Restrictive Homeschool Legislation to be introduced Thursday (NJ)

email | 1/6/03 | Scott Woodruff, HSLDA staff attorney

[agrace]

Please see reply 149 for updated information. AM

From the HSLDA E-lert Service...

January 6, 2004

Dear HSLDA members and friends:

A bill that would force New Jersey homeschool children to submit to the same statewide assessment tests required of public school students, and force their parents to give the local school board proof the student had received an annual medical examination, is set to be introduced in the New Jersey legislature this Thursday.

The bill would also give the State Board of Education power to impose regulations on homeschool families. Homeschooled students would be forced to take the assessment tests in a public school. (For full text of bill, go to http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=1257)

Your help is needed immediately to convince the sponsors of the bill, AB 4033, that it should NOT be introduced.

Action Requested

1. Immediately call all the sponsors of the bill (contact information is below).

2. Explain to them that the bill should NOT be introduced. Your message can be as simple as, "Please withdraw as sponsor of AB 4033 and do all you can to prevent it from being introduced as planned this Thursday. The bill violates federal law and could cause the loss of federal money."

3. Pass this message along to others.

Contact information for sponsors:

1. Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg (D) (201) 928-0100 , AswWeinberg@njleg.org

2.Assemblyman Gordon M. Johnson (D) (201) 541-1118, AsmJohnson@njleg.org

3. Assemblywoman Joan M. Quigley (D) (201) 217-4614, AswQuigley@njleg.org

Reasons to Oppose AB 4033

1. HR 1, signed by President Bush exactly one year ago, prohibits states from requiring that homeschoolers take the state assessment designed for public school students. New Jersey would lose federal funds if AB 4033 is enacted, since it violates this requirement.

2. State assessment tests are designed to test material taught in the public school curriculum. Homeschool children do not use the public school curriculum. It would be unfair to test them on material not covered in their individual homeschool programs.

3. The statute does not say what score is needed to "pass." The Board of Education however, may have power under the bill to determine the passing score. A passing score imposed by a bureaucracy would not take into account the individual learning characteristics and abilities of each unique child.

4. No state requires an annual medical examination for homeschoolers.

5. This bill is being introduced at the very end of the legislative session, and it is highly unlikely it would pass before the session ends in a few days. Often bills introduced at the end of a session are to "test the waters" for filing the bill in the next session. We need to send a "tidal wave" message that this bill should not be introduced-now or ever.

Thank you for standing with us for freedom in New Jersey!

Sincerely,

Scott Woodruff

HSLDA Staff Attorney

[BJungNan]

I agree with you. Actually, my comment was intend to call their bluff.

I figured that is what you meant. I was merely adding to your thought.

[Coleus]

The problem with this bill is that it "mandates" "annual physicals" for homeschoolers and "exempts" mandatory "annual" pysical examinations for public schoolers. Millions go with NO exams while the few homeschooled children are "required" for annual exams?? No, this bill is an affront to homeschooling which has nothing to do for the health of a child. Marxism at its best.

[Salvation]

Don't worry about the tests. Just take them. Your kids will score higher and higher and higher than the public schools anyway.

Who has been winning the national geography bees? Spelling bees? Etc.?

The homeschooled students, and it drives the public schools administrators nuts.

Keep up the good work.

[Salvation]

**This has nothing to do with the childs education , its all about School Boards losing power and money.**

They want the FTE (FTE=Full time equivalent) one child in school for one day = 1 FTE

Why?

Because dollars to school districts are awarded according to the FTE!

[fatima]

agrace,Med exams ,My kids did them,Med exams would have helped those kids.

[agrace]

That has NOTHING to do with the issue. It is a strawman. The real issue is that competent DYFS workers would have helped those kids. The issue is that homeschoolers shouldn't be singled out for special medical requirements - not demanded of anyone else, not public school students, not private school students - because DYFS failed to protect some kids who just so happened to be homeschooled.

Why not write the legislation to reflect the real problem? Require annual medical exams for all foster kids. Doesn't that make more sense?

[Coleus]

A1918

New Jersey--Hearing on  A1918 Postponed


Thank you for the phone calls!  We believe they had an impact.

The hearing on A1918 has been removed from the May 6 agenda of the Education Committee, although we cannot yet be certain of the reason. If you called and were unable to get through to your assemblyperson, you may wish to simply wait. We do not believe more calls are needed at this time. When we have new information, or when the hearing is rescheduled, we will notify you. 

The Education Committee is scheduled to meet again May 17.  It is possible the bill could receive a hearing then.

Sincerely,

Scott A. Woodruff, Esq.
HSLDA Staff Attorney

 

 

 

New Jersey--Urgent:Calls Needed Immediately to Keep Homeschooling
Free


Dear HSLDA members and friends:

On Thursday, May 6, at 2:00 p.m., a bill that would devastate homeschooling in New Jersey will have a hearing in the Assembly Education Committee.

We need your calls now and your attendance at the committee hearing this Thursday!

Bill A1918 would force homeschool children to take the same curriculum-based statewide assessments that public school children take, give private medical information to local public school systems, and give the New Jersey Board of Education virtually unlimited power to impose additional restrictions. 

The public hearing on the bill will be in room 16 on the 4th floor of the Statehouse Annex in Trenton. 


Action Requested:

1. Please call your Assemblypersons immediately if they are listed below and ask them to oppose A1918. Your message can be as simple as,

"Please oppose A1918. This bill violates federal law and will damage the fundamental parental rights thousands of law abiding families who homeschool in New Jersey. The law already requires parents to give their children adequate medical care. The law already requires homeschool parents to give their children an education equivalent to what they would receive in public school. That is sufficient. Don't punish thousands of parents for the failure of the Department of Youth and Family Services to protect the Jackson children in Collingswood." 

If neither of your Assemblypersons are listed below, call the Chair of the Committee, Craig A. Stanley, and give him the same message.

2. Come to Trenton and attend the hearing on Thursday. We need an overwhelming turnout to persuade this committee that the bill should die. They need to see that homeschoolers care about their freedom. Parking may be a challenge, so plan ahead.

I plan to testify in opposition to the bill.

3. Call other homeschoolers and encourage them to help us fight this battle.  Every homeschooler is needed.

Assembly Education Committee Contact Information:

Chairman Craig A. Stanley  973-399-1000
Patrick J. Diegnan  908-757-1677
David R. Mayer  609-298-6250
Robert Lewis Morgan  732-741-5599
Nellie Pou   973-247-1555
Joseph Vas   732-324-4955
Joan M. Voss   201-346-6400
David W. Wolfe  732-840-9028

Background:

Reasons to Oppose A1918:

1. Federal law prohibits states from requiring that homeschoolers take a state assessment designed for public school students. New Jersey would lose millions of dollars of federal funds if this bill is enacted, since it violates this requirement. 

2. State assessments test material taught in the public school curriculum. Homeschool children do not use the public school curriculum. It would be unfair to test them on material they do not study.

3. Statistics show that higher regulation--such as mandatory testing-- does not help homeschool students. Studies show that homeschoolers score 20 to 30 percentile points higher than others students. Forcing them to take tests when their performance has already been proven is senseless.

4. It would give the Board of Education power to define-and thus entirely control--homeschooling. Parents could be transformed overnight into criminal suspects by Board regulations that define "homeschooling" in a way that prohibits them from doing what have been doing successfully for years.

5. Forcing families to prove their children have received a medical examination is an invitation for the state to interfere in family medical issues.

6. Neither public nor private school students are required to receive annual medical examinations.

7. No other state requires an annual medical examination for homeschoolers.

8. This bill is a knee-jerk reaction to the highly publicized case in Collingswood where the Jackson family allegedly starved their children. If true, the blame lies with DYFS.  They were in the family's home over 30 times and never noticed a nutrition problem. DYFS should be punished, not homeschoolers. There is absolutely no evidence that homeschool parents are more likely to neglect their children than anyone else.

Thank you for rising to the challenge to defend homeschool freedom.

Sincerely,

Scott A. Woodruff, Esq.
HSLDA Staff Attorney

 

Last Session Bill Number:    Weinberg, Loretta   as Primary Sponsor
1/26/2004 Introduced, Referred to Assembly Education Committee Introduced - 2 pages PDF Format    HTML Format

[lakey]

Thanks for the update.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

What a joke. Subjecting American children to the psychopolitics of totalitarian, secular humanist, statist education is absurd. The constitution grants no such authority.

[I still care]

This is just a way of the state trying to find a way to reassert control over a child that has been removed from its control by the parents.

One of the basic philosophies of homeschooling is that the government is not responsible for educating and raising your children, you are. This goes against the socialist mode.

They don't like it that way. Start reading on a regular basis the HSLDA website. You can see how so much is a "wedge" issue, to try and get their foot in the door and get more control over your kids. It KILLS the socialists that they cannot control the content of what your kids learn. Several states have actually come to the point where they don't want kids taught Christian curriculum.

If you spend some time listening to these people, they REALLY resent homeschooling. They complain the kids are being raised not to be "diverse", to understand other lifestyles, to not be environmentalists and evolutionists, etc.

One of the necessary subjects you MUST teach in NY, even to homeschoolers, is AIDS, kindergarten to high school. It's the law. Maybe I don't want to teach my 6 year old about AIDS.

As far as physicals go, why should the state mandate when you take your kids to the doctor? Some states, while they have them there, will recommend that the children are asked questions like are there guns in the home, etc. It's their foot in the door.

And by testing, they can start requiring what your children must learn. After all, kids are tested on what the liberal socialists think is necessary for them to know, not what you do.

Once you start following homeschooling law, you will see there is a dedicated contigent in the education communitity to get your homeschooling child away from you, by law, by hook or by crook. They want your child. Don't let them fool you with nice words. They are as dedicated as the secularists working hard to get God out of American life.

They lose money (cannot tax you) for any child they don't have. And they cannot implement their agenda if they can't form your children.

I know this is long winded, but this is no "tin hat" tirade. It is the deadly truth. Last year some CA education officials were actually caught boasting they would make homeschooling in CA illegal.

People have been, and are still going, to jail for hsing. The fight will never be really over.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

You can't accept "state money" without strings. In Canada (as noted here on FR in an article last week), homeschooling parents accepted $600/year if they would bring their children to a public school one day a week for studies. Of course, the school system was allowed to keep the FULL $5900~ funding for the child as if the child was a full-time student, so it appeared to be a win-win situation. Ahhh, beware the carrot dangling...

All was fine for a while, then the Canadian government came out with a ridiculous mandate that "homeschooling families that accepted the $600 were forbidden to teach religion to their children," because the public school children were not allowed to be taught any religion.

You can imagine the outrage, and the response from the families.

Homeschoolers should never accept sweet "deals" from the government that seem too good to be true. The old axiom still holds.

[TxBec]

update ping.

[ladylib]

The only way it will be over is if there is a law mandating that states will lose federal money if they maliciously harrass homeschoolers.

Homeschoolers are exempt from provisions under NCLB. States who try to make homeschoolers comply with it risk losing federal funds.

[2Jedismom]

8. This bill is a knee-jerk reaction to the highly publicized case in Collingswood where the Jackson family allegedly starved their children. If true, the blame lies with DYFS. They were in the family's home over 30 times and never noticed a nutrition problem. DYFS should be punished, not homeschoolers. There is absolutely no evidence that homeschool parents are more likely to neglect their children than anyone else.

Updated...Click here.

[BibChr]

There is absolutely no evidence that homeschool parents are more likely to neglect their children than anyone else

My nomination for understatement of the day... or more.

Dan

[mware]

McGreedy doing the bidding of the NJEA.

[King Black Robe]

Amazing.

[yoe]

BUMP!

This could happen in your state!
Home schooled children are by far better educated than public school children in many states. What are these politicians so afraid of - they won't get the teacher's vote? That is the bottom line - not the education of your children, but votes to remain in office.

[quietolong]

This is not a "Win" yet! The symptom was only treated. The disease still Goes happily on. These people are still in power. Along with the emails start a recall. Or otherwise work to remove these people

Look at what most of these people ended up doing!

The Weather Underground (PBS Documentary about The Weathermen)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1125867/posts

Independentlens The Weather Underground
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/index.html

[StarCMC]

What are these politicians so afraid of - they won't get the teacher's vote?

Even more threatening than that, our children may actually learn to think for themselves so that they are not easily led like a bunch of sheep to do the bidding of those in charge. Sort of throws a monkey wrench into their grand scheme!! (IMHO!)