http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2002/Bills/A3500/4033_I1.HTM The Governor's office was conducting a tally on opinions on the homeschooling Bill A4033 on Monday. The tally is continuing into Tuesday, if you would like to let the Governor's office know you oppose A4033 and have not yet done so, please call the Capital at 609-292-6000. Thanks for your help. Please call or e mail your assemblymen and Senator too, let them all know how you feel.
This bill may not seem so earth shattering but it is in a way since it will be one of many targeting home schoolers. They do the same with many other issues, the bills snowball and sooner or later their objective is accomplished through law, administrative code and regulations.
It's the fault of DYFS that Children are being neglected and starved and not the average home-school parent.
N.J. lawmakers move to regulate home schooling
Friday, January 9, 2004
By LESLIE BRODY
New Jersey home-schoolers have bombarded Bergen County lawmakers with hundreds of e-mails and dozens of phone calls in recent days to stop any attempt to regulate how they educate their children.
Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, and Assemblyman Gordon M. Johnson, D-Englewood, introduced a bill Thursday that would require home-schooled children to undergo periodic standardized testing and annual medical exams.
New Jersey home-schoolers - long an aggressive lobbying force - immediately banded together to protest that any such measures would be a misguided, unnecessary intrusion on their parental rights.
Weinberg said she had long wanted to tighten the safety net for children whose families might be failing them, and the Jackson case in Collingswood cemented her view that home-schooled children deserve more oversight. Raymond and Vanessa Jackson were charged in October with starving their four adopted boys, who were said to be home-schooled.
Weinberg said she was also spurred by a December article in The Record about "unschooling," an extremely relaxed form of home education in which parents reject structure, planned lessons, and timetables for academic milestones. She was appalled that a few "unschooled" children don't pick up reading until they're 12.
"We're not making it illegal for kids to be home-schooled or directing curriculum," Weinberg said. "We just want to make sure kids are being protected" and taught the basics.
Home-schoolers argue that the vast majority of their children thrive academically and the Jackson case was an aberration that should not set policy. New Jersey has long been one of the most permissive states for home-schoolers. Unlike many others, it does not require home-schooling parents to file curriculum plans with local school districts or undergo annual evaluations to make sure children are learning.
Christa Grajcar, a home-schooling mother of five in Hillsdale who heads the North Jersey Home Schoolers Association, said it was unfair to impose burdensome rules on thousands of great home-schooling families because of one extreme case.
"It's Big Brother," she said. "Parents know best what their children need in 99 percent of cases."
Grajcar added that most of the home-schooling parents she knows have their children take standardized tests voluntarily to assess what they've mastered, and their children must present medical records when they sign up for camp or local sports programs.
She said more state monitoring would "add a tremendous amount of paperwork and encumbering activities that take away from teaching time," and would coerce families to change their curriculums to resemble the very public school models they're trying to escape. "Home schooling isn't broken, so why are they trying to fix it?" she asked.
The bill was referred to the Assembly Education Committee on Thursday. Weinberg said the bill is still in its early stages and home-schoolers would have ample opportunity to express their views when it reaches the committee hearing phase. She said she will resubmit the bill Tuesday at the start of the new legislative session so that it can be considered.
Weinberg said she understands there are many successful home-schooling families; her goal is to add another mechanism - beyond the state's troubled child welfare system - to detect abused, neglected, or uneducated children.
E-mail:
brody@northjersey.com Letter to the Editor:
The Assembly bill to control home school education, AB-4033, would force home-school children to submit to the same statewide assessment tests required of public school students and require their parents to give local school boards proof that students had received annual medical examinations. My family has home schooled for 16 years, and I can show that this piece of legislation is poorly researched and is intolerant of home school families.
Home-school parents carefully choose curricula that reflect children's abilities and interests. Such curricula may not necessarily coincide with what public schools teach children of the same ages. To test children based on curricula they are not using is folly.
New Jersey would lose federal money. HR-1, signed by President Bush a year ago, prohibits states from requiring that home schoolers take state assessment tests designed for public school students. New Jersey would lose federal funds if A-4033 is enacted.
To require proof of a medical exam is just plain meddling. I see this as a knee-jerk reaction to the sad inattention of the state Division of Youth and Family Services to home-schooled children in foster care.
Ruth Gervat
Westwood, Jan. 8
Coleus, boy I could rant on this one for hours, but to sum it up The Federal Goverment, State, Local & NJ NEA have more control over my local tax $$ and how it's spent and I don't have a voice in any of this except for every year Voting NO NO NO NO and they still raise my taxes and produce another lousy group of graduates that can't meet........Oh never mind, I'm beginning to rant....(note to self, turn rant valve off)
The homeschooler who called me to give me the governor's number said that the office was taking names and towns. When I called - just minutes after she did - the office said they were just taking a "tally" because "there are hundreds of you." :-)
It turned out to be a very organized effort, and homeschoolers came together on this one.