Posted on 01/13/2010 3:40:22 PM PST by Sopater
Today, the New Hampshire House of Representatives resoundingly rejected a draconian homeschool proposal by voting 324–34 to maintain the current law. “Winning by such a significant margin is welcome relief for New Hampshire homeschool families,” said Mike Donnelly, staff attorney for HSLDA.
Rank and file Democrats joined Republicans to support homeschoolers when Democratic leaders did not oppose Education Chair Emma Rouse (D) and Representative Judith Day (D) from using House procedures to bring a vote to the floor of the whole House.
A bipartisan legislative study committee had already rejected the proposed new homeschool regulations by a vote of 14–6. The rejected proposal would have required that every homeschooled student be tested every year and a portfolio review be conducted for every student. Test scores would have been sent annually to the New Hampshire Department of Education who would also have been granted sweeping rule making authority.
“It was a real surprise when Democratic leaders collaborated to bring these major changes to the floor for a vote, especially since the very same proposal had already been soundly rejected by their own committee,” said Donnelly.
The victory was made possible by thousands of homeschool families from all over New Hampshire working diligently alongside HSLDA and Christian Home Educators of New Hampshire to educate their representatives about the threat to homeschool freedom.
Homeschool families participated in rallies, called their legislators, wrote letters, as well as walked the corridors of the state house to show their opposition.
“Thankfully, New Hampshire homeschoolers responded to the threat. It was an incredible effort by an amazing group of people,” said Donnelly.
Homeschool ping...
Would it be fair to thank the libertarians & Free Staters of NH for this (temporary) victory to a certain degree?
mark for later reading
Required Home School Testing...by Public Schrool folk? BIZARRE!
Aren't these the people that banned red ink because it might make little Suzy cry? ......and the same folks that propose elimination of grades A thru F.....because grades make little Johnny "feel' inferior?
Thousands of homeschoolers, huh? If the legislature passed that travesty of a bill, I would hope that thousands of homeschooling parents would decide on Friday afternoon that their homeschooling children should enroll en masse in the public schools of New Hampshire that following Monday. That would give the public school system a couple of days to figure out how to handle the influx.
Congratulations! The entire country will benefit from your hard work.
Yee haw! Glad to see homeschoolers are still making themselves heard. Reminds me of the good old days. :-)
It takes some serious political incompetence to force a floor vote on your pet bill when it's clearly going to get clobbered by an embarrassing margin.
Are you a veteran from 1994’s HR6. I am :-D
Yes, we are. I still remember a Republican representative saying that if they ever wanted to receive a lot of calls on a bill, they would include “homeschooling” in the title. ;-)
Big Daddy doesn’t like it when some of his children are unruly.
This ping list is for articles of interest to homeschoolers. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping List. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added or removed from either list, or both.The keyword for the FREE REPUBLIC HOMESCHOOLERS’ FORUM is frhf.
Good news...
LOL!
Excellent. We worked to get a similar bill from even coming before the WV state senate. We put so much pressure on the author of the bill that she pulled her support for her own bill LIVE on the Tom Roten morning show in Huntington. She was on the air with a rep from HSLDA.
She wanted to give us access to sports in PS. In exchange we would lose our portfolio option. Every student would have to test every year and if a student failed they had to enroll in public school. No remediation allowed, no private school allowed. Scary stuff that they think up.
I have a friend who’s daughter in NH has 10 or 11 children she has been homeschooling for the last 15 or so years. (while she also obtained a degree and ran a home business!) This is good news!
BTTT
Don’t get me wrong. This is great and all but I wish we didn’t have to define victory as maintaining the status quo. The NH home school law is statist to begin with.
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