). Parents who are being prosecuted for instructing their children at home are attacking compulsory school attendance statues on constitutional grounds. Although no case dealing specifically with home instruction has yet reached the Supreme Court, the increased activism of the home school movement may produce a ruling in the near future (Lines, 1996). Constitutional challenges have been based on the First or Fourteenth Amendment. In many of the home instruction cases' parents have removed their children from school for religious reasons. These parents argue that they have a highly protected First Amendment freedom to educate their children according to their religious percepts and values. The most recent court decisions provide consistent continued confirmation of the Yoder decision. In Howell v. State (1986), Texas' intermediate appellate court rejected Yoder protection for parents who argued that their religious conviction was to educate their children at home (Richardson, Zirkel, 1991). In State v. Schmidt (1987), the Ohio Supreme Court held that the state's explicit-exceptions statute, which requires that home education programs be approved by the local superintendent, did not violate the free exercise clause. Another religious issue has surfaced when parents have challenged the constitutionality of requirements concerning the qualifications of the home teacher (Richardson, 1991). A few states including Michigan require all teachers in home school to possess a teaching certificate. This requirement in Michigan was challenged in 1980, 1986, and 1991. In Hanson v. Cushman (1980), the federal district court found the statute to be reasonable because the parents had not proven that any of their fundamental rights had been violated. In the private school case of Sheridan Road Baptist v. Department of Education (1986), other Michigan parents challenged the certification requirement as a burden on the free exercise of religion. This was re...
