Posted on 05/05/2015 6:35:04 AM PDT by wagglebee
ANKENY, IA, May 4, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a private e-mail exchange with a concerned parent, Republican state legislator Josh Byrnes of Iowa said there is “nothing worse than homeschool parents” making their views known on public school policy.
The statement came as Jeff Moorman took exception to a pending bill allegedly dealing with “bullying,” the “Bully Free Iowa Act of 2015” (HSB 39).
The proposal would allow school districts to monitor students outside of school hours and punish – or contact law enforcement officials and state bureaucratic agencies over – any communication it deems “bullying” – even if that behavior takes place inside a private residence or on social media. Some of these complaints may be filed without first notifying parents.
School administrators could accuse a child of bullying if any comment dealing with “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” – as well as a broad swath of categories encompassing everything from “behavior, friendship or relationship with others” to “political party preference, political belief...or any other distinguishing characteristic” – created a “hostile school environment.”
Parents are concerned this would lead to teachers and public education union employees launching surveillance of students' Facebook or Twitter accounts for stray comments about homosexuality or transgender status.
“This bill infringes on parental rights” and allows teachers to “invade [a] student's rights and privacy,” Moorman, who is part of the educational watchdog group Iowa for Student Achievement, told State Rep. Byrnes, R-Osage. Moorman said the proposal grants school officials “overreaching authority.”
Rep. Byrnes replied by asking, “Which Ankeny school are your kids part of?”
After Moorman answered his question, Byrnes wrote, “That’s good. I was making sure you didn’t h[om]e school.”
“Nothing worse than homeschool parents trying to tell us legislators how to run public schools when they don’t use them themselves,” State Rep. Byrnes wrote.
Moorman provided the e-mails to the blog Caffeinated Thoughts. The full exchange may be read here.
“Nowhere in the language of the bill does it restrict the school’s scope to just students enrolled in their school district,” wrote Shane Vander Hart, who broke the story. “Homeschooling parents have reason to be concerned.”
He also blasted Byrnes' dismissal of homeschoolers' right to have a voice in the legislative process. “Actually, there’s nothing worse than a state legislator demonstrating he lacks the maturity and temperament to serve in his current office,” he added. “It seems that the fact that homeschooling parents are taxpayers and that in itself gives them the right to weigh-in on any bill – education policy or otherwise.”
The state teachers union supports passage. Jean Hessberg, a spokeswoman for the Iowa State Educational Association, said the union would oppose any provision requiring the school district to report anti-gay or transgender “bullying” to the victims' parents, since they may not know their children were having sex with members of the same sex or choosing to identify as members of the opposite sex.
The bill's supporters are a hybrid of Republicans and Democrats. Despite the strong political backing of Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican, it has failed to pass the state legislature after numerous attempts.
I agree and I think that they should be in special schools. The difficulty in expelling students certainly needs to be remedied.
I believe the best course going forward is a voucher program for parents who either want to send their children to private schools or who homeschool. Further, these vouchers need to be for more than a nominal amount, they should be for as much as the local school system spends per student (perhaps less the cost of school maintenance and upkeep). This would enable middle class working parents with two or three children and want to homeschool to do so.
Let me be clear in saying that I DO NOT recommend that ANYONE send their children to public schools as they exist today.
Anyone who is paying for the schools should have some say in how they're run.
Well said, sitetest.
The gop wing of the uniparty is just as much of a plantation as the rat wing. It’s a two sided political shell game, and conservatives are reliable suckers in much the same way that the lib pukes are.
Sad but true. Like any shell game, the best way to win is to avoid playing.
A few things. My bride is a school teacher, and she has some insight into why this guy made the remarks (which she is totally against by the way).
1. The major source of new funding for a school district is in state and Federal funds.
2. These funds are based on the number of kids, the number of under performing kids with disabilities, and the number of kids from “disadvantaged” background.
3. However, there is also the No Child Left Behind law, which mandates improved test scores.
With that in mind, every home or private school child represents a major loss of funding. School districts have realized that people will not vote for bond issues or property tax hikes. So that leaves the state and federal funding.
The level of fear, disgust, and out and out hate leveled at home and private schooled parents is amazing. We have lost friends because we send out daughter to a religious school. We have had people call us racist(which is funny given the number of minorities at my girl’s school), anti American traitors (because the Good of the State is that all children need to be raised by the State), and a few other not so pleasant names.
This anti bullying law will end up being used against Christians and others who disagree with the State. Just like the voucher system being proposed will be used to end all religious schools.
Make no mistake, the goal is to have the State raise the kids.
Hey idiot, they probably voted for you. Guess what..they probably won't again.
No, he did not apologize. He doubled down, explaining that wouldn’t bend to the “far right”. He then backed out of a chance to explain himself on Jan Mickelson’s radio show.
Talk about simple-minded provincialism. They could use more advice from homeschool parents.
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If you have a “gender,” you are not human, nor even alive!
Gender is only for Latin nouns and threaded fittings.
If your sex is not the one you were born with, you need to have it removed.
.
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Josh Byrnes has also withdrawn from the human race, in favor of earthworm.
In some states homeschoolers report to the government schools.
The decisions concerning the education of our children need to to be made at the most local level possible
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The **family** is the “most local level possible”.
Conservatives must begin the process of privatizing government owned and run K-12 schooling. Vouchers, tax credits, charters, on-line schooling, and homeschooling and homeschool co-ops can help build the private infrastructure...But!....The goal must always be “Complete Separation of School and State.!”
It is the People's Committee of Indoctrination that has the final say. It those who are the most politically powerful who are control over the non-neutral educational worldview of **other** people's children. In no way, does the parent have the “final say”!
And....This is how privatization would work:
Vouchers, tax credits, charters, homeschooling, homeschool co-ops, and neighborhood dame schools would help build the private infrastructure.
Gradually ( over 15 to 20) middle class parents are weaned from their single-payer entitlement with government subsidy going only to the poorest.
In an almost ideal world there would be complete separation of school and state with charity paying for the poorest.
In the most ideal world, K-12 schooling would be soooooooo well endowed that no parent would ever need to pay a penny in tuition.
**Everyone*** pays school taxes, even the poorest on welfare. How?
When businesses pay school taxes that expense is passed on to the consumer in absolutely every service and product sold or used. It is a hidden tax and buried in the cost from mining of the rawest of the materials, through manufacture, the middlemen, and on to the wholesalers and retailers. These school taxes contribute to making U.S. products uncompetitive not only abroad but also here in the U.S.
Then people must live somewhere. Unless there rent is 100% subsidized by the government, school taxes are included in the rent. They must be for the landlord to remain solvent.
Where are the studies that **prove** that government schools teach anything? Really...This is a serious question. The answer is these studies have **never** been done. It is simply **assumed** that institutional and Prussian-model schooling is effective.
At no time has the amount of learning acquired in the Prussian-model classroom been compared to that acquired **in the home*** due to the efforts to the parents, family, paid and unpaid tutors, study clubs, and the child himself studying at the kitchen table.
I ask this question because it is my anecdotal observation (having worked with literally several thousand families over my career ) that academically successful children ( home and institutionally schooled) have remarkable similar home study routines, family values, and habits.
It is my anecdotal observation that academically successful children ( home or institutionally schooled) spend the SAME amount of time at the kitchen table IN THE HOME doing homework.
So?...Maybe, just maybe, we are spending up to $30,000 a year for Prussian-model government schools that are complete ineffective and it is the parents and child IN THE HOME that really doing the hard work.
It is merely assumed that government school teach anything at all and are effective.
Studies have never been done to demonstrate where academically successful children learn ( **in the home** at the kitchen table or Prussian-model classroom) or who is doing the teaching ( teacher, parent, family, friends, paid and unpaid tutors, study clubs, or the child himself doing homework).
It is entirely possible that the only think government Prussian-model schooling does is send home a very expensive curriculum that the family and child follows IN THE HOME!
But....If we eliminate government schooling homeschooling is ***not** the **only** option!
Perhaps Kindercare ( hey! the parents are already paying for babysitting!) would add 1st through 6th grade. Church school cooperatives would organize. The local karate and dance schools and soccer clubs might expand their services. Neighborhood dame schools might open.
The choices for schooling and combinations of various types of schooling might be amazingly rich in variety.
Vouchers need to be made widespread and the unions must be broken.
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An excellent place to start and most states are experimenting with vouchers, tax credits, charters, and Internet schooling and various combinations of these.
The truth is that homeschoolers are often those who are most in touch with public-school issues... and that’s why they’re homeschoolers, after all.
Why did you direct your post at me?
I don't think I claimed any learning actually happens in public schools.
sitetest
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