Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) MI Driver's License-High School law

The Mitch Albom Show ^ | 2/10/03

[MIhomeschooler]

Today, on Mitch Albom's radio show, newly elected Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) MI proposed a new law tying attendance and staying in school to obtaining a driver's license. Currently, in Michigan, one is allowed to drop out of school at 16. She quoted the horrible entrance/graduation rate of Detroit high school students as evidence of a problem large enough to introduce such a law. Approximately 15,000 students enter 9th grade, with only 5,000 making it to graduation.

[MIhomeschooler]

I got on this show today to bring up the point that this could seriously affect parents who choose to homeschool. I am currently homeschooling my 15 year-old and he has just completed Segment 1 of Michigan's 3 step driver's training program. Mitch did bring up to Granholm the possible difficulties of having to force schools to report truant/drop out students to the Secretary of State (handles licensure here in MI), so I addressed it in that vein. He retorted that since one must prove that one is homeschooling properly (ie state tests for the student or certificate for the parent), the state would provide an exception. He also stated that he had nothing against homeschoolers, and personally knew people who were doing so. I guess they must not live in Michigan, since there are no such requirements here. (Yet! I'm sure if Jenny has her way, it'll change real quick!) When I pointed out to him that our state has very little in the way of documentation for homeschoolers, he queried as to how the state would know if you were properly teaching your child. My come back was quite harsh, none of their business! I told him that since the reason most people pulled their children out in the first place was due to inadequecy on the part of the school, and any parent that concerned with their child's education would undoubtably do a better job. Then I threw the obvious at him: if the goal is to get kids to stay in school, pass a law requiring them to stay in until they're 18. I said it would never pass, and that was precisely the reason for her going about it this way. Oooh! I'm so ticked!

[Jim Noble]

There is no documentation whatsoever for the theory that every American student is capable of achieving true twelfth grade academic proficiency.

Based upon historical data, it seems very unlikely.

[AdamSelene235]

Many of the intellegent folks I know dropped out of government school (sic) around age 16 and went straight to college.

[WriteOn]

The nanny state goes crazy.

[11th Earl of Mar]

Approximately 15,000 students enter 9th grade, with only 5,000 making it to graduation.

And 45 percent of the Detroit's high school graduates cannot read their drivers license.

[Jack Black]

Great. The many undereducated teens with licenses will no longer have them. Think they will stop driving? Has this stupid b*tch ever even BEEN to Detroit? She needs to see Eight Mile again. LOL.

[toenail]

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things;it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Alexis de Tocqueville

[gurkha]

We have this in Tennessee the result is a bunch of hooligans who would have dropped out stay in school and cause a lot of trouble. They also cost the school a lot of money with special ed, in school suspension etc...

[sit-rep]

Mitch Album is an A** ***E.

Why did anyone not bring up the fact that this is a Detroit problem. Why enact this law to cover the State? I am sick and tired of being ruled because of black issues...and there are a lot of laws passed directly because of the black population.

You're wasting your time even tuning that moron in. My last time was his commentary on guns. He was a half way decent sports commentaotr, but somewhere along the way, he thought he knew a lot about everything. He does not. And what is sadest, he does not know he does not know...

JMHO

SR

[Dan from Michigan]

My last time was his commentary on guns.

You're bringing back a bad memory. Mitch's columns on guns.(and a big reason I won't suscribe to the freepress)

[AmishDude]

Mitch Album is an A** ***E.

Actually, he's a DUMBA**. You see, it covers both characteristics.

[sit-rep]

I used to get calls here at the house from the News/Freepress, and the Macomb Daily. When asked to subscribe, I ask them...'Well, if I subscribe to your paper, am I going to read about (Place your favorite Clinton debacle here...), or am I going to read some left wing blather?'

After a briefe silence from the other side of the phone, the "telemarketer" comes back with an "ummm well I don't know..." I said to them in return, When you can tell me, call me back and I wll give you an answer...

Never heard from them again.

SR

[sit-rep]

I'll keep that it mind... ;^)

BTW...Are you a convert or what? "AmishDude"

I thought you guys were against technology??

SR

[ladylib]

A lot of states restrict drivers' licenses. Michigan wants to do this because raising the dropout age is going nowhere in Michigan.

[ladylib]

Contact HSLDA.org. If the state is going to do this, homeschoolers should be able to send them a letter saying that they are homeschooling according to the law of the state.

[psycho-sis]

I buy the Sunday Free Press so my husband and I have something to laugh about over coffee and donuts. Its top redeeming qualities for us are the Sports section, a good crossword and nice strong newsprint to line the kitty litterbox with.

[ladylib]

And that should be the end of it. They don't have to prove anything if the law doesn't require it. If necessary, all parents have to do is send a letter of compliance to whomever saying that they are compling in good faith with the homeschooling laws of Michigan. There's nothing to prove to anybody.

Let the governor try to get the homeschooling law changed. She'll have as much success doing that as the new state Commisar of Education did in changing the drop out age.

Don't let some dumb bell radio celebrity try to interpret the laws. Contact HSLDA.org.and let them interpret the laws for the governor and Mitch.

[sit-rep]

lol...

[AmishDude]

Click on my name below. 's just a screen name.

[sit-rep]

Huh... that reminds me... Guess I should go redo my profile since I shut my site down. lol... wonder who many scratched their heads lately.

see ya...

SR