[PMCarey]

Ditto. We homeschool and accept no public money. Nor do I think we ever would. However there are some low income families who would like to take advantage of these type of programs.

I favor education choice. I want to be able to choose to school at home. I don't want to take away choices from families that want to school at home with government support. I find it ironic that so many homeschooling organizations are fighting to tell other families that they must homeschool "the right way" or not at all.

[kancel]

Our state watchdog organization has been very involved with this issue and has a web page devoted to it.

>>These programs present to the public, and governing bodies, a more familiar, supervised and regulated form of “homeschooling.” The eventual result could be a lobbying of the legislature by public education to amend or abolish the Home-based Instruction law, and to re-absorb the homeschooling community into public education under the auspices of alternative education.<<

Washington state has a very generous homeschooling law curently and there has been several attemtps where legislatures have tried to take away rights and privleges we have both purposefully and accidentally (they didnt realize how certain wording in a law relating to public schooled students would effect homeschooled students.) The greatest fear is that if "Alternative Education Programs" become the norm for homeschooling then legislature might rewrite the laws and make independent homeschooling impossible. This would be a big deal in a state such as ours, In other states however APE programs could actually work in reverse and open up strict states to other homeschooling options.

Its kind of a tightwire.