Imagine a Texas family having their children stripped away just because a family member or neighbor calls the police/CPS on your family for being home-schooled. Sounds crazy in 2018 doesn't it? However, Texas was not always a Pro- Parent Choice state! It was a hard fought battle that lasted over a decade. As quiet as it is kept if not for a Strong Black Family with an educated voice Texas could still be persecuting families. Please let me introduce you to Dr. Helen Jackson.
Then, Helen Murray lived in poverty and was passed around from family member to family member. Her grandmother only having the 8th-grade education was her last caretaker. Despite her socio-economic issues she excelled in school. Unfortunately, she did not have the resources to go straight to college. She married early and left her abusive husband of several years with her three children.
Engineering degree in hand she accepted a career with NASA and moved to Texas in 1983. Her oldest son Malik was having issues in school and was withdrawn. In the fall of 1983, she resigned from NASA and began homeschooling her children. Not long after making the decision to home-school NASA calls and gives her the news that she has been accepted into their Astronaut training program. She had applied years earlier and forgot about it. Now, she faced the decision of a lifetime: Become the first African-American female astronaut or Home School her children Baqiyyah, Malik, Isa, and Zakiya. She chose her children over becoming an astronaut for NASA.
Fast forward to her groundbreaking testimony in the case Leeper v. Arlington ISD (initially filed in March 1985) which would change home-school families' lives as we knew it. 19 districts with their attorneys calling parent after parent who home-schooled to the stand to testify. Their whole case was that Texas parents were not educated enough to educate their children. Then here comes this young mother named Helen Jackson (who met and married her husband who was an Engineer at NASA) to take the stand. With one question and answer, Texas Home School would never be the same. Below is a video of the home-school attorney remembering the impact of Dr. Helen Jackson's testimony. (Starts at the 1 hour mark)
“I was an aerospace electronics engineer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration—and was accepted to be an astronaut candidate.”
This was the answer no one expected from this young black mother when the attorneys asked about her educational background and work history. With this one response, the judge held back laughter and the tide turned to victory for the families fighting for their right to choose how their children were to be educated. After close to 10 years of court proceedings, the Texas Supreme court voted 9-0 in favor of homeschooling. There is no doubt Dr. Helen Jackson's testimony was a guiding force for this landmark court decision. May her name never be forgotten and written in the stars.
Now you may be asking is Homeschooling right for me? There are many variants of homeschooling. You also need to know the requirements for your own state. First, if you have to keep your children in public school for various reasons you can supplement their curriculum at home with topics and subjects you feel as a parent are not being addressed in their schools. This is legal and you cannot be persecuted for this. A great place to start is www.HSLDA.org/content/laws. As of the date of this article, the states requiring no notice are Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Texas. The complete list is on the HSLDA page. Another resource we use because we are not religious is The Secular Homeschool. It does take sacrifice. It does take patience. However, the time you take with your children is priceless.
Sahara Wisdom is the Founder of U-N-I-Verse Academy. She is the mom of two Autistics whom she Home Schools proudly in Texas.