Homeschooling Under Fire in 2005 Legislative Sessions

Homeschoolers in several states are faced with aggressive attempts to take away their freedom. HSLDA and homeschool families are fighting back.

The majority of state legislatures have started their 2005 session, and not surprisingly the regulation of homeschooling has been a hot issue. Several states have introduced bills that would restrict the freedom to homeschool.

Attempts to Impose State Assessments on Homeschools For example, both New Mexico and South Dakota filed bills that would force homeschool students to take state-selected standardized tests in the public school or under the supervision of a certified teacher. These bills violate a federal prohibition in the No Child Left Behind Act that forbids states to require homeschoolers to take the state assessment.

Unlimited State Powers Over Homeschoolers New Jersey introduced a bill in 2004 that would give the state Board of Education virtually unlimited power to impose new restrictions on homeschoolers, force homeschoolers to take a state assessment based on public school curriculum and turn over private medical information to the public schools. The bill was defeated last year after hundreds of homeschoolers and HSLDA staged large rallies at the Capitol in opposition. It has been reintroduced at the beginning of the 2005 legislative season. HSLDA and New Jersey homeschoolers will fight hard to stop this bill.

Worst Bill of the Decade After Democrats took control of the House, Senate, and Governorship in Montana, a long-time anti-homeschool Senator filed one of the harshest bills we have seen for a long time. The bill would transform one of the best homeschool laws in the nation to one of the worst. It would require that homeschools be supervised by a certified teacher and monitored bi-annually by the school district. Among other restrictions, it would even prohibit the homeschooling of any child with developmental disabilities in spite of HSLDA studies proving that special needs students learn better in a homeschool setting. It also prohibits homeschooling by stepparents and legal guardians!

HSLDA Attorney Dee Black is working closely with Steve White head of the Montana Coalition of Homeschoolers to stop this bill. Dee plans to testify against this terrible bill in committee on Monday, February 14.

An Attempt to Turn Back the Clock An Oregon Senate bill turns the clock back by requiring families to submit a yearly notice and standardized test results to their local school district. The legislature had previously removed these requirements from the law. HSLDA Attorney Thomas Schmidt is working with the state homeschool association OCEAN to defeat this bill.

Attempts to Expand Jurisdiction over Homeschoolers Besides these legislative challenges, families are also facing major expansion of state jurisdiction over their children in Michigan, Wyoming, Hawaii, Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and Iowa. All seven of these states have introduced one or more bills expanding the compulsory attendance age in the state, thus requiring parents to comply with school regulations for longer periods of time. The goal of the teachers unions is to lower the mandatory school age to three years of age and raise it to at least 18 years old.

Believe it or not, Indiana has a bill to require children to be in school until 19 years of age!

HSLDA Legislative Team Our legal legislative team at HSLDA, headed by Senior Counsel Chris Klicka, is made up of five lawyers and six legal assistants. They are actively working around the clock to defeat all of these restrictive homeschool bills and continue to monitor hundreds of bills in all 50 states. They are also working on promoting many bills that will advance homeschool freedoms.

South Dakota Restrictive Bill Defeated The first restrictive homeschool bill to fail was in South Dakota. In below zero temperatures, Attorney Scott Woodruff traveled to South Dakota in mid-January to testify against the testing bill. He pointed out that it violated both federal law and a parent's right to direct their children's education. Hundreds of homeschoolers attended the hearing, which helped clinch the victory. The committee unanimously voted against the bill!

We stand ready to take similar action in other states to ensure that homeschool freedom is protected.

Remember, we need you to stand with us in order to fight these battles for homeschool freedoms. Without your membership, we could not exist. Thank you for your continued support!

As Benjamin Franklin once said, "We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we will all hang separately!"

"When the Home schooled kids come out of their acing the tests i wonder how the school boards will spin it."

Just as they always do ...."if only we had more money"

Translation from the "state"...so both of you parents just work 14 hours a day pay lots of taxes to the "state" and let us take care of the kids. Like Hitler said to parents..."we have them 8 hrs 6 days a week - what are you?

"...since the first rule is that the country also has to survive, the feds in cooperation with the people, will do what ever suits 'em..."

No, the first rule is that liberty is to preserved. Allowing a federal or state entity the authority over teaching kids what to think and how to think is not an example of liberty being preserved.

I understand where you are going with this, really I do. But the concept of mandating that the government MUST monitor the raising of children is not freedom of any kind. It is one thing to say that public education is AVAILABLE, it is entirely another to say that it is MANDATORY.

It is the right of all parents to educate their children, or not. Personally, I think any parents that chose NOT to ensure an education for their kids are stupid in the extreme. I think it is likewise foolish and wrong to submit their children meekly to a mandated education system, and then wash their hands of further involvement. Either choice is not that of a responsible parent.

Some peoples' life situations are not going to allow a homeschooling setting, so it is fortunate that we do have a state-sponsored for them to fall back on.

The internet can be a valuable resource for some subjects. You just have to be sure to verify what sites have for information.

Having said all that, my children take standardized tests each year for our own purposes. Even so, I am not concerned when my son gets 3 out of 13 ecology questions correct (mostly global warming and man's effect on ecosystems). He does tend to be 3+ years ahead of his peers per his test results.

I fully expect most states to start requiring that home-schooled kids will have to go to their local government schools when the standardized tests are given and participate. Why? Because the best students in every state are homeschooled and they would dearly LOVE to count those scores in with their mediocre ones. Homeschoolers ought to fight every infringement on their rights as parents to educate their children. The children do NOT belong to the government that allows children to be killed up to and including their birth.

Seems like we're hammering out a 'judgment call' out in a 'gray area'. IOW, we've got the same values and we disagree on what kind of law the state gov. or the feds can pass. We both agree that a mama can't through her baby in the garbage, and parents can be forced by the state to feed, clothe and educate the kids until the kids can take care of themselves. That's a moral point. The question of how much or what kind of education is good enough, well, that sort of thing makes talk radio and the Freerepublic fun.

Morality isn't everything. We also have to deal with what is. Napoleon figured out that he could raise mass armies of virtually every single man in the nation. Fifty years later Otto von Bismark figured out that universal compulsory education meant that he could raise a mass army smart enough to beat France's. All existing powerful nations today have both compulsory education and the draft (at least standing by). The rest seem to be professional victims or terrorists.

I fought for years here in my state on these issues - had my own group "Families For Freedom" and worked hand in hand with other groups - including Phyllis Schafley's "Eagle Forum" - When we started, it was illegal to home school in Maine - parents were being jailed - we even had an 'underground RR" to get parents out of reach, so their kids wouldn't be taken.

We won and now Maine is one of the top Home Schooling states - without interference.

I have been inactive for many years - I remember this quote exactly, but can't remember the book.

You might be interested in this site:

http://www.uhuh.com/education/deathed.htm

Charlotte is one that I worked closely with - and she is still at it. She may even be able to cite the source of the quote. She is tireless and has done incredible work toward stopping communism from totally taking over the schools and our kids.

Her site has many valuable links...

"Seems like we're hammering out a 'judgment call' out in a 'gray area'"

I am quite sure you would just love for me to agree with you here, but I am not going to do so. It isn't a gray area at all.

"...parents can be forced by the state to feed, clothe and educate the kids until the kids can take care of themselves."

Feed and clothe, yes. Shelter, too. To not provide those basic needs is to be cruel and negligent in the most biological of ways, and damaging to their pursuit of liberty. There are plenty of successful people, or even free but underachieving dolts for whom life is their education. I have a very strong PERSONAL opinion that life as one's teacher isn't enough, and so did my parents, and so I advocate going much farther than that. But that is MY choice, not my government's.

As far as compulsory education goes in terms of history, your own comments should provide you a clue:

"...Otto von Bismark figured out that universal compulsory education meant that he could raise a mass army smart enough to beat France's."

Good ol' Herr Bismark! What was his motivation for compulsory education? A means of control, not an enabler of Liberty.

(As I said earlier, don't take this the wrong way: State-sponsored education may be the best or only option for some parents. However, it is not the government's role determine what "best" is, or that their system is the "only" way to educate.)

"...since the first rule is that the country also has to survive..."

This is why I contend that making it easy to outsource technical jobs will destroy our country. If there is no incentive to study engineering, where will the advanced weapon systems and civilian infrastucture come from? Our good buddies overseas?

There really does seem to be a plot to subvert America's edge. They even go so far as to attempt to convince people that educating children is not the parent's responsibility.

"I am quite sure you would just love for me to agree with you here, but I am not going to do so."

You might want to avoid being sure of things that are not true. I'm used to the fact that lots of people don't want laws forcing people to educate their children. Some don't bother even if it means they go to jail--- there are some parents in jail who were found to have just fed and clothed their kid and then locked the little crapper in a box. Most people (and I) say it's right to lock up those parents as child abusers because education is as important as food and clothes.

There're laws to force a parent to teach the kid how to talk, walk, eat with a spoon, and use a toilet. The consensus in the civilized world is that the state has a role in protecting those who can't protect themselves. Anyone who doesn't agree ends up having to deal with the consequences of this very real world that we live in

The consensus of the civilized world goes even farther to say that if you have kids and don't make sure they learn the three 'r's then you got no business making babies. Of course I'm resigned to the fact that there're lots of people tossin' sperm around without giving a damn what happens who're not part of the civilized world. That's ok, their kind are a dying breed.

"You might want to avoid being sure of things that are not true."

Oh, I'm pretty much sure that when people start talking of a "gray area" they're trying to manufacture an agreement that doesn't exist. A common, if sometimes unconscious tactic in a debate. It isn't gray, I promise you.

"There're laws to force a parent to teach the kid how to talk, walk, eat with a spoon, and use a toilet."

Good laws, too, but I see no provision for government mandated schooling, merely mandates to the parents that they better not get caught not BEING parents.

"The consensus of the civilized world goes even farther to say that if you have kids and don't make sure they learn the three 'r's then you got no business making babies."

I agree, but once again, the onus is on the parents, not the government. Do you REALLY want to give your children over to the state? My point, crafted another way for you to understand:

When people create children, it is incumbent upon them to develop the little tykes, how that is done on an intellectual level is in no way the government's responsibility, unless the parents relinquish that responsibility to it. The realities of the world is that the public school system is very likely to produce an inferior result in most cases, when homeschooling is otherwise an option. Another reality is that homeschooling is not an option for all, so it is a very good thing that public facilities and programs are available nationwide.

Public Schooling should be an option! Not a requirement. There is talk of "slippery slopes" on many subjects, and there is a very basic, bedrock slope to fall from if we let the government have such power over our children. As a basic tenet of American liberty, the government must have faith in its citizens and let them build the next generations.

I think most homeschoolers would fail these so-called tests unless parents have trained them what to look for.

I recently downloaded some sample AIMS tests for different grades that govt. school students must pass. The wording was pure psychobabble and confusing. They do it on purpose to make the kids fail and then they can ask for more money. And it works everytime. Parents keep on voting for more money to be given to the schools.

So along with bearing arms (second amendment) the nation's young men needed to be physically fit (Eisenhower 1958) and know how to read a the latest tank operator's manual.

By that logic, shouldn't the 2nd Amendment mean that it is the government's responsibility to give me a gun, bullets, and training? Freedom of Education, yes. Free education? No. Education is no more important than healthcare, do you support that being the state's responsibility?

...the government's responsibility to give me a gun...

During a war the government hands out uniforms and guns. During the '20's there were some countries like Luxemburg and Norway that felt they could just "rise above it all", but during the next decade they found out how the real world worked.

Search inside this book

Over the centuries all kinds of armies have been tried out. IMHO what seems to have been working the best, is having a bunch of literate 18 year olds available so you can draft them when you want them. The huge national mobilization that nations had to undergo during WWII left some countries with a belief that national survival even meant national health care. Porter's book was one of many that documented this political bent, but (once again IMHO) the past 50 years showed that health care wasn't the kind of defense issue that education was.

I'm describing what is, not necessarily what I like. If you don't like it then that's fine, there's lots of things I don't like too. If your opinion differs form mine as to what is, then I'd be interested if you can cite news links, historical examples, etc.that point in other directions. OTOH, I'd imagine it would be difficult to show where illiteracy has been good for national defense.

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