![\"wa08f43_normal\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/wa08f43_normal1.jpg?resize=200%2C200\" "\\"wa08f43_normal\\"")
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YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
\nJudge orders homeschoolers into public district classrooms
\nDecides children need more ‘focus’ despite testing above grade levels
\nPosted: March 11, 2009
\n11:25 pm Eastern<\/p>\n
By Bob Unruh
\n\u00a9 2009 WorldNetDaily<\/p>\n
A North Carolina judge has ordered three children to attend public schools this fall because the homeschooling their mother has provided over the last four years needs to be “challenged.”<\/p>\n
The children, however, have tested above their grade levels \u2013 by as much as two years.<\/p>\n
The decision is raising eyebrows among homeschooling families, and one friend of the mother has launched a website to publicize the issue.<\/p>\n
The ruling was made by Judge Ned Mangum of Wake County, who was handling a divorce proceeding for Thomas and Venessa Mills.<\/p>\n
A statement released by a publicist working for the mother, whose children now are 10, 11 and 12, said Mangum stripped her of her right to decide what is best for her children’s education.<\/p>\n
The judge, when contacted by WND,<\/a>\u00a0explained his goal in ordering the children to register and attend a public school was to make sure they have a “more well-rounded education.”<\/p>\n “I thought Ms. Mills had done a good job [in homeschooling],” he said. “It was great for them to have that access, and [I had] no problems with homeschooling. I said public schooling would be a good complement.”<\/p>\n The judge said the husband has not been supportive of his wife’s homeschooling, and “it accomplished its purposes. It now was appropriate to have them back in public school.”<\/p>\n Mangum said he made the determination on his guiding principle, “What’s in the best interest of the minor children,” and conceded it was putting his judgment in place of the mother’s.<\/p>\n And he said that while he expressed his opinion from the bench in the court\u00a0hearing<\/span><\/span><\/a>, the final written order had not yet been signed.<\/p>\n