The all-Republican Texas Supreme Court will decide whether homeschooling families must impart educational basics to their children or be allowed to keep them in ignorance until second coming of Jesus Christ.
According to this report, last year an appeals court ruled against Michael and Laura McIntyre, saying the Christian couple was not exempt from state education regulations.
The McIntyres appealed that ruling, and the state’s high court will decide whether religious parents have an obligation to ensure their children actually learn anything.
The couple removed their nine children from a private school in 2004, and a relative previously testified that the parents used empty space in a motorcycle dealership they co-owned as a classroom.
However, the relative testified that he never saw the children reading books, using computers or doing arithmetic – but instead they only played musical instruments and sang.
According to court documents:
Tracy (McIntyre, Michael’s brother) overheard one of the McIntyre children tell a cousin that they did not need to do schoolwork because they were going to be raptured.
And according to this earlier report, Michael’s parents, Gene and Shirene McIntyre, were also unhappy about this “not-learning-for Jesus” stuff.
They met with the El Paso School District’s attendance officer, Mark Mendoza to whom they expressed concerns that their grandchildren were not attending school or otherwise receiving a proper education.
Texas does not require home-school families to register with state or local educational officials, nor are they required to teach state-approved curriculums or give standardised tests.
But problems arose when the family’s eldest daughter, then 17 years old, ran away from home in 2006 and enrolled at a public high school – where administrators placed her in ninth grade because they weren’t sure she could handle higher-level coursework.
The El Paso school district eventually asked the McIntyres to prove their children were being properly educated, and the couple later filed a lawsuit after they were charged with truancy.
The McIntyres say the public school district is biased against Christians, and they accused school administrators of making:
A startling assertion of sweeping governmental power.
All but one of their children is now grown, although Laura McIntyre is still homeschooling her youngest child.