The home is not an extension of the state and home schools are not an extension of state schools. The home (i.e., the family) is prior to the state, hence, the state exists to serve families when needed and appropriate.

State law already recognizes this important relationship in the arena of education. Public education is in the service of families, not the other way around. Children are not assumed to be wards of the state; they are assumed to be the sole responsibility of parents.

But clearly, from the Tribune's opinion, not everyone believes this. Nearly every contentious education debate is divided along ideological lines. On one side are the disciples of John Dewey who still believe that coercive schooling is essential for democracy (i.e., we must be forced to be free). On the other side are the disciples of Thomas Jefferson (and Brigham Young) who enshrine education but not coercive schooling.

Call our contentions by any other name, but this division among dead white men and their living disciples remains the real conflict.

This division has caused an ongoing schizophrenia in our education laws, a constant tug of war over the control of children. Most of us are innocent bystanders. Many of us are war-time casualties. But none of us can escape these forces.

SB59 represents a tug in the direction of parental rights over the education of their children. It is a tug away from smothering state paternalism.

The Tribune editors are astute in recognizing an underlying spirit of SB59: The state has no interest in home and private schools. The Utah Constitution regarding education applies to public schools alone. No where does it mention home or private schools. And why would it? We are a free people. No one should be forced to attend a government school.

SB59 codifies current rules regarding home school families. Forced state testing of home-schooled children is a straw man; it does not currently exist for SB59 to preclude. SB59 simply reinforces the fundamental liberty interest that our state and United States Constitutions afford parents regarding the education of their children.

I commend the Tribune editors for engaging the central debate in education. Lasting solutions to needless education contentions force us to recognize the true state interest in education - the establishment of a public school system for those families that choose it and the autonomy of all families that choose otherwise.

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Paul T. Mero is president of the Sutherland Institute, a conservative public policy group.