support of Jack O'Connell and Schwarzenegger," said Tammy Takahashi, a Burbank mom who teaches her three children at home.

"I think the government should stay out of the educational part; they're not doing that great a job now," she said.

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said the debate may work in the favor of home-schoolers by dispelling negative stereotypes and clarifying ambiguities about the legality of teaching children at home.

"In the end, it's going to be a positive because this could get rid of any cloud of fear," he said.

Loren Mavromati, a Torrance home-school mother who is on the board of the California Homeschool Network, said that while she is happy about support from the governor and superintendent, most home-schoolers would prefer that the issue never came up.

"Any time we bring something like this into the public eye, there's more regulation," Mavromati said. "The current law allows us to fall under private school law, and our home-schoolers are thriving."

barbara.correa@dailynews.com

A reader sent this and I thought it was highly entertaining, insightful, and more than a little scary.

SCHOOL -- 1957 vs. 2007

Scenario : Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking
lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car
and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and
never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for
traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario : Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up
buddies.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge
them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario : Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal.
Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for
ADD:. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario : Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives
him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college,
and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster
care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she
remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's
mom has affair with psychologist.

Scenario : Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school .
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car
searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario : Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear
nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation
is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and
Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given
diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a
living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario : Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts
them in a model airplane paint bottle, and blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic
terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers
confiscated; Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed
to fly again.

Scenario : Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee.
He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She
faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy --

Here's an interesting story from the Wall Street Journal about kids getting wait-listed for preschool -- before they are even born! Nothing new here in Los Angeles.

The Brat Race: In Diapers
And on a Day-Care Wait List
By SUE SHELLENBARGER

For many young people and their families, enduring the wait list has become a rite of passage to gain admission to college, private school and even preschool.

Now, children are being wait-listed even younger -- in utero. After Kate Ferry learned last summer she was pregnant, she and her husband put their unborn baby on a wait list for admission to a child-care center next fall. "It was a running joke, that we told the day-care center before we told anyone in the family" that she was pregnant, says the Downingtown, Pa., mother-to-be.

As competition for good child care intensifies, parents in many regions are finding themselves on long wait lists, particularly for infant and toddler care; some are trying to nail down slots even before their babies are conceived. The trend poses a challenge for parents, who may not know how far to plan ahead and how to navigate the wait lists.

Data from the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, a nonprofit organization of community family-support agencies, show the number of preschoolers with working parents exceeding the number of child-care slots by 25% to 75% in half the states, including California, Pennsylvania and New York. Price data from relocation consultants Runzheimer International of Rochester, Wis., suggest unmet demand is most intense in such urban areas as San Francisco, Manhattan, Boston, New Jersey and Miami, where price increases since 2004 have outpaced the cumulative national average increase of 17%.

Child-care wait lists are by no means universal; some child-care centers have plenty of slots. As former House Speaker Tip O'Neill once said of politics, all child care is local. Factors such as scarcity of rental space and growth in residential development all influence wait-list growth.

Generally, though, the trend reflects a flight to quality by parents. Among programs I surveyed with professional accreditation -- a hallmark of quality -- Bank Street Family Center in Manhattan has 130 applicants waiting for 12 to 15 likely openings. Wait lists at two Primrose Schools in Tampa, Fla., have doubled in the past three years to as long as a year, says owner Jana Radtke. Some centers run by Bright Horizons Family Solutions, based in Watertown, Mass., have wait lists of up to two years.

Tara Zito, director of Tutor Time Learning Center, the Downingtown, Pa., center where Ms. Ferry signed up, says many parents tour her center bearing spreadsheets set up to compare centers on dozens of criteria. Even though her wait list is longer than at other child-care centers in the area, many parents tell her gaining admission "is worth the wait," she says.

Some parents are staking a child-care claim before conception. At Jamaica Kids in Queens, N.Y., one father last summer told head teacher Sharon Mitchell to save a space for the baby that he and his wife were planning to conceive soon. "They went on vacation, and about a month later he called and said they'd been successful," Ms. Mitchell says.

The trend behooves parents to make child care a part of planning for parental leave. Kim Angelini of Exton, Pa., learned this the hard way when she was wait-listed for infant care after applying during maternity leave. When she tried to negotiate with her boss for more time off, he resisted at first, saying "there are 20 good day-cares in the area," she says. But he later relented, giving her a few more weeks off after she explained that only one center was of acceptable quality to her.

Parents can maximize their chances of rising to the top of wait lists by doing their homework. While some centers have a first-come, first-served policy, some directors also consider whether parents' expectations match their philosophy. The Bank Street Family Center fosters pre-reading skills in very small children through play, says director Amy Flynn; if parents want their children to start a formal reading curriculum at age two, she may tactfully send them elsewhere.

And if you do wind up on a wait list, don't despair; lists can evaporate quickly, especially for infants, because parents put themselves on more than one list or decide for various reasons to withdraw. Once wait-listed, call the center weekly, a Bright Horizons spokeswoman advises, to stay "on the director's radar screen."

Los Angeles Unified School District schools get a bad wrap. Parents are constantly criticizing the district, and there are many areas of the city where parents wouldn't dream of sending their kids to a public school. Now, a frightening study released by UCLA last week reinforces the terrible reputation the public schools here have. (Read Naush Boghossian's full story According to researchers, over 60 percent of Los Angeles Unified School District schools are overcrowded. At a little more than half the schools in the district, one-third of the student body can't pass an exit exam necessary for a diploma.

For every 100 ninth-graders in non-San Fernando Valley schools, 44 had graduated four years later and 24 had passed courses required for admission to CSU and UC schools. In Valley schools, 48 had graduated and 25 had passed those courses. The statewide averages are 66 and 25.

The study also incorporated results of the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which showed that California's fourth-graders rank 48th in the nation in reading and 46th in math. Meanwhile, eighth-graders ranked 47th in reading and 45th in math.

Hmm, better brush up on those magnet and charter options.

NAVIGATING THE SCHOOL SYSTEM: CHOOSING THE RIGHT KINDERGARTEN FOR YOUR CHILD

Presented by Christy Bergin, Education Advisor and Founder of Best Fit School Service
with Tanya Anton, author of “Westside Guide to Public Elementary Schools”

When: Monday, November 19th 7:00pm

Where: Birth and Beyond
1750 Ocean Park Boulevard, Suite #206
Santa Monica, CA 90405

cost: $25

Learn all about your public and private Kindergarten options.

- how to investigate various schools and what to look for
- tips on private school applications, preparing for evaluations
- how (and when) to begin the application process
- Magnets and the point system demystified
- how Charters work and who is eligible
- Bonus: Complete listing of all public and private Westside Elementary Schools

register online at http://gomamaguide.blogspot.com/

I'm beginning to wonder if the whole non-refundable deposits & tuitions policy at many preschools is something of a racket. I just got off the phone with a school -- which will remain unnamed until the refund check is cashed -- that we applied to last spring and then ended up not attending.

Basically, I plunked down about $600 in deposits and first month's tuition with the promise that we could get three mornings a week of nursery school. But not as many spots opened up as we had expected, and the school offered us two days a week, which didn't work for me. I was fine giving up the deposit money (though it was a bit steep I thought). But when the director started giving me a hard time about refunding a month's tuition, I became suspect.

How can you be charged for a product or service you didn't get?

After days of playing phone tag and then haggling over money, the school offered me a partial refund, which I'm going to take and run. The whole episode has cost way too much money, time and stress. This is preschool, for crying out loud. Then again, this is L.A., where nothing related to schools is ever simple or straightforward.

Do you have your own war stories to share? I'd love to hear em. barbara.correa@dailynews.com or comment here.

Tomorrow, Friday October 5, is NORM DAY, when the Los Angeles Unified School District finalizes class lists in a final juggling of slots. So, parents trying to get into a particular magnet or charter school should keep calling that day.

I called a bunch of other districts, including Newhall Unified, Glendale, Burbank and Las Virgenes, and none of them had heard the term -- their classes probably aren't impacted like they are in L.A. Santa Monica-Malibu district had its norm day yesterday, October 3.

Good luck!

I spoke to two different working Moms today who both were complaining that Los Angeles, while it may be considered progressive in general, leaves parents in the lurch in several ways. Most important, the schools are a mess. I'm not just talking about LAUSD. Preschools have one year waiting lists. Child care centers are ridiculously expensive and also frequently have waiting lists, and apparently very difficult to open.

And, I'm sorry, but the level of concentration, research, and patience it requires to get your kid into a decent public school is probably worth tens of thousands of hours that could have been spent working - or doing something fun with the kids!

The other thing that came up: a serious lack of kid activities at hours for working parents. All the Mommy and Me's are during the day, so are lessons of any kind etc. One Mom I spoke to today just wants to be able to meet other parents one night a week to discuss parenting issues. Anyone know of such a group?

Now that we're a few weeks into back to school, it's time to start thinking about where the kids will be going next year. Luckily, we've got tons of resources.

One of the most entertaining -- and useful -- focuses on navigating the confusing Los Angeles Unified School District. It's NPR Diva Sandra Tsing Loh's "Scandalously Informal Guide to Los Angeles Schools'' This guide actually makes it fun to bone up on crucial knowledge, with sections titled Why L.A.’s middle class English speakers tend to move to Portland and How the LAUSD is like Costco -- you get the idea.

For preschools, there are people who will help you narrow down your options, if you're willing to spend a few hundred bucks. See my article from last month from L.A. School Mates' Web site. And send in other tips you might have. Here are a few more basics I've picked up in talking to parents and consultants:

Don't rely exclusively on other parents' recommendations. It's great to go on Peachhead and get a few reviews of schools you're interested in. But you still need to go visit yourself because parents see things differently, and each kid has different needs.

Early bird .... I can't stress enough that completing school applications and tours early is probably the most crucial part of getting into your school of choice. This is L.A. You're competing against gazillions of other people for those spots.

Relax. As each of the consultants I talked to said, not getting into the right school is a minor problem compared to the stress you will put on your child and yourself if you take all this too seriously. If you don't get into your top choice, you probably will next time around.

Don't forget to send in your comments/experiences!