Posted on 02/09/2005 8:20:55 AM PST by hsmomx3
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!"
How do we get the leftist drivel (i.e. indian Churchill) out of the public school system?
Check out this link to an online version of the Communist Manifest. How many key Marxist planks have been implemented?? You decide.
http://eserver.org/marx/1848-communist.manifesto/cm2.txt
Here are the infamous 10 points from the Communist Manifest... For all those liberal jerks out there, this does NOT even "look good on paper" ... The rest of the document is filled with similar crap. The selected quote folows:
"These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty
generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of
land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a
national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he
hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the
state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the
improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial
armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a
more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of
children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of
education with industrial production, etc.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared,
and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast
association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its
political character."
Marx sucks ! Sorry, kiddos, no homeschooling! It's not Communist!! Unreal.
I don't think it will ever happen. The system is too far gone for any changes. We'll just have to keep our kids out of colleges. Why not study from home? I know that is unrealistic, esp. if you plan on majoring in law, medicine, etc. We need more start-up colleges.
Typo: ManifestO, not that the filthy rag deserves any honor, like Mao-Tse-Doo-Doo..
I didn't proofread, just wanted to get the info out there... the 10 points ... Need to be vigilant !
What is Melrose like? Is it very liberal?
It really boils down to: To whom do the children belong, the parents or the State?
I wander what the quality & price of Autos would be if we were all forced to buy from a gubmint dealer?
I wander what the quality & price of food would be if we were all forced to buy from a gubmint supermarket?
I wander what the quality & price of housing would be if we were all forced to buy from a gubmint home builder?
We already know what the quality & price of education is at gubmint schools!
We were members of HSLDA because we homeschool our three children (everyone recommended we join right away). We’ve needed their help on several occasions while dealing with a decidedly crooked school district here in Colorado (District 60 is infamous in its corruption). Several state and federal issues cropped up regarding our youngest child, who is Down Syndrome. In one of many instances the principal, teacher and a couple of district social workers called for and held an IEP meeting without even notifying us in advance or afterward. The paperwork showed us as “not in attendance.” Livid… we battled the district to have the file amended (which they accidentally gave us when we removed our son from school). With this situation and several others we’ve found ourselves in against this power-hungry and crooked school district we’ve never received so much as a return phone call from the folks at HSLDA. We are no longer members of this group and find ourselves again battling the social workers in District 60 as they attempt to infiltrate our son’s charter setup with an accredited school he works with online and at home (the district obviously resents the online school and the state law as its system has sometimes been used to facilitate some activities with our son). At any rate, as for the HSLDA, we are not afraid of the district and will fend them off without the help of the HSLDA just as we did when we were members. The only difference between then and now, we feel, is the fact that this organization does not receive our membership fee.
HSLDA likes the membership dues, but when the crunch time comes, their legal representatives are less than adequate. At least they were there, sort of, for my friend, though the only reason they don't have a malpractice suit against them is that my friend doesn't want to sue.
Maybe the moral of the story is that good legal representation costs more than $20/yr. Otherwise, you get the HMO of legal counsel.
why?
Wow-- what blast from the past! Now, I don't mind chatting about the subjects because mankind's need for the state and need for education are subjects that interest me.
Please help me out here because I'm really curious as to what it was that kept you from following the discussion in posts 4, 9, 12, 15, 17, and 20, -- maybe it was hard to follow, there something not covered, or maybe you mean "why!" like the little kid that just doesn't want to go upstairs at bed time (why daddy, why why why!). IMHO, most freepers are reasonable, and most noisy freepers are dickweeds. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt; IOW let's say you really mean "why?" and not "why!".
But I don't know where you are in this thread--- you have to tell me what your values are -are you for or against the state, for or against learning, etc.
I'm a great civil engineer and a so-so educator. OTOH, my wife is one terrific educator and she can glance at a course schedule and say what's good, what's bad, and what's missing. What I personally like about the Tech program is the kids are covering all the subjects that their peers elsewhere are going over so they will not be saddled with any disadvantages. Also they enjoy it, and it's a program where I can check their progress.
All this has to be kept in perspective, that 'book-learning' is just one part of a parent's total set of responsibilities. It will never take the place of spiritual education, developing a work ethic, music appreciation, and other stuff like nutrition and physical safety.
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