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Home Education Magazine
May-June 1998 - Columns
News Watch - Linda Dobson
Legislative Activities
Shot Down in Illinois...
Homeschoolers were forced to respond to HB 3344, a bold attack on homeschooling freedoms introduced by State Rep Ricca Slone. The bill, intended to rip homeschools from the private school status they currently enjoy, would have placed home educators under the thumb of local administrators. Adding insult to injury, the bill contained lots of new hoops for homeschoolers to jump through, including heretofore unnecessary submission of several health records, a rigorous test schedule coupled with portfolios, and an annual meeting between superintendent and homeschooling parents.
Homeschoolers met with Representative Slone on 2/24/98 while the bill was still in the House Rules Committee, while other homeschoolers called committee members and asked them to stop the bill in committee if it came up for vote.
The bill was successfully halted.
...on hold in Georgia...
Last issue's News Watch contained continuing news of Georgia's Board of Regents' demand that homeschoolers wishing to enter state universities must take four SAT II tests to "prove" themselves. But on March 6th, the Georgia State Senate voted "to prohibit the Board of Regents from holding homeschool students to higher standards to get into college" with a 40-12 vote on a bill "which bars state agencies from discriminating against homeschoolers." The bill must now go to the House.
"A Senate committee had specifically exempted the Board of Regents...from the homeschool bill" because those who drafted it "feared including the regents would violate the state constitution, which gives the regents - not the Legislature - the power to set admission standards."
Even some supporters feel this bill is unconstitutional but, said Senator Balfour, "At the very least it's going to send a strong signal to [the regents] of what the Georgia Senate thinks of their policies. The courts of Georgia would ultimately decide whether it's constitutional or not."
,..on hold in New York...
Bills before the Senate (SB4887) and Assembly (A9558), expected to remain dormant this legislative session, would add a section to state education law "to require that local school districts shall furnish gifted pupil instruction and allow participation in extracurricular activities and school athletic programs to home instructed children, upon written request to the board of education which is filed prior to June 1st each year." The Assembly bill has been referred to committee.
...and confusion reigns in Kentucky
Lots more news coverage from the Lexington Herald Leader and Paducah Sun as the story of increased regulation in Kentucky, also covered in the last issue, continues to unfold.
Briefly, House Education Committee Chairman Freed Curd, with help from two legislative buddies, introduced three bills designed, supposedly, to stop all those bogus homeschoolers out there from using home education as a cover for truancy. Since the bills included oppressively increased regulation, they seemed designed to stop would-be-homeschoolers in their tracks.
The Lexington Herald Leader kept up pressure with editorials insisting the proposed legislation wouldn't hurt "honest" parents so much as "curb abuses by illegitimate homeschoolers." Home educators kept up pressure by "ringing the telephone off the hook." State Representative Kathy Stein told reporters she received more calls "than she can ever remember on a single topic" in the first week after the bills were introduced.
February 2nd's edition of Paducah Sun included an article titled "Homeschool Bills Draw Opposition" which featured Curd's claim "the bills are aimed at ending abuse that occurs when students trying to avoid disciplinary action by dropping out of school claim they are being homeschooled." Curd's claims were rebutted by Martin Cothran, director of The Family Foundation, "a conservative watchdog organization based in Lexington."
"The issue of homeschooling is a parental rights issue even more than an education issue," stated Cothran. "When a family makes a decision to educate their children at home, that is a very private matter and one that government should keep its hands off of." He added he's concerned "because of the size, power, and scope of government." (Remember this fellow as you read on.)
On February 7, Freed Curd stated emphatically "he had no intention of withdrawing the legislation despite the intense lobbying."
Less than two weeks later, February 18, the Paducah Sun reported Curd would delay hearings on the homeschool bills for at least two more weeks. With all the vocal opposition, he wanted "to give supporters a chance to get their view out." Boasting that his bill was supported by groups like the Kentucky Education Association and the Kentucky School Boards Association, Curd said, "We aren't going to be scared off. It is something we need to do."
Fast forward two more weeks to March 5, when the Paducah Sun reports, "Rep. Freed Curd and two other lawmakers who proposed bills to regulate homeschools criticized opponents who bombarded them with telephone calls and letters." All three lawmakers - Curd, Colter and Stein - "announced [yesterday] that they were withdrawing [the bills they introduced] because of the opposition." (How could this be? He "promised" he'd do no such thing!)
Colter called the large professional groups that were supposed to back the bills "missing in action." Of these groups Curd stated, "The thing that gets me is that nobody seems to care. All professional education groups supported this bill but we didn't get two calls or two letters from anybody. I guess everybody's got their own little priority."
This article included Curd's criticisms of a couple of letters he received from homeschoolers. He stated one didn't contain a complete sentence in a page and a half of writing, and the other came from a working mom whose 12 year-old learned on his own during the day. "If that's not child abuse, I don't know what else it could be," he said.
At this point in our story you're probably thinking there was a happy ending, case closed. Hold on - we're not done yet!
Within hours after Curd and friends dropped their bills, homeschooler Rep. Tom Riner (D-Louisville) filed House Bill 900, more narrowly focused than the previous bills and, says Riner, "aimed at stopping students who claim they are being taught at home but instead are dropping out to avoid losing their driver's licenses because of poor grades. It's also focused on students who pretend they are homeschooling because they want to drop out earlier than state law allows."
In addition, Riner said he'd consider amending his bill to include yet another portion of Curd's legislation - "one that would not allow students to homeschool until they had resolved pending disciplinary action" - as long as "the bill does not hurt legitimate homeschoolers."
A bill filed before the old ones even got cold is a bill that was prepared and waiting in the wings. Riner, a member of the Council for National Policy, is a board member of Christian Solidarity International, Inc. with Michael Farris, and claims he introduced the bill "at the request of Cothran, the policy analyst for the Family Foundation," the man who said the government should keep its hands off of the private matter of deciding to educate at home. Cothran, too, is a homeschooler.
"It shocked me to death," Curd said about the suddenly proposed law supposedly requested by someone concerned "because of the size, power, and scope of government," someone pointing out that the new bill, "more narrowly focused," has a better chance of passing and therefore increasing the size, power, and scope of government over homeschooling.
As the deadline for this edition of News Watch arrived, Kentucky newspapers report the House Education Committee has amended the bill to "repeal a law that requires a 60-day waiting period before a student could drop out of school." Since only home educators are exempt from the existing law, those lawmakers who have nothing better to do than worry about bogus homeschoolers now feel that people won't claim to be homeschoolers to avoid this waiting period. Also dropped from the bill was a section related to driver's license suspensions because it made direct reference to homeschool students. This was done to appease "legitimate" homeschool parents.
At deadline, the bill again has the blessing of the Family Foundation and is set to go before the House.
Psst, Homeschooler... Have I Got A Carrot For You!
"The Seduction of Homeschooling Families," Chris Cardiff, The Freeman, March, 1998, pp. 139-144
"No Thanks," Paula Russell, HSA Happenings (Homeschoolers' Support Association, P. O. Box 413, Maple Valley, WA 98038), March, 1998, begins on p. 2
"What Do Homeschoolers Want, Anyway?" Kathleen McCurdy, The Current (Family Learning Organization, P. O. Box 7247, Spokane, WA 99207), Winter, 1998, pp. 1-2
"Homeschool Policy Up for a Look," Esmeralda Barnes, Fairfax Journal, December 30, 1997, p. A1
"Homeschooling May Get Public Help," Hope Hamashige, Los Angeles Times, January 30, 1998
Back in July, '97, Peggy Daly-Masternak pointed out within the the pages of this magazine that as homeschoolers push for services from the local government school, "sometimes, the results are much more than homeschoolers may have bargained for." The Kasemans have also used their column to explore this issue.
If the amount of print devoted to an issue makes it official, then the continuing efforts of homeschoolers to gain government services and the increased efforts of government schools to lure back homeschoolers is now an official issue.
In "What Do Homeschoolers Want, Anyway?" Kathleen McCurdy puts things into historical perspective for us. "In the early days of the homeschooling movement (1970s and early 80s) families seemed to want nothing so much as to be left alone, to educate their children the way they wanted to. They seemed to have a sense of being on their own and they found ways to accomplish their goals...
"Now in the late 1990s... how many of those joining the ranks have a clear idea or goal?... Sometimes the comments we hear from parents sound like they think homeschooling should be as simple as sending the children off to school: Why can't someone tell me what curriculum to use?'"
Whether we agree or disagree with the direction in which things have moved matters little at this point, as the "issue" is upon us. Yes, it appears many "new" homeschoolers are different than us "old timers." And, yes, this is a primary factor contributing to our new "issue." But rather than letting it split us apart into ever smaller sub-sections under the homeschooling banner, it's increasingly important for the "old timers" to share the wisdom they've collected through experience. As Kathleen exhorts, "May the new crop of homeschool-experienced grandparents step forward!" (Take a moment and let the shock of this thought wear off, if you'd like!)
As if to prove a point, I have sitting before me two more articles, one from each coast, trumpeting the potential of "allowing" homeschoolers to use government school services. If the 40 homeschooled students in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, CA enroll in a "home school at Killybrooke Elementary" school (!), it means an additional $144,000 in education subsidies for the school. In Virginia, the Fairfax County School Board will begin considering homeschoolers' participation only because "the State Board of Education recently told school districts that it would reimburse them for a part of the cost of allowing [homeschoolers] to take core courses..." Beginning to see why your local public school has grown so "chummy" lately?
At first glance, this may appear a "win-win" situation; school gets money, homeschooler gets desired class. Homeschooling is quite literally forcing the behemoth system to offer education "buffet style" - take a little from here, skip that, a double helping of this. But as Paula Russell so clearly states, "...choosing these programs is ultimately choosing the public school option. What I mean is that these programs are essentially alternatives within public education, while homeschooling is an alternative to public education."
There are some who will still say, "So what?" Chris Cardiff's article quickly takes us to the consequences: "When enough families have voluntarily returned to the government system, it will be a relatively straightforward matter to recapture the rest by imposing mandatory homeschooling oversight regulations."
This is not the first time the powers-that-be have tried to check the spread of homeschooling and free market education. When we were fewer in number years ago the courts got all the action. More recently it's been legislation, likely in whatever form of legislation currently exists in your state (you may only homeschool if fill in the blank). Homeschoolers' success in courts and in countering increasingly oppressive legislation has forced a change in tactics, to action much more covert than courts and laws: If the stick didn't work, let's try carrots.
Cardiff's article continues by outlining the potentially lethal harm to homeschooling freedom when we grab those carrots. The harm includes:
* Suppressing the spirit of volunteerism upon which support groups grow
* Increasing the cost of options homeschoolers put together themselves because fewer partake
* Siphoning off the creative leadership of homeschooling by offering paid employment in government programs
* Undercutting private homeschooling businesses which, as in so many other arenas, can't compete with the government's tax-supported budget
Cardiff argues that once the government has "established a viable alternative to the private sector and independent homeschooling," the next step is logical - "outlaw or regulate" homeschooling out of existence. "Not only is it logical, it follows historical precedent. This is the same pattern used in the 1800s to virtually eliminate the large private education system that predominated at the time. First fund it with compulsory taxes with attendance voluntary. Once private sector competition is driven largely out of the market, make attendance mandatory as well."
We must all, whether "old hand" or "newbie," realize the truth in this statement: What I do affects other homeschoolers. This has always been the case in very subtle ways. But with the cause of accepting or asking for government school carrots, the effect could be the loss of the freedom to homeschool - for everyone. The cliche, "there's no such thing as a free lunch," has never been truer for homeschoolers.
That luscious looking carrot, remember, is tied to a string. Behind that, the stick stands at the ready.
And Speaking Of Affecting Other Homeschoolers...
"On the Case for Paula Jones: She Needed a New Lawyer. And John Whitehead, Advocate of Religious Freedom, Rushed to Volunteer," Megan Rosenfeld, Washington Post, January 17, 1998, pp. B1 and B2
You must have heard by now that Rutherford Institute prez John Whitehead took on Paula Jones' cause against President Bill Clinton, the Institute's first sexual harassment case. Institute board member Donovan Campbell, Jr. is representing Jones non gratis, and the institute is kicking in expenses estimated at more than $200,000, moving way beyond the fund-raising aspect of the case first reported by the Associated Press and covered in the 1-2/98 News Watch.
But you may not have known much more than that about Rutherford Institute's founder, John Whitehead, a "dogmatic Christian, antiabortion, anti-death penalty, pro-affirmative action, creationist, pro-homeschooling, slightly long-haired 52 year-old moderate." This very long article will cure that.
Whitehead's wife, Carol, works as his secretary, and their five children range in age from 14 to 27 (last two born at home and a couple of them work at the Institute). Last summer they left their home on ten acres in Culpeper, VA for a family vacation to visit James Dean's grave.
Whitehead's own paintings decorate the Institute's offices. One attorney asked the reporter if she saw "the The pig eating an eyeball...I had to ask him to take that one out of my office. I prefer the ones with crucifixes."
The article paints a picture of a man in transition. Whitehead was formerly linked to R. J. Rushdoony, "a controversial 'reconstructionist' Christian who believes the Bible demands the death penalty for 18 offenses including...'striking or cursing a parent.'"
"Back then I was an early Christian and very impressionable," he says of the relationship. He considers his 1974 conversion to Christianity the turning point of his life. Whitehead no longer belongs to a church, choosing instead to lead his family in study at home.
He's done a turn-around on his stands on homosexuality and censorship, too. "A great majority of evangelicals are out to lunch on [homosexuality]. Christ would not have been that way...Homophobia is wrong," he adds. And the man who once organized a write-in protest to the National Gallery against an artist he considered a pornographer has started his own magazine called Gadfly. Written for a younger audience the magazine has featured articles on the Sex Pistols and Jack Kerouac.
Other players in the civil liberties business offer mixed reviews of both Whitehead and the Rutherford Institute. Some say they've done a good job of networking attorneys to help non-paying clients. Others say the institute jumps into litigation without giving dispute resolution a chance. And they didn't exactly make a lot of friends when they refused to join a coalition of 38 religious groups that backed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Whitehead considered the bill "poorly crafted" and predicted the Supreme Court would strike it down. The Court did.
Taking on the Paula Jones case has brought the institute some anti-Clinton donations and lost the institute some other donors. "I have nothing against Clinton," Whitehead says. "I think he needs to get some help."
Philly Focus
"Community Voices: Homeschooling," editorial page letter collection, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 11, 1998, p. D5
"Going to School, Feeling at Home," Melissa Dribben, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 19, 1998
Thoughts from three homeschooled siblings, and a parent whose various children attended public, private and home school. A letter noting how the image of homeschooling has changed, one listing seven reasons to homeschool, and another explaining how this method allows kids to live in the present. And the letter I found most interesting in the collection, notes from a Philadelphia mom who decided to homeschool after her daughter's grammar deteriorated, after she announced "she was no longer into education," and after she was given science homework with no books or lab equipment for reference. When her daughter completed the assignment in spite of the hardships (the only one in class to do so), her teacher told her "he really didn't expect them to answer the questions." Since the school must give homeschoolers text books if requested, this is the first time the girl has books for all the subjects.
All the editorial page letters were positive, thought-filled, and thought-provoking.
Then two weeks later, along comes Melissa.
Melissa's back-handed compliments riled the feathers of many homeschoolers, but I thought her piece self-deprecating enough, much in the style of Rodney Dangerfield, to provide at lease a few chuckles. An example from her opening line: "Whatever it takes for a woman to spend 24/7 with her kids, without benefit of prescription drugs or restraining devices, most of us don't have it." Or how about, "..this means that a growing number of parents actually believe that they are sufficiently competent not only to defrost pizza, buy sneakers and change the sheets...but to teach them that 6 something times 10 to the 23rd is a mole." Or, "In our house, we'd be so close we'd have thumbprints on our necks." Some comments were a little, shall we say, rougher around the edges, for those of us who really enjoy spending time with our children: "It may be instinctive to want to do everything you can to prepare your children for life. But there is a biological imperative to toss them out of the nest. Preferably when they're old enough for kindergarten."
In closing, Melissa referred back to The aforementioned letters, the one from an eight year-old who said he enjoyed spending so much time with his family.
"A skeptic would say any child who loved his family that much had either been brainwashed, hypnotized or bribed with a personal TV.
"Not me.
"All I can do is sit here in awe."
And Another "Funny" Person
"When Schoolmarm is Mom," Mark Russell, St. Paul Pioneer Press, February 25, 1998
Short but hardly sweet, Russell's attempt at homeschooling humor consisted mostly of one-liners like, "If a student is lagging behind, mom must hold a parent/teacher conference with herself." (Pretend the laugh track is playing.) "At the homeschool prom, the teacher plays some CDs while her son dances with his sister." (Pretend harder.) "...no homeschool teachers have ever gone on strike. So far." (I give up.)
No More Tests (And Other Interesting Things About Homeschooling In Nevada)
"Homeschoolers Say 'The Public Education System Has Failed Us,'" Vin Suprynowicz, syndicated column from Mountain Media, March 11, 1998 (http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/)
Of the 4,000 "officially registered" homeschoolers in Nevada, nearly half reside in Clark County. The 15-page (!) Notices of Intent that stream into the county's "Alternative Education" center have not only increased over the past decade, but contain changing reasons for pursuing home ed. In 1989, most notices indicated religion as a reason. Today, school violence and lack of challenge have overtaken religion as reasons to homeschool, mirroring the results of a recent Florida survey.
Last fall, the State Board of Education dropped testing requirements for homeschoolers. "We were seen as an agency that was supposed to monitor homeschooling," stated board member Bill Hanlon, "and the fact is that we weren't and we can't...let's not have a farce." (Way to go, Nevada!)
Suprynowicz points out an almost perfect "bell curve" regarding the ages of homeschooled children in the county. "While only 75 first-graders are homeschooled, that number climbs to 151 in third grade, and 160 in the fifth. The numbers peak at more than 200 students each in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades...But then the number drops again, sharply, to 145 10th graders, 118 high school juniors, and only 17 high school seniors." He cites parental apprehension about teaching higher level courses, lack of diploma issuance at the backend, and homeschoolers working or attending college during the typically high school senior year as reasons for the drop in numbers at the back end.
The article shares word of homeschooling successes - and failures - but "by and large," notes Hanlon, "the people who are doing homeschooling are doing a damned good job."
Out In This World
Using 17 year-old homeschooler Keiko Forrey's acceptance to Albertson College of Idaho as a backdrop, The Idaho Statesman (1/16/98, p. 1A) took a look at the "still big news" story of homeschooled teens heading off to college. While several colleges (Boise State U, Harvard, University of WA and Albertson College) acknowledge they gladly consider homeschooled students, the article points out "the eight schools in the University of California system will accept only students from accredited high schools." The assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management for U of C San Diego says "it's a policy that won't change any time soon," in part because they received a record 28,000 applications for 3,000 openings at that campus alone.
The article takes the typical stab at national numbers before we learn that Keiko wants to transfer to a music conservatory at the end of next year, another step on the way to her goal of becoming a principal symphony cellist. Good luck, Keiko.
From the music world to the skating world where we find San Pedro, California's Angela Nikodinov, a seventeen year-old with her eye on a trip to the next Winter Olympic games. Angela just missed out on a trip to Nagano when she finished fifth among the U.S.'s best skaters. She's taken a little time off from skating, finished up her homeschooling, and "plans to focus all of her time on her skating career." Keep working, Angela, we'll be watching for you.
Worth Looking Up
"Area Colleges See Growing Number of Homeschooled Applicants," Lynn Franey, The Kansas City Star, 1/19/98 - More hoopla over homeschoolers going to college. 181 Missouri and 72 Kansas homeschoolers took the ACT test in 1996, and Johnson County Community College's Quick Step program (high schoolers taking college credit courses) contains 45 homeschoolers among its 500 participants.
"Curricular Big Macs," Jay Mathews, Washington Post, 12/10/97, p. A25 - After visiting 75 high schools and collecting information on thousands more over the past four years, this education reporter sees "local control" of curriculum as a joke, and calls school offerings "curricular Big Macs and Cokes." With or without national tests, he argues, there's a "sameness" across the country caused, in part, by lack of innovation (or accuracy) of text book publishers and the committees that select them.
"Professor Brainiac," Penelope Mesic, Chicago Magazine, 2/98 - Everything you ever wanted to know about Roger Schank, Northwestern University's irreverent and outspoken professor who's creating interactive software based on his untraditional ideas of how we learn. Schank wants to change schools as we know them. "All I learned about education comes from the Department of Motor Vehicles," Schank says. "They give two tests. One is: Can you drive a car? Two is: Can you memorize irrelevant and boring facts? The school system, thinking it's cleverer [sic] than the DMV, has eliminated one kind of test. Guess which one."
"A Mixed Report Card on Student Testing," Katherine Shaver, Washington Post, 10/14/97, p. B1 - Maryland's Howard County parents and teachers question the time-consuming focus on standardized test preparation that leads to the county's high scores.
"A Lesson in Learning," Editorial, Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA), 2/3/98, p. A10 - This editorial picks up a Sol Stern story from a New York City quarterly journal. The subject is the education Stern received by sending his children to "the best," trendy Manhattan public school. "Stern enrolled his children with great expectations. He believed the system could work; he wanted it to. The school's social values appealed to him. But his children's experience sapped his faith. His story is not unique - and it might be more common than parents throughout the country realize."
"School's Always Open," Kenneth Bradford, The Tab (Richmond, VA), pp. 3-5 - 171 support groups and 9000 homeschooled kids reside in Virginia! Lots of standard PR, and no interviews with less structured homeschoolers.
"Crawling Key to Overcoming ADHD, Learning Woes, Two Say," Kathleen Schuckel, Akron Beacon Journal, 3/3/98 - Two University of Indianapolis education professors say, "If you didn't crawl much as an infant, you may well have learning disabilities or attention deficit disorder," and that a program of daily crawling can fix things. Book is available; video forthcoming.
© 1998, Linda Dobson
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