House Bill 2440: Home School Pupils: Testing, Reporting

If they do not pass the test, it doesn't mean you can't homeschool, just that you need to bring your pupil up to grade level within a certain specified period of time.

Now if they would only do that in the public schools!

Amen.

On my way home today, I found 3 stoplights that had newly installed cameras on them. This is getting scary.

>On my way home today, I found 3 stoplights that had newly installed cameras on them. This is getting scary.

Are you sure they're cameras?

I only ask because in my neighborhood, they mounted things on street lights at all the major intersections. I thought they were cameras. It turns out they are sensor devices that register when a fire truck is coming. They automatically switch the cross traffic to red and give a green to the fire trucks.

Mark W.

Well, no, I'm not sure. They sure do look like them, but I'll have to find out. Thanks. Would make me feel better.

Why? My kids are homeschooled and they could pass any test mandated for pubschoolers the gov. could dish out. What’s more is, it could be the best exposure for homeschoolers ever. Can you imagine the nightly news? "Homeschoolers score big in government mandated testing aimed at improving public school standards... maybe we should pay homeschoolers to teach others to homeschool their kids..."

Because this isn't a bill to test kids. Heck, 19% of the kids in AZ high schools drop out! Do you think the truancy agencies are going after them? No, this is a ploy by the DemonRATs who are beholden to the NEA (and the AEA in this case) to stop the loss of money that they think "belongs" to the publik screwels (publik screwels funding = union dues, pension funds, and other union [DemonRAT] slush funds, in addition to endless gov't jobs) but is now being funneled to charter schools. Home schooling is a threat to teachers' unions. Mike Gallagher was talking about this today, about a bill in NJ. I didn't even know it was going on here!!

This is what happened in AZ a few years ago and the state was so embarrassed by homeschoolers' tests results in comparison to public school students that they decided they didn't have to be tested. They want to go through this again?

It would help if the article mentioned what kind of testing. Annual testing for reading comprehension and math (the kind where getting the right answer matters) don't strike me as problematic -- that kind of testing would simply serve to prove that the kids actually ARE being schooled. However, the tests being proposed probably do involve a lot of questionable stuff that would force homeschoolers to conform their curriculum to what the government thinks kids should be learning.

If they can read and do math, they can figure out everything else later, no matter what nutty stuff their parents were teaching them. But without those basics, which research has shown can't be fully acquired in adulthood, the parents could be consigning the kids to a life of unemployability, which causes serious problems for the rest of society.

Has anybody wondered what kind of homeschooling the older Yates children were getting? Now if it was reading and math plus a lot of fanatical religious nonsense, that's called religious freedom (for the parents), but if it was nothing but lying around the filthy house watching their insane mother roam around while she thought about how evil she was and how maybe she ought to kill the kids for their own good, then they would have been well-served by a quick state-administered test, which would have discovered that they couldn't read or do math anywhere near grade level, and should be required to attend school outside the home.

What bill in NJ?

Absolutely. Any test required of homeschooled kids, in addition to being limited to reading comprehension and get-the-right-answer math, should also be required of public school kids, and needs to be scaled so that anything above the public schoolers' 5th percentile is passing for a homeschooler (we'll give the public schools a 5% cushion, since they are obliged to teach kids who may be absolutely ineducable, due to low IQs, chaotic/abusive home situations, etc.).

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Why should homeshoolers be held accountable to failing public school standards? Why should the failure set standards for the succsesful? Public school kids should be tested by homeshoolers, not the other way around.

Its none of their damn business. Today it will be a test, tommorow standards, then profiles ofl earning - then you are done. Each parent must be re-educated to global socialism before they can home school.

They sound like they are getting a good classical education, something that many public schools would be loathe to provide in this day of PC correctness and academic pablum.

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Actually, I was being sarcastic... and I agree with you.

I realize this thread has been going for some time. Someone just passed this on to me and asked me to respond. I was at a support group leadership conference on Saturday Jan 26, and this is what we heard directly from Jim Weiers, speaker of the House: Here is how the wording of the bill was originally sent in: Home Schoolers will not be exempted from being tested (which means at some point we will be REQUIRED to test) section 15-745 paragraph A. Section 15-802 paragraph F (new wording) says: THE PARENT, GUARDIAN OR OTHER PERSON WHO HAS CUSTODY OF A CHILD WHO IS INSTRUCTED AT HOME IS SUBJECT TO THE REPORTING REQUIREMENTS PRESCRIBED IN THIS TITLE. We were told there are 57 different reporting requirements in this title, at this point applied to private and public schools, but we could possibly be subject to any and all of them. Rep. Weiers said this is VERY BAD legislation. For one thing, the motive is NOT clarification of the law. If any of you recall the frontpage article in the Republic last summer "State ignores home schoolers"--July 1, the tone was one of uncovering a grave mistake. I believe that article was planned to set the stage for this legislative session, for the "correcting of that mistake". Most legislation to correct major issues is done in small pieces, a bit at a time to catch us off guard and dull the senses. If this is passed, the door is opened for things to build on this. Secondly, if testing is required, it is likely at some point that a curriculum will be required, also. Rep. Weiers, and other speakers, also cautioned us not to lose the ground that we have fought for. When I started home schooling, we were required to do the iOWA test every year, plus take the Teacher Certifcation test before starting. The law allowed for students not making "academic progress" to be denied home schooling, (although students in the public school were never told they had to leave that arena for not making academic progress) and we had six months to pass the teacher test, or we were deemed "unqualified" to teach. Meanwhile, teachers had 2 years to pass the same test, and could TEACH in the public schools during that time even if they failed. It was not uncommon for teachers to take it 2-3 times before passing. Additionally, at that time, our county clerical person was making up her own rules about what constituted "academic progress". It was really not a positive environment. In 1991, some even worse legislation was being pushed through by some of the former teachers in the legislature. We held a rally at the capitol, and garnered Gov. Symington's support, and the legislation was defeated, and some of the restrictions were lifted. More were lifted within a couple of years. Due to term limits, there is a short leglslatative memory. The freshmen senators and reps (1/3 of the house was replaced) don't understand some of the history behind decisions in the current books, and can easily be persuaded to change them given the right arguments. I caution you to not think lightly of the freedoms that we have gained. There are plenty of regulations that can be imposed on home schoolers who choose to go back into the school system. Don't willingly accept more on the rest of us. Holly Craw

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