Public Meeting on New Home School Law in PA

This is a post-only mailing. Please do not respond to this message unless you wish to unsubscribe. See bottom If you are going to quote any part of this position paper, please quote it in its entirety.

************************************************
UPDATE ON THE JUNE 13TH MEETING
************************************************

By now, you have probably heard that next Thursday, June 13, 2002, is a very important date for home educators in Pennsylvania. This is the day that the House Education Committee is holding a hearing on the pros and cons of HB2560, the proposed legislation affecting home education in Pennsylvania.

Rep. Jess Stairs, the Majority Chairman of the House Education Committee has noted that only those already chosen to testify before the committee will be able to speak at the hearing. The rest of us are invited to "listen in" on the testimonies. Children are welcome if they are able to sit quietly during the panel discussions. In anticipation that many home educators will want to attend this informational hearing, Rep. Stairs has moved the hearing to the Forum Building, which holds 1,700 people.

In an effort to give all home educators the opportunity to express their opinion about the new law, Rep. Stairs has asked that you write to him before June 6th. He has asked that these letters be kept to two pages or less. He will see that these letters are distributed to the Education Committee members.

************************************************
A VERY IMPORTANT TIME FOR THIS LEGISLATION
************************************************

It is important that home educators who want a homeschool law that recognizes the parents' right and responsibility to educate their children show their support for HB2560 at this time. We can't stress this enough! Another non-verbal way of showing your support for HB2560 is by wearing red to the Forum on June 13, 2002. Those in opposition to the bill will be wearing blue. The reds need to clearly outnumber the blues if this legislation is going to go forward. If the members of the Education Committee don?t see a clear majority, they will perceive homeschoolers to be divided or uninterested in the legislation. If so, they will be unlikely to vote the bill out of committee and the bill would die.

There will be two battles going on that day: one battle will be for the dissemination of accurate information from the panelists; and the second battle will be the demonstration that home educators do want a new law by a clear majority of red supporters in the audience.

************************************************
THE SCHEDULE FOR JUNE 13, 2002
************************************************

We suggest you plan on arriving around 9 AM in order to be settled by 10 AM when the hearing is to start. Our punctuality will speak volumes to the legislators. The informational hearing will consist of two panels: Panel One 10:00 to 11:00 - Chris Klicka, HSLDA - Home School Legal Defense Association - Idetta B. Groff, School Board Member, Conestoga Valley School District - Dr. Brian Ray, NHERI - National Home Education Research Institute - Dr. Carol Saylor, Superintendent, Manheim Central School District Panel Two 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM - Ms Ellen Kramer, Catholic Homeschoolers - Dr. Bruce Eagleson, CHAP - Ms. Maryalice Newborn, Pennsylvania Home Education Association - Dr. Howard Richman, PA Homeschoolers and PA Homeschoolers Diploma Program - Ms. Edi Thomas, Erie County Homeschoolers (a diploma program) - Ms. Carol Lugg, North Central Pennsylvania Homeschoolers.

We feel that these panels are balanced and will present all views fairly and accurately. HSLDA will be asked to give a historical perspective. Brian Ray will present the research data from a national perspective.

************************************************
THE DETAILS
************************************************

The Forum is on the corner of 4th St. and Commonwealth Avenue - Just east of the Capitol building (see map of the capitol area here).

Several support groups have told us that they are trying to get enough people together from their area to rent a bus so they do not have to worry about driving, parking, and traffic. Also, the impact of busloads of people will have an effect. If you are doing this and would like us to broadcast the information to other homeschoolers, please let us know immediately. CHAP would be willing to send this information in an email broadcast. Please provide: contact name, contact phone/email address, location, bus departure location, anticipated time schedule, and the price per person.

CHAP has been told that no one can have a table, display, banners, or signs inside the Forum. CHAP will have volunteers outside distributing: - Red, white, & blue "Home Education Works" buttons - Red, white, & blue ?Support HB2560? 2.75-inch lapel sticker - Red ribbon, which says "Support HB2560" - Handouts with the text of the bill and an accurate analysis of the bill. There should be sufficient quantities of all of these for any who want or need them.

************************************************
MISINFORMATION
************************************************

In recent weeks it has come to our attention that inaccurate information has circulated to homeschoolers. People have been misquoted out of context or only part of their quote used which has implied a different opinion than their true opinion. Please seek out the complete and accurate information before you make a decision about this bill. Do not take a particular person?s or organization?s viewpoint as the truth without first researching all aspects. Your freedoms and the rights and freedoms of your children depend on you.

************************************************
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
************************************************

We have received notice that the staffers for the House Education Committee members have reported that they have received hundreds of calls in favor of this legislation. One staffer stated that she has worked in Harrisburg a long time and she has never seen anything this organized and aggressive in all of her years. Your phone calls and emails have made a difference. Without them, this bill would be dead in committee. Keep up the good work!

************************************************
ACTION STEPS
************************************************

If you are going to quote any part of this position paper, please quote it in its entirety.

Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania
PO Box 115
Mount Joy, PA 17552-0115
717-661-2428
www.chapboard.org

----------------------------------------------------------------------
The CHAP Email Network is a service of the Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania. Interested homeschoolers can subscribe to the CHAP Email Network by visiting our web site at http://www.chapboard.org.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER: This is considered a private and confidential message from CHAP to its bonafide CHAP Email Network subscribers. CHAP cannot attest to the authenticity of copies posted, forwarded, or sent by any party other than CHAP. [which includes ArGee, but I will attest that it is an exact duplicate, except for some HTML formatting and the removal of sections that only apply to email copies.]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the letter I wrote to Rep. Stairs.

June 4, 2002

Honorable Jess Stairs
Chairman, House Education Committee
Box 202020 ? Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2020

Dear Rep. Stairs,

Thank you for your work in arranging for HB 2560 to be discussed in a hearing on June 13. I believe the statistics regarding home schooling have likely been presented. As a home schooling parent who recently moved to Pennsylvania from Texas, I wanted to provide some personal insight.

First, it is my experience that the Texas approach has served Texas home educators well. Texas boasts a large number of parents who teach their children in the home, and the vast majority of them do an outstanding job. Texas home schooling parents are generally members of a support group, attend seminars on improving their methods of teaching their children, read books on education, and devote a great deal of time and energy into providing the best education possible for their children. They do this not because of any legislative mandate, but because they love their children. And, regardless of any particular education professional?s dedication, it is unlikely that any public servant will love a child more than his or her parents do. Texas law places very few requirements on parents who wish to home school and the results are very positive.

In contrast I do not feel the current Pennsylvania law serves home educators or local school districts well. There is a large number of procedural hurdles that must be overcome to establish your home school. Because of the complexity, misinformation is common, although CHAP has done an outstanding job of cutting through the clutter with their "Keys to Homeschooling in the Keystone State" document. The administrative burden on the home schooling family is generally in addition to what they would normally do, making it a bureaucratic burden rather than an aid to either the parents or the home schools. In our own home we educate our children as we always have, which exceeds the requirements of Pennsylvania law, then look at how to fulfill the paperwork to make us "legal" in this commonwealth. In addition to the burden on us, there is a huge administrative burden placed on the local school district, again with little benefit to the home schooling family. This burden detracts from their primary mission, which is to educate the students who are enrolled. And after we submit to all the legal requirements established to ensure we educate our children properly, the Commonwealth refuses to recognize the education. Parents and local school districts have to do all this work and there is nothing to show for our efforts.

In no way do I wish to suggest that I would be happy with the current home education law if we received Commonwealth recognition of our education. I am simply pointing out the one-sidedness of the current environment.

Our story is but one story, but we have known a large number of home educators in the 9 years we have been involved. While we are sure there are some examples of parents who need regulation, this is a very small percentage of the parents who make the sacrifice to teach their children at home. Including all home educators in that group makes it that much more difficult to help children who really need help. It is far more productive to allow parents to educate their children free from legislative encumbrance unless there is actual evidence that no attempt at education is being made.

I am aware that there may be many people who have developed cottage industries around the current environment, such as those who provide diploma programs or evaluation services. These people may be financially impacted if the law were to change. However, I believe the benefit of removing the financial and effort burdens on the many home educators in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should more than overcome this concern.

Thank you for your time, and thank you again for your efforts to improve the climate in Pennsylvania for parents who wish to teach their children at home.

Sincerely,

From what I have been able to determine, the people spreading the misinformation are making money off the current law. There may be other reasons people are "con", but for that reason alone everyone should redouble their efforts to attend the public hearing and show their support.

Shalom.

What is this law intended to do?

The short version is that this law will make the homeschooling parents solely responsible for the education of their children.

Today we have to keep a log and a portfolio, register annualy with a list of objectives, pay an evaluator to review our education results annually, be tested on a regular basis, and then submit all of this stuff to the local school district for reveiw. We do all of this and the state won't even recognize a diploma when we're done.

Under the new law we will have to notify the local school district of our intent to home school at the beginning of every year. That's all that would be required of us. We get the same result with none of the hassle.

You can visit www.chapboard.org for more information.

Shalom.

Of the in-state diploma programs 5 are for this bill as they are truly supportive of the PA HS community(and the community will remember this) and one is against and that one milks the current law for every penny and is shooting itself in the foot by not aligning with freedom and liberty.

We had our annual evaluation yesterday and the evaluator gave basically the same story. But I'm still against keeping a law around because the regulations help someone make money of the rest of us.

For those of you who are lurking here, we paid a woman $65.00 to review our children's portfolios, interview our kids, and write a letter expressing her opinion that we have done a good job educating our children. However, even though the law requires that we do that, it doesn't mean squat. The school district still needs to have all the same materials delivered to them for their review (including the letter) but they have no requirement to give the letter any heed or agree with its findings.

All that to say that it's $65.00 down the toilet. Thanks to the PA legislature - "Home of friction-free government" my a$$.

Shalom.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.