Posted on 02/16/2011 7:57:09 AM PST by ZGuy
A proposed Illinois bill to mandate homeschool student registration was dropped after 4,000 home schooling families flooded the state capitol to protest.
Homeschoolers and advocates from several state groups including Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE) and Home School Legal Defense showed up at Tuesday’s hearing to urge state lawmakers to leave them alone. The overwhelming response against the bill led lawmakers to reconsider the proposal.
“I would love for Sen. Maloney to understand that this is a hot potato and to leave well-enough alone,” said David Smith of the Illinois Family Institute.
Illinois is one among a dozen states where homeschooled children are not required to register with state education officials.
Chicago Democrat Sen. Edward Maloney’s proposed bill calls for mandatory registration and recognition of non-public elementary and secondary schools in order to ensure that all state students are participating a in “state approved educational institutions and programs.”
The bill would require homeschools to register their students with the Illinois State Board of Education annually.
Smith said the state is arrogant to assert that it knows better than parents. Homeschools are doing fine and do not need government help, he insisted.
“Don’t fix what’s not broken,” he proclaimed.
Still, state law requires that homeschooled students get education commensurate to in-school students. Officials say the mandatory registration would allow the state board to offer homeschooling parents educational tools and supplements.
Currently, the State Board of Education has no method to enforce the requirement unless local officials have some reason to bring the family to court.
Smith fears that mandatory registration today may mean state infringement on homeschool curriculum tomorrow.
“Illinois is one of the 10 best states for homeschooling, and we want to keep it that way,” said Smith.
Smith and ICHE had urged homeschooling families to hold a Homeschool Freedom Summit at the state Senate Education Committee hearing. According to Smith, 4,000 families came.
The crowd moved Maloney to reconsider his proposal.
The legislation "has had consequences that were beyond what I had intended," Maloney told St. Louis Today.
DB - Here’s the follow-up to your posted article “Illinois proposal would require home-schooled kids to register”
What a shame the bill ended up in Nowheresville.......ya know, the place where the bankrupt state of Illinois is firmly ensconced right now.
Leni
I bet that cash strapped Illinois was going to assess a fee for them to register as well.
Actually, the headline should have stated that the bill was “withdrawn,” not “dropped.” In legislative jargon, to “drop” a bill means to drop it in the hopper or, in other words, to introduce it.
The left will, eventually, have to “address the homeschooling problem”,
because the product of homeschooling - kids that can think, reason, and have a strong basis for their standards and beliefs,
is very dangerous to their agenda.
However, I think they understand if they don’t go about it in the right way, a lot of them will end up with high speed lead poisoning for their efforts.
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.
Reruns for homeschoolers. Shades of HR6.
:)
This is the heart of the matter.
Homeschooled children are a threat to the leftist ideology.
I wasn't able to attend due to work, but several families from our local homeschool group made the trip, and a lot more of us sent emails and phone calls. It feels good to win a round.
Fixed it for them.
:)
Unfortunately with the combine stealing the Governor's race last November, they've been really emboldened to feel they can do whatever they want to voters and face no reprecussions. I've been very disappointed with Maloney lately -- first supporting Quinn's massive tax increase, supporting the death penalty repeal, and now this.
The really sad part is he essentially runs unopposed, and has always faced no or only token "opposition" on the ballot. He was basically appointed our Senator-for-life. Every time a real, viable Republican tries to run, the combine pulls some dirty tricks and throws the guy off the ballot. Our most recent conservative GOP nominee was forced to run a write-in campaign in the last election.
This Senate district was held by one of the most conservative Illinois State Senators prior to 2003, Pat O'Malley. He was one of the "fab five" of conservative reformers who opposed the GOP establishment (along with Chris Lauzen, Steve Rauschenberger, Dave Syverson and Peter Fitzgerald) and was the conservative choice in the 2002 GOP governor primary. Of course, since the RATs took this seat, the state party has written it off and never spends a cent trying to get it back.
That's the reality of state and local politics. Those who oppose term limits on the theory that "we can term limit them ourselves at the ballot box" and want to repeal the 17th amendment because they think state legislatures care about the best interests of their citizens need to take a long hard look at how state government is actually run.
Personally I'd like to require those "states rights" conservatives spend a few months watching how my state government operates.
What requirements do they have now? Here in PA the state law mandates that you bend over and spread ‘em before your local superintendent of schools. For us, state registration would be an improvement — the state would likely require less documentation, and ignore whatever it did require. But a local school district, that loses between five and eight thousand dollars per pupil homeschooled — they can be spiteful, petty, dictatorial, punitive scoundrels.
But it always seems the criteria is different.
If we are just talking about state intervention/reg's/hoops to jump thru..etc....what are the top ten?
Excellent news. Now I’m thinking, just what need to
be done so that this sort of think is never brought up
again?
In Florida we NOTIFY our local school board that we are homeschooling.. big difference from a REQUEST to home school.. in addition we must have an annual evaluation by ANY certified teach.. of OUR choice not the governments.. this report does NOT go to the government it is for the PARENTS to know where their kids are... in most cases homeschooled kids are AHEAD of their public schooled kids.. but that is none of the governments business.. a simple letter stating that an evaluation was done and Little Jane or Little Johnnie is making progress.. PERIOD.. I would much rather this be done at the LOCAL level than at the State level..
But you don’t even have to notify the county to homeschool in Florida if you go through an umbrella school like we did. For all intents and purposes the umbrella schools are treated as private schools in this state. The Florida indoctrination system never had a clue I was homeschooling because I used an umbrella school.
“The legislation “has had consequences that were beyond what I had intended,” Maloney told St. Louis Today.”
You bet it does, and one of the consequences is that you will probably be out of a job next election cycle. Sometimes that happens to legislators who think they can easily pick on homeschoolers.
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