By Jim Brown
A conservative group in Massachusetts is angered that state bureaucrats are harassing a home-schooling family in Waltham.
Last year, Kim and George Bryant lost legal custody of their two teenagers when they refused to file education plans with the government. The Waltham Public School System obtained a court order giving custody of the children to the Department of Social Services (DSS), which has been threatening to take 15-year-old George and 13-year-old Nyssa away from their parents.
What is the Bryants’ crime? They refuse to have their children take a standardized assessment test mandated by the Waltham school system.
Evelyn Reilly, director of public policy at the Massachusetts Family Institute, says the Bryants represent a growing number of families who are part of what is called the “Leave Us Alone Coalition.”
“They just want to be able to be left alone to raise their children according to their own likes [and] not have the government trampling on their constitutional rights,” Reilly says. “They are fighting hard to maintain their constitutional rights — which, in the end, will benefit everyone.”
Reilly says in Foxboro, the school superintendent there is also making disturbing and unenforceable demands of a home-schooling family. She says legislation needs to be passed to stop the state’s frequent abuse of power.
“These families are being victimized by an overgrown welfare system [and] overgrown bureaucracy, and by some people that like the thrill of wielding power over other people’s lives,” she says. “Both sides agree [in the Bryant case] that there is no abuse, no neglect. These children are fine.”
Massachusetts is one of only three states where home schoolers have to get annual approval from the local public school superintendent.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press).
