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California Senate Approves Bill That Could Jail Parents if Kids are Chronically Truant

Yesterday, the California Senate approved a bill that would hold parents responsible if their children are chronically truant.  The bill would let prosecutors charge parents with misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and $2,000 fine if their kids miss too much school.  Chronic truancy would be defined in a separate pending bill as missing 10 percent or more of the school year without a valid excuse.

The new law would apply only to parents or guardians of children age 6 or older in kindergarten through eighth grade.  Prosecutors would have to prove the parents failed to reasonably supervise and encourage the student to attend school.  Judges could delay the punishment to parents as an incentive to get their children to class.

State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), said his bill, SB 317, is a public safety measure because children who do poorly in school or drop out are more likely to commit crimes.  “Three-quarters of our state inmate populations are high school dropouts,” Leno said.  San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for Attorney General, sought the truancy legislation.

I strongly support parents being involved in the education of their children.  I believe that it is the duty of a parent to try to instill good study habits in their kids and emphasize the importance of a good education.  But I also understand reality.  If a child does not want to learn, then no matter how hard the parents might try to get them to attend class and pay attention, it simply won’t work.  An unmotivated child will not learn.  And especially at the junior high level, a parent who is miles away at work while their child is at school will have a difficult time preventing their child from cutting class.

Putting a parent in jail for their child’s truancy will do nothing to fix the situation.  If anything, it would only make things worse.  With the parent in jail, who is going to watch the child?  The kid will simply wind up sliding even further into the depths of society.

And for Senator Leno to equate poor school attendance with higher crime is misguided.  Correlation is not the same as causation.  Leno is insinuating that a lack of school attendance leads to crime.  Well, I would argue that it is the poor moral character of the child that comes first.  It is exactly that character defect in the child that causes them to both skip out on class and commit crimes.

Education is a privilege.  The means to get an education are available and provided by the government.  In order to get a proper education, it requires a willingness on the part of the student to want to learn.  No matter how hard a parent tries, if the kid doesn’t want to be there, the kid will not learn anything.  At that point, one has to wonder whether keeping such a student in class is even worth is.  Why not allow the unmotivated student to remain separate from those who actually take their education seriously?  That would mean one less distraction in the classroom for the other students and one fewer troublemaker for the teachers to have to deal with.  If the parent wants to fight hard to motivate the student to turn their life around and get an education, that’s great.  If not, then that’s something for that family to deal with.

The government needs to realize that not every child is cut out to be an excellent student.  We need to stop wasting our energy on those who are unwilling to put forth the necessary effort to succeed in life.  Instead of punishing parents for the bad decisions on the parts of their kids, we should focus on giving those who are trying their best every possible avenue to succeed.

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