California passes bill to jail parents of truant kids.

[Anti Federalist]

California may jail parents if kids are truant

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/parents/california-considers-jailing-p.html

Talk about parental responsibility. The California Senate just passed a bill that could send parents to jail for up to a year if their kids -- from kindergarten through eighth grade -- miss too much school.

Senate Bill 1317 is actually a public safety measure, according to State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), because children who don’t attend school regularly or drop out early are more likely to turn to crime.

"Three-quarters of our state inmate population are high school dropouts," Leno was quoted as saying by the Fresno Bee.

According to the Associated Press, parents whose kids miss too much school could be subject to up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine, though judges could put the punishment on hold to give parents a chance to get their kids to class.

The Fresno Bee reported that the bill would apply to parents or guardians of children age 6 or older in kindergarten through eighth grade.

To find someone guilty under the bill, prosecutors would have to prove that the parents failed to reasonably supervise and encourage the student to attend school.

How much school is too much school to miss?

Chronic truancy would be as missing 10 percent or more of the school year without a valid excuse, the Bee reported.

The bill is the brainchild of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for attorney general.

"It's much cheaper to focus to getting that elementary school student to school than it is prosecuting a homicide,” she was quoted as saying by the Bee.

Well, yes, presumably, it is. But putting parents in jail for this? If it is hard for a parent to somehow get their kid to go to school from home, you can imagine how hard it would be from jail. What about single parents? Where would the kids go? Should I keep on asking ridiculous questions about a ridiculous bill?

No, I think not. You can come up with your own.

[xd9fan]

thats pro-jobs!!!:rolleyes:

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

Oh, because every young American is a murderer unless they go to school.

[bruce leeroy]

uh, arent these the same people who call corporal punishment child abuse?
whip your kids, get em taken away; dont beat that ass, and they will play hookey and you will go to jail
catch-22

[Anti Federalist]

uh, arent these the same people who call corporal punishment child abuse?
whip your kids, get em taken away; dont beat that ass, and they will play hookey and you will go to jail
catch-22

Yup, now even hollering can be considered "abuse".

So, there are no methods to use to "make" a kid go to school, but you go to jail if they don't.

And that's the point of all this, a "catch 22" just as you stated, it's to put you in a position vis a vis the state, which is untenable.

And they know it. This is just to make you squirm and show you who the boss is, again.

[Pericles]

So, how do you make sure your kids are going to school when you are in jail sitting on your @$$?

[Anti Federalist]

So, how do you make sure your kids are going to school when you are in jail sitting on your @$$?

Catch 22

Doubleplusungood for you to mention that, mundane.

[ChaosControl]

And the world gets dumber every day.

[Kotin]

....

[Jordan]

"Three-quarters of our state inmate population are high school dropouts," Leno was quoted as saying by the Fresno Bee.

To the state, correlation = causation.

If kids just went to school every day there would be no crime!

[Anti Federalist]

To the state, correlation = causation.

If kids just went to school every day there would be no crime!

The solution being just as non-logical.

"There are too many people in prison, so lets pass a law to put more people in prison".

[erowe1]

To the state, correlation = causation.

If kids just went to school every day there would be no crime!

But truth be told, there might be something to that. I'm kind of glad this point was made in the article. If you've got kids who don't care about their own education and whose parents don't care about it either, then compulsory schooling won't do anything for them. But what it will do is keep them off the streets for the better part of the day. That's really what it's all about. Of course you could alternatively allow them to work, but we've already banned that since the unions don't want to compete with kids who will work for low wages.

[erowe1]

The solution being just as non-logical.

"There are too many people in prison, so lets pass a law to put more people in prison".

Yeah, but this kind of prison is cheaper than the other.

[oyarde]

uh, arent these the same people who call corporal punishment child abuse?
whip your kids, get em taken away; dont beat that ass, and they will play hookey and you will go to jail
catch-22

You have it in a nutshell.

[oyarde]

And the world gets dumber every day.

And dumber , and dumber.Really , though would you expect better from San Fancisco and Sacremento ?

[ryan14]

Check this out:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/242511

Parents can be fined if their child commits a crime. So for example if a parent chooses not to talk to their child and the child is upset by this and goes and commits a violent crime, the parent could be forced to do a parenting course or be fined.
It is not illegal to NOT talk to your child, yet the law could punish parents for this.

Is there any United Nations declaration or bill of rights that says something like:
"Law obeying people have the human right not to be punished for a crime someone else committed"

This law is like saying if your child asks you to buy him/her a car and you refuse, and then the child goes and steals someone else's car and then the parents will be punished too by having to buy their child a car or be fined if they don't.

[DamianTV]

I think we ought to pass a law that says any law (*cough* Im pointing my finger at you California) that is ruled unconstitutional should have any politicians that voted for, or wrote the law thrown in jail. While we are at it, we ought to throw all the lobbyists in jail for good measure.

[nobody's_hero]

"It's much cheaper to focus to getting that elementary school student to school than it is prosecuting a homicide,” she was quoted as saying by the Bee.


WTF does she mean by that? lmao.

Murders, rapists, and muggers running around.

But those are too expensive to prosecute so lets go after parents whose children commit TRUANCY! Only the most vile people born without a soul or conscience commit truancy.

[andrewh817]

So, there are no methods to use to "make" a kid go to school, but you go to jail if they don't.



My younger sister didn't go to school for a while and then was threatened to have a probation officer visit every morning so she started going. I don't know if they were threatening force, but obviously I wouldn't put that past the government.

[sailingaway]

I live in California and got letters from the school last year citing truancy laws because my kids got sick 3 times, once with the swine flu, for a total of more than 10 days over a semester EVEN THOUGH they had doctor's notes. Meanwhile, kids go to school sick because parents are worried about this policy, particularly the Hispanic population, according to the school nurse who says when she calls parents to take sick kids home say they 'can't' because they used up their days and they seem terrified of going to court to explain it. Where a substantial percentage of kids have parents illegally here, that result is absolutely predictable, and this program is a health hazard to the kids who have to go to school with kids kept in school even though they are sick.

In elementary school, my kids rarely got sick, and the parent culture there was that if your kid needs kleenex, he should be home. THAT worked.

Sorry for the rant; this really pisses me off.

[Danke]

http://www.cristyli.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/School-Indoctrination2.jpg

[squarepusher]

Check this out:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/242511

Parents can be fined if their child commits a crime. So for example if a parent chooses not to talk to their child and the child is upset by this and goes and commits a violent crime, the parent could be forced to do a parenting course or be fined.
It is not illegal to NOT talk to your child, yet the law could punish parents for this.

Is there any United Nations declaration or bill of rights that says something like:
"Law obeying people have the human right not to be punished for a crime someone else committed"

This law is like saying if your child asks you to buy him/her a car and you refuse, and then the child goes and steals someone else's car and then the parents will be punished too by having to buy their child a car or be fined if they don't.

in a libertarian society, if a child damages property, wont his parents also be responsible?


The reason behind this, and knowing since I was a substitute in California schools for some time, is for each attending student, each day, they get money. Yes, thats right, in fact basically my only job as a substitute was to take attendance in the classes. If a student doesn't show up, the school doesn't get government money, since its on a per student per day basis.

So, this is basically just securing school income, since having an extra kid in a classroom doesn't cost any extra, but gives them extra revenue.

[tangent4ronpaul]

The solution being just as non-logical.

"There are too many people in prison, so lets pass a law to put more people in prison".

Oh AF - you have it all wrong! This lady is brilliant! - UP THE PRISON POPULATION! Make so many things illegal that the prison population explodes and we will have no choice to create prisonvilles - we could start by building walls around LA, Miami and NYC. Since we don't have to pay min wage to forced labor, we can get by with rates of 13 cents to a 1.25 an hour - bring that pay rate right in line with the third world and stabilize the economy. Things would naturally balance out so that the elites and their servants could live the good life on the outside and the lowly shitworkers (former middle and lower class) become the slaves. It's for the good of the planet and the economy. To maintain the proper order of things.

-t

[Brian4Liberty]

I live in California and got letters from the school last year citing truancy laws because my kids got sick 3 times, once with the swine flu, for a total of more than 10 days over a semester EVEN THOUGH they had doctor's notes. Meanwhile, kids go to school sick because parents are worried about this policy, particularly the Hispanic population, according to the school nurse who says when she calls parents to take sick kids home say they 'can't' because they used up their days and they seem terrified of going to court to explain it. Where a substantial percentage of kids have parents illegally here, that result is absolutely predictable, and this program is a health hazard to the kids who have to go to school with kids kept in school even though they are sick.

In elementary school, my kids rarely got sick, and the parent culture there was that if your kid needs kleenex, he should be home. THAT worked.

Sorry for the rant; this really pisses me off.

Boy, that sucks!

I am in California too. I know leftist Democrats who love this stuff. They are true believers in a benevolent and vengeful government. They want a law for everything, for the State to take care of and punish the people that they decide need it. They are true totalitarians, and they are not able to comprehend a downside. They believe that government is their personal piggy bank and pit bull at the same time. It will always do exactly what they want, and evidence to the contrary just indicates to them that there is a Republican somewhere, who needs to be eliminated, and then their totalitarian Utopia will be complete.

[erowe1]

Reading between the lines we see that one of the hidden rationales for compulsory schooling (besides the obvious reason of indoctrination) is to keep kids off the streets, since school is cheaper than jail.

[devil21]

They've had this in NC for a while now. I see the mug shots of the parents of truant children on the local news website all the time.

[Deborah K]

Oh AF - you have it all wrong! This lady is brilliant! - UP THE PRISON POPULATION! Make so many things illegal that the prison population explodes and we will have no choice to create prisonvilles - we could start by building walls around LA, Miami and NYC. Since we don't have to pay min wage to forced labor, we can get by with rates of 13 cents to a 1.25 an hour - bring that pay rate right in line with the third world and stabilize the economy. Things would naturally balance out so that the elites and their servants could live the good life on the outside and the lowly shitworkers (former middle and lower class) become the slaves. It's for the good of the planet and the economy. To maintain the proper order of things.

-t

You're ahead of your time Nathan. ;) This would make a good movie script.

[Anti Federalist]

Oh AF - you have it all wrong! This lady is brilliant! - UP THE PRISON POPULATION! Make so many things illegal that the prison population explodes and we will have no choice to create prisonvilles - we could start by building walls around LA, Miami and NYC. Since we don't have to pay min wage to forced labor, we can get by with rates of 13 cents to a 1.25 an hour - bring that pay rate right in line with the third world and stabilize the economy. Things would naturally balance out so that the elites and their servants could live the good life on the outside and the lowly shitworkers (former middle and lower class) become the slaves. It's for the good of the planet and the economy. To maintain the proper order of things.

-t

Exactly right, there will be only two jobs in the future.

Prisoner and guard.

Pretty much the Chinese model built on the bones of 45 plus million dead.

"Oh, but it's 'free trade'".

My aching ass.

[oyarde]

WTF does she mean by that? lmao.

Murders, rapists, and muggers running around.

But those are too expensive to prosecute so lets go after parents whose children commit TRUANCY! Only the most vile people born without a soul or conscience commit truancy.

I thought she was suggesting these truant vermin were busy committing murders .

[Kludge]

In MI, at the public school I went to, they were experimenting with a nifty new policy in which you didn't have to attend so long as you had a C+ or better in the class. I was the only one to challenge how far the admin were willing to go with it and skipped school most of the time. It was a big debate among the teachers there and since I was a good student, it seemed most absurd that I should be the one abusing the policy -- It definitely caused the admin to think about the implications of what I was doing. I would regularly even drop off my homework before school started and then just leave after a quick check with teachers to see if we were doing anything interesting that day. I even ended up at a PTA meeting where I nearly shit myself. My band director just about had me shitting myself too when he pulled me aside to have a discussion about what I was doing and he started accusing me of wasting taxpayer money (the school still receives full compensation for attendance so long as we show up for "Count Day").

[oyarde]

They've had this in NC for a while now. I see the mug shots of the parents of truant children on the local news website all the time.

Mugshot ? insane .

[tangent4ronpaul]

Reading between the lines we see that one of the hidden rationales for compulsory schooling (besides the obvious reason of indoctrination) is to keep kids off the streets, since school is cheaper than jail.

It's a little bit more insidious than that. School became compulsory about the time of the industrial revolution and the pretext was that youngsters needed to have basic core competencies to work in factories and that life was different from them working on farms now. This went hand in hand with child labor laws and moving away from a time when a 12-14yo girl marrying a 30yo land owner was considered a fantastic catch. John Dewey, the creator of the Dewey Decimal system, was one of the main people behind this new educational reform. He was an elitist. Look him up. One of the goals of this new educational movement that was not too widely advertised was to prevent the common folk from getting too smart. Seems home schooling sometimes does that to you... So yes, indoctrination, dumbing us down, teaching obedience, and control are all aspects of education that remain in the system to this day.

-t

[oyarde]

And this from a state that cannot afford to pay the pensions of the prison guards they already owe .

[ryan14]

in a libertarian society, if a child damages property, wont his parents also be responsible?


No. The person who damages the property should be the only one responsible. Punish the person who committed the crime, not the innocent person. Punishing the parents for a child's crime would be like punishing a parent with jail time if a child robs a bank.

[Noob]

Family's in droves should pack up and leave California over this.

[DamianTV]

Im sorry but doing your damnedest to avoid the public socialist education system should be a priority, and no one should go to jail for trying to not indoctrinate their children in the system. Its done with the excuse of being aimed at irresponsible parents that shouldnt be having kids to begin with, and includes every homeschooler in California, and since the Federal Govt bribes the states with money on a per student basis, California is trying to pass the buck along to the parents so the state can continue to receive its Federal Bribe Money. Can that state get any more corrupt? Acutally? Forget that I asked that, I dont really want to know the answer to that question.

[moostraks]

No. The person who damages the property should be the only one responsible. Punish the person who committed the crime, not the innocent person. Punishing the parents for a child's crime would be like punishing a parent with jail time if a child robs a bank.

Have been in this loop with my eldest. thanks to the lovely intervention of social services she has played the system against us numerous times. So we have finally taken her through the juvenile justice system. We have paid ourselves for theft and destruction of our walls in an upstairs bedroom.

They would not prosecute her for filing a false allegation of child neglect so we never got any remedy for that issue and she holds the threat over our head of doing it again if we don't give her what she wants. In 5 weeks she will be 18 and if it happens again she will have to be responsible for all the grief she tries to impose. It is the privilege of youth with social services used as the pit bull. Parents walk a tight rope in today's society.

[tangent4ronpaul]

If she's that out of control - you did something wrong bringing her up. Take your share of the responsibility. What does she want, anyway?

Given the time frame, maybe the best thing you could do for her is send her to camp while she is still your "property"(sic). Boot camp. Pre-emptively, it's better than jail - assuming the behavior isn't limited to your place.

But I really don't know the situation, so just a thought based on what you said.

-t