Posted on 02/09/2005 8:20:55 AM PST by hsmomx3
Homeschoolers in several states are faced with aggressive attempts to take away their freedom. HSLDA and homeschool families are fighting back.
The majority of state legislatures have started their 2005 session, and not surprisingly the regulation of homeschooling has been a hot issue. Several states have introduced bills that would restrict the freedom to homeschool.
Attempts to Impose State Assessments on Homeschools For example, both New Mexico and South Dakota filed bills that would force homeschool students to take state-selected standardized tests in the public school or under the supervision of a certified teacher. These bills violate a federal prohibition in the No Child Left Behind Act that forbids states to require homeschoolers to take the state assessment.
Unlimited State Powers Over Homeschoolers New Jersey introduced a bill in 2004 that would give the state Board of Education virtually unlimited power to impose new restrictions on homeschoolers, force homeschoolers to take a state assessment based on public school curriculum and turn over private medical information to the public schools. The bill was defeated last year after hundreds of homeschoolers and HSLDA staged large rallies at the Capitol in opposition. It has been reintroduced at the beginning of the 2005 legislative season. HSLDA and New Jersey homeschoolers will fight hard to stop this bill.
Worst Bill of the Decade After Democrats took control of the House, Senate, and Governorship in Montana, a long-time anti-homeschool Senator filed one of the harshest bills we have seen for a long time. The bill would transform one of the best homeschool laws in the nation to one of the worst. It would require that homeschools be supervised by a certified teacher and monitored bi-annually by the school district. Among other restrictions, it would even prohibit the homeschooling of any child with developmental disabilities in spite of HSLDA studies proving that special needs students learn better in a homeschool setting. It also prohibits homeschooling by stepparents and legal guardians!
HSLDA Attorney Dee Black is working closely with Steve White head of the Montana Coalition of Homeschoolers to stop this bill. Dee plans to testify against this terrible bill in committee on Monday, February 14.
An Attempt to Turn Back the Clock An Oregon Senate bill turns the clock back by requiring families to submit a yearly notice and standardized test results to their local school district. The legislature had previously removed these requirements from the law. HSLDA Attorney Thomas Schmidt is working with the state homeschool association OCEAN to defeat this bill.
Attempts to Expand Jurisdiction over Homeschoolers Besides these legislative challenges, families are also facing major expansion of state jurisdiction over their children in Michigan, Wyoming, Hawaii, Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and Iowa. All seven of these states have introduced one or more bills expanding the compulsory attendance age in the state, thus requiring parents to comply with school regulations for longer periods of time. The goal of the teachers unions is to lower the mandatory school age to three years of age and raise it to at least 18 years old.
Believe it or not, Indiana has a bill to require children to be in school until 19 years of age!
HSLDA Legislative Team Our legal legislative team at HSLDA, headed by Senior Counsel Chris Klicka, is made up of five lawyers and six legal assistants. They are actively working around the clock to defeat all of these restrictive homeschool bills and continue to monitor hundreds of bills in all 50 states. They are also working on promoting many bills that will advance homeschool freedoms.
South Dakota Restrictive Bill Defeated The first restrictive homeschool bill to fail was in South Dakota. In below zero temperatures, Attorney Scott Woodruff traveled to South Dakota in mid-January to testify against the testing bill. He pointed out that it violated both federal law and a parent's right to direct their children's education. Hundreds of homeschoolers attended the hearing, which helped clinch the victory. The committee unanimously voted against the bill!
We stand ready to take similar action in other states to ensure that homeschool freedom is protected.
Remember, we need you to stand with us in order to fight these battles for homeschool freedoms. Without your membership, we could not exist. Thank you for your continued support!
As Benjamin Franklin once said, "We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we will all hang separately!"
send to homeschoolers on PEDL
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IMHO this is sounding like a controversy designed to make lawyers rich at student expense. In the first place education is (or should be) a state activity. We homeschool our kids with materials bought from the State of Texas school system and it's great. They send us standardized tests that are proctored by a local teacher and that helps us prove to others that we taught our kids right.
This is a fight we must all take seriously, whether you home school or not. When I hear things like this It becomes ever so clear of the attempt to indoctrinate our children. Damn this makes me mad
It's a foot-in-the-door requirement, to make homeschooling burdensome to parents, and to force the students to physically come to the public school premises.
1. A requirement that students attend annual standardized tests.
2. A requirement that students attend a two-week preparation session for annual standardized tests.
3. A requirement that homeschooled students attend a supplemental twice-yearly progress exam.
etc...
This simply is the battle between Conservatives and Liberals. Most home school families are very conservative, and most often religious, specifically Christian. Liberals want to defeat everything that these families stand for.
I choose to have my children in public school, but I am very conservative and I support families who home school.
Here in TN there is a fight starting about funding of pre-K programs (long story short--lottery money that is supposed to be for college scholarship is probably going to be used for pre-K programs). Once government starts funding pre-K programs, the government will want to make it mandatory for there to be kids in those programs. Too early for requiring children to go to school, in my opinion.
yep - but fits their findings that, even tho' heavily indoctrinated in school - kids often "revert" to the parents teachings. So they are trying to get to the kids earlier - to quote them "we must get to the children by age two, before the parents had instilled their values in them."
That should send a chill up every ones spine.
"In the first place education is (or should be) a state activity."
Show me the part of the Constitution that states the above.
"They send us standardized tests that are proctored by a local teacher and that helps us prove to others that we taught our kids right."
That's a subjective measure, do you really want that out of your hands?
What's the point of homeschooling if you aren't going to take advantage of the unlimited amount of good educational resources available and just do the same thing that the local school is doing? That seems boring to me...jmo.
Homeschool Bump!
Thanks for the ping. I just finished reading this in email and then checked FR... and there you were.
Some courts have accepted the 10th amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved tot he states, respectively, or to the people.
And others haven't. To me, the amendment means that since education wasn't mentioned any where else, it becomes local business. That was in the late 1700's. Since then, the US found out that in order to survive it needed an educated population. So along with bearing arms (second amendment) the nation's young men needed to be physically fit (Eisenhower 1958) and know how to read a the latest tank operator's manual.
Bottom line: a good legal case can be made to keep the feds out of the 'ed biz'. OTOH, since the first rule is that the country also has to survive, the feds in cooperation with the people, will do what ever suits 'em..
There's no rule that says that a parent in Amherst can't buy Tex materials for homeschooling thus avoiding the homosex math. All doom'n'gloom hype aside, there's never been a homeschooling parent in Mass that's gone to jail solely because of homosex math education.
Maybe I'm a bit slow on the sarcasm pick up today, but you've got to be kidding. You can't possibly be serious.
The curriculum used in public schools today is a PC riddled, homosexual promoting, revisionist, godless mash that is assembled by committees. It is boring, filled with error, and outright lies. Why use the govt. pablum when there are better things to use to instruct your children?
It is a new world out there, a world that needs leaders, thinkers, and conscientious citizens, not people trained to be factory workers and mind-numbed followers of the godless state. The school systems are 50 years behind the modern world. If you are using public school standards, you're putting your children behind from the start.
I apologize for coming on so strong. It's just that your statement was breathtaking in its naivety. You can read books by John Taylor Gatto for a more informed view of how the state schools operate. He was teacher of the year in the state of NY. He gives real eye opening information about how the school systems work.
Homeschoolers are at a disadvantage in state tests. Most homeschoolers do not learn all Science from an environmentalist wacko point of view. Or learn History from a America is always wrong point of view. Or Social Studies from a Gay/Lesbian is the preferred lifestyle point of view.
Many school districts and states test these sorts of topics in their "standardized tests" that they wish for homeschoolers to take.
We were talking 'apples' and 'hand grenades'. I was talking about how (constitution wise) the state government can pass a law regulating education for kids and the feds can't. [My post 15 gives my reasoning why survival trumps the constitution.]
As far as what's the best way to teach kids, that depends on individual situations. We used to send our kids to public and private schools because it seemed easier to pay someone to find all the books, give the tests, etc. We started teaching our kids at home when we moved out to live in the jungle. Now we've learned that when we teach the kids, they get taught right -- kind of like why we do our own plumbing work too.
We've also found that teaching the kids at home is also easier and cheaper than what we had, but (like I said) other people may have other situations.
Just as they always do ...."if only we had more money"
Translation from the "state"...so both of you parents just work 14 hours a day pay lots of taxes to the "state" and let us take care of the kids. Like Hitler said to parents..."we have them 8 hrs 6 days a week - what are you?
My guess is they hope to bring up school district test scores.
My school district puts their own info on and then labels as "homeschool" somewhere on the paper, but the statistics probably show up on their school stats.
The internet can be a valuable resource for some subjects. You just have to be sure to verify what sites have for information.
Having said all that, my children take standardized tests each year for our own purposes. Even so, I am not concerned when my son gets 3 out of 13 ecology questions correct (mostly global warming and man's effect on ecosystems). He does tend to be 3+ years ahead of his peers per his test results.
I fully expect most states to start requiring that home-schooled kids will have to go to their local government schools when the standardized tests are given and participate. Why? Because the best students in every state are homeschooled and they would dearly LOVE to count those scores in with their mediocre ones. Homeschoolers ought to fight every infringement on their rights as parents to educate their children. The children do NOT belong to the government that allows children to be killed up to and including their birth.
Morality isn't everything. We also have to deal with what is. Napoleon figured out that he could raise mass armies of virtually every single man in the nation. Fifty years later Otto von Bismark figured out that universal compulsory education meant that he could raise a mass army smart enough to beat France's. All existing powerful nations today have both compulsory education and the draft (at least standing by). The rest seem to be professional victims or terrorists.
I like that.....Can I use it?
We won and now Maine is one of the top Home Schooling states - without interference.
I have been inactive for many years - I remember this quote exactly, but can't remember the book.
You might be interested in this site:
http://www.uhuh.com/education/deathed.htm
Charlotte is one that I worked closely with - and she is still at it. She may even be able to cite the source of the quote. She is tireless and has done incredible work toward stopping communism from totally taking over the schools and our kids.
Her site has many valuable links...
This is why I contend that making it easy to outsource technical jobs will destroy our country. If there is no incentive to study engineering, where will the advanced weapon systems and civilian infrastucture come from? Our good buddies overseas?
There really does seem to be a plot to subvert America's edge. They even go so far as to attempt to convince people that educating children is not the parent's responsibility.
What state requires all that?
You might want to avoid being sure of things that are not true. I'm used to the fact that lots of people don't want laws forcing people to educate their children. Some don't bother even if it means they go to jail--- there are some parents in jail who were found to have just fed and clothed their kid and then locked the little crapper in a box. Most people (and I) say it's right to lock up those parents as child abusers because education is as important as food and clothes.
There're laws to force a parent to teach the kid how to talk, walk, eat with a spoon, and use a toilet. The consensus in the civilized world is that the state has a role in protecting those who can't protect themselves. Anyone who doesn't agree ends up having to deal with the consequences of this very real world that we live in
The consensus of the civilized world goes even farther to say that if you have kids and don't make sure they learn the three 'r's then you got no business making babies. Of course I'm resigned to the fact that there're lots of people tossin' sperm around without giving a damn what happens who're not part of the civilized world. That's ok, their kind are a dying breed.
INTREP - Homeschooling ALERT
I think most homeschoolers would fail these so-called tests unless parents have trained them what to look for.
I recently downloaded some sample AIMS tests for different grades that govt. school students must pass. The wording was pure psychobabble and confusing. They do it on purpose to make the kids fail and then they can ask for more money. And it works everytime. Parents keep on voting for more money to be given to the schools.
By that logic, shouldn't the 2nd Amendment mean that it is the government's responsibility to give me a gun, bullets, and training? Freedom of Education, yes. Free education? No. Education is no more important than healthcare, do you support that being the state's responsibility?
During a war the government hands out uniforms and guns. During the '20's there were some countries like Luxemburg and Norway that felt they could just "rise above it all", but during the next decade they found out how the real world worked.
Over the centuries all kinds of armies have been tried out. IMHO what seems to have been working the best, is having a bunch of literate 18 year olds available so you can draft them when you want them. The huge national mobilization that nations had to undergo during WWII left some countries with a belief that national survival even meant national health care. Porter's book was one of many that documented this political bent, but (once again IMHO) the past 50 years showed that health care wasn't the kind of defense issue that education was.
I'm describing what is, not necessarily what I like. If you don't like it then that's fine, there's lots of things I don't like too. If your opinion differs form mine as to what is, then I'd be interested if you can cite news links, historical examples, etc.that point in other directions. OTOH, I'd imagine it would be difficult to show where illiteracy has been good for national defense.
I'll agree with you, but not for the reason you suspect. Here in Massachusetts, a lot of the programs I encounter (I'm a tutor and Math SAT prepper) are geared toward specifically one goal....success on the state tests.
Now, the Republican fave Governor Romney, came up with a new wrinkle...anyone who scores in the top 20%ile gets free tuition at state colleges...all levels. That would mean that students who don't take those tests, like private school students (home study, too?) lose that advantage.
I take that to be a devious way to destroy non-public education.
Isn't this the same governor who might run for President?
They're con artists, pure and simple.
They're con artists, pure and simple.
Maybe if HSLDA wasn't legally incompetant, I'd care what they had to say.
They're con artists, pure and simple.
If you knew what you were talking about and could spell maybe we would care what you had to say.
It is. And, this program is very popular with wealthy decision makers. High test scores correlate very highly with living in a wealthy community, where less resources have to be used getting the educationally needy to pass.
He's giving his well-heeled friends free tuition for their kids at UMass Amherst. The tradeoff?....gonna have to forsake that non-public education to take the test.
Keep a very close eye on Romney. I'm not in the fan club, but I haven't tossed away the application, either.
For most home schoolers, the primary focus is on character. Once the children master self-discipline, the rest is easy. After they learn to read, they can pretty well educate themselves, if given a little guidance, encouragement, direction, and feedback. We purchased specialized classes for our oldest two kids at a local cafeteria-style school sponsored by our church (www.kpic.org) in english lit, physics, and chemistry. they're dean's list students at the public school they finally started attending, NC State University.
Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. I'm intimately familiar with a case they bungled. They left a defendant off their complaint - a defendant a first year law student would realize should be included - and therefore left my best friend with no legal remedy.
and could spell
Yeah, sure. No one else ever misspells around here.
How about testing home school students to determine that they're literate? Like, there's good home schoolers and bad ones just like there're good private schools and bad ones.
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