Possible Homeschool
Bills Proliferate
(From
Issue 71, summer 2000, issue of PA HOMESCHOOLERStm newsletter)
by
Howard Richman
On June 12 a meeting will be held in Harrisburg
involving a few legislators and homeschool leaders in order to discuss the
possibility of homeschoolers introducing one or more bills that could change
the homeschool law. That meeting could
either end in unity or rancor. It could
result in one or more homeschool bills being introduced or it could result in a
decision not to introduce any homeschool legislation whatsoever.
It all started, as reported in the last
issue, on February 14, when Rep. Armstrong and I organized a meeting to discuss
the possibility of introducing a bill that would solve some of the problems
that were occurring with Pennsylvania’s home education law.
That meeting was attended by three
legislators and leaders of nine organizations: (1) PA Homeschoolers, (2) Mason
Dixon Homeschoolers, (3) HSLDA, (4) Home School Connection, (5) Pennsylvania
Home Education Network, (6) Catholic Homeschoolers of Pennsylvania, (7)
Pennsylvania Family Institute, (8) SEARCH, and (9) CHAP. We discussed several suggestions proposed by
Dee Black, a lawyer with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA),
which would greatly reduce friction between homeschoolers and school districts
in Pennsylvania. The group agreed to
meet again on April 10 (later postponed to June 12) after each homeschool
organization went back to poll its membership in order to prioritize the
various changes that were discussed and come up with additional possible
changes. Legislators would then use
those priorities as their basis for legislation that could possibly pass in
Pennsylvania.
As one of the participants, I polled the
PHAA (Pennsylvania Homeschoolers Accreditation Agency) membership and our PA
Homeschoolers subscribers on the Internet. (Details of how to participate
were published in the last issue of this newsletter and the last issue of the Excelsior.) Thirty-five homeschoolers had responded
at the time this issue went to press.
These
proposals were favored:
· 86%
were strongly in favor and an additional 9% were supportive of adding a clear
statement to law that local school districts cannot make policies that go
beyond the home education law.
· 69%
were strongly in favor and an additional 20% were supportive of adding a
statement to law that those high school credits (but not grades) awarded by
recognized home education organizations must be recognized by school districts
should a home education student transfer into a public school at the high
school level.
· 66%
were strongly in favor and an additional 20% were supportive of changing the
law so that homeschoolers do not have to turn in their portfolios at the end of
the school year.
· 60%
were strongly in favor and an additional 11% were supportive of changing the
home education affidavit so that homeschoolers do not have to include
immunization records attachments.
· 57%
were strongly in favor and an additional 34% were supportive of clarifying the
law so that the annual written evaluation obtained by the parent be accepted by
the superintendent as determinative of whether an appropriate education is
taking place.
· 57%
were strongly in favor and an additional 20% were supportive of changing the
home education affidavit so that homeschoolers do not have to include any
medical services attachments.
· 54%
were strongly in favor and an additional 26% were supportive of placing a
statement into law that the Department of Education must continue to maintain a
list of nonprofit organizations whose standards and procedures insure that the
graduation requirements of the home education law are met, and will continue to
recognize the validity of those diplomas.
· 51%
were strongly in favor and an additional 26% were supportive of requiring
school districts to provide special education services to homeschoolers should
the parent request.
· 40%
were strongly in favor and additional 43% were supportive of permitting
grandparents to homeschool.
· 40%
were strongly in favor and an additional 23% were supportive of eliminating the
two years of classroom grading experience requirement for certified teachers
who do evaluations.
· 40%
were strongly in favor and an additional 23% were supportive of changing the
homeschool law so that homeschoolers do not have to turn in test scores.
· 26%
were strongly in favor and additional 43% were supportive of requiring the Department
of Education to maintain a list of legitimate correspondence schools and
recognize diplomas awarded by those correspondence schools.
These proposals were opposed:
· 34% were strongly
opposed and 20% were somewhat opposed to mandating that school districts permit
homeschool participation in school sports and extra-curriculars.
· 31% were strongly
opposed and 46% were somewhat opposed to requiring the Department of Education
to recognize diplomas issued by any parent who files a home education affidavit.
· 20% were strongly
opposed and 31% were somewhat opposed to placing a statement into law that the
Department of Education recognize the validity of home education diplomas
awarded by parents if the school superintendent signs a statement that the
student has met the graduation requirements of the home education law.
Some
of the above changes, and perhaps other changes as well, could find themselves
into a bill that legislators might put together. Such changes could greatly reduce the friction between
homeschoolers and districts in Pennsylvania.
Similar modifications of homeschool laws have been quietly passed in
many states including Arkansas, Florida, and Colorado.
Religious Exemption
Another
possible bill has been circulated by some of those who will participate in the
June 12 meeting. It would provide a
religious exemption from the compulsory school law for those who homeschool
primarily for religious, not academic, reasons. Modeled after a provision that is already in place in Virginia, it
would amend the compulsory attendance law (Section 13-1327) by adding a
subsection which would read:
The
board of school directors in a school district shall excuse from the
requirements of this section any child and parent, guardian, or custodian of such
child if the parent, guardian, or custodian is conscientiously opposed to the
child’s attendance at school by reason of bona fide religious training or
belief.
This exemption would give homeschoolers a new
alternative to the home education program or private tutoring options that most
homeschoolers currently use. Few homeschoolers, if any, would oppose adding
this additional alternative. Although
it would be a very tough sell to most legislators, it could possibly pass if
those who support it would put together a huge legislative effort.
Rewrite Home Education Law
Yet
a third alternative bill is being circulated by some of the participants at the
June 12 meeting. It would erase the
entire home education law (Section 1327.1) in hopes of passing a “no-accountability”
law in which homeschool parents would have complete freedom and homeschool kids
would have no protections. It would
take away options in the current law that some homeschoolers value such as
borrowing textbooks and receiving recognized diplomas. (According to Department of Education
statistics for the 1998-1999 school year, 20% of homeschoolers request
curricular services, such as borrowing school district textbooks.) Moreover, it
could easily be abused by unfriendly legislators who would add negative
provisions while agreeing to the parts that erase such homeschool protections
already in law as parent-set objectives which can’t be rejected and due process
hearings which cost school districts about $5,000 if they want to take on a
homeschool family.
Home
School Legal Defense Association has been well aware of the dangers involved in
rewriting homeschooling laws from the ground up. Instead, they have wisely advocated changes that would add new
options for homeschoolers without taking away those that are already
present. For example, in 1993 Doris
Hohensee, a New Hampshire homeschooler, introduced a bill that not only failed
to pass but also caused deep divisions within the New Hampshire homeschool community. In the January-February 1994 issue of Home
School Court Report, HSLDA criticized Ms. Hohensee’s divisive tactics and
laid out the principle that homeschoolers should campaign for new options, not
against the current homeschooling law:
State
Senator Dave Wheeler is preparing to introduce the Non-Institutional Private
Education bill again this year. This
bill, primarily drafted by Doris Hohensee and the P.U.R.E. group, was quite
controversial last year. On the plus
side, it would open up a new legal way to home school. If it does not affect the current home
school law in any way, it could benefit home schoolers. Last year, unfortunately, the bill’s
proponents spent much of their energy attacking RSA 193A, the current law. Home School Legal Defense Association
strongly encourages home schoolers to work together to expand our
liberties, rather than waste our time attacking one another.
Importance of Accountability
The main reason that
this “no-accountability” bill would fail would be the legislators themselves —
they would never vote to cross out all of the accountability provisions in the
PA home education law. If you were at
the December 3, 1987, hearings held by the House Education Committee about the
original home education law (which I described in Chapter 3 of my book Story
of a Bill), you would have no doubts about this.
One
of the speakers was Stephanie Wilson, a doctor’s wife who knew that since she
did not have a college degree, she could not get permission from the Pittsburgh
Public Schools to be her children’s private tutor (in those days you had to be
a “properly qualified private tutor” in order to teach your children). When questioned, she captured the
legislators’ own doubts. You could have
heard a pin drop. She said:
When
I lived in Kentucky, which is considered to be a totally unregulated state, I
saw what I consider to be abuses in home education. I know of two families where the parents were very laid
back. They had other things to do and
their attitude was, “Well, it will sink in eventually.” I realize that there
may be children who are not educated. . . .
Homeschoolers can counter that Brian Ray has
performed a study which shows that homeschoolers from “unregulated” states
score just as high as homeschoolers from “regulated” states, but legislators
will eventually figure out that in unregulated states, homeschoolers who do not
take the time to teach their kids would not take the time to give their kids an
optional achievement test.
A few
states have achieved a “no-accountability” law through court victories allowing
them to come under private school laws, a few states have achieved a
“no-accountability” law as their first homeschool law, but no state has been
able to eliminate accountability by replacing their current home education law
with a completely new one.
Diploma Organizations Would Oppose It
Some parents feel that
high school diplomas may not be necessary for their own homeschool kids, but as
diplomas are not compulsory, they already have the full option available not
to go for a recognized diploma. On the
other hand, Susan and I hear daily from both new and experienced families
expressing how much they appreciate that they can get a recognized high school
diploma in Pennsylvania. At this point
in time, South Carolina and Pennsylvania are the only states (to my knowledge)
where homeschoolers can get a recognized diploma from a homeschool
organization.
Our
organization, PA Homeschoolers Accreditation Agency (PHAA), is just one of the
six homeschool organizations whose diplomas have been recognized by the PA
Department of Education as a way to acknowledge achievement of the graduation
requirements that were written into Pennsylvania’s home education law. Three
homeschool organizations were put on the initial list by the Casey
administration, and three more, so far, have been added to the list by the
Ridge Administration. (See page 25 for
the current list.)
We
hear regularly from a wide range of college and technical school admissions
offices, and all of them also express their great appreciation for the
professional documentation all of our students have, and for the fact that our
office can send on official transcripts that include evaluation letters from
educational professionals. They really like knowing that PHAA students are meeting outside standards
recognized by the PA Department of Education.
We have already achieved at the high school level what HSLDA’s Patrick
Henry College is trying to achieve at the college level as noted in the Spring,
2000, issue of the Virginia Home Educator:
[Patrick
Henry] college’s next step is to gain approval to grant degrees, which will
have to wait for higher education officials to visit the college site after it
opens and make a determination whether the college’s curriculum meets state
guidelines.
Each
of the six organizations has different
standards and procedures and a different interpretation of the graduation
requirements of the Pennsylvania home education law; they give homeschoolers six alternative sets of
standards to choose between. To my
knowledge, the Department of Education has yet to reject an application for
recognition of diplomas from a bona-fide non-profit homeschool
organization. (It continues to puzzle
me why radical homeschool organizations complain about existing diploma options
rather than start their own diploma program.)
The
Department of Education has written letters to PHEAA (Pennsylvania Higher
Education Assistance Agency) and Penn State University recognizing the validity
of the diplomas of these organizations.
(Whenever a college or university would question the validity of a PHAA
diploma, we would send them copies of these letters.) As a result, those with
diplomas from these organizations can get
government scholarship grants as well as admission to public
universities. This is not to say that
homeschoolers need to go with one of these organizations to get such grants or
admission— homeschoolers also have the options available in other states such
as the GED or a certificate of completion of home education signed by the local
school superintendent (if the local superintendent is willing to sign such a
certificate).
The
fact that all homeschoolers in Pennsylvania have to have evaluations makes it
inexpensive for homeschoolers to have an outside person confirm their course
credits. If a “no-accountability” bill
succeeds in taking away the graduation requirements or the evaluators from the
home education law, then it takes away the recognized diploma.
There
are more than a thousand members of
PHAA. (I don’t know the number of members
of the other five organizations.) They
would not be very pleased to have their option of getting a recognized diploma
taken away from them, for the following reasons:
·
They want their children to have the
qualification required to teach their own children in Pennsylvania (a high
school diploma or its equivalent).
·
They want their children to be able to attend
college without having to first pass extra tests that are not required of
school graduates. According to a recent
survey of colleges by the National Center for Home Education, 38% of public-funded colleges and 29% of
private colleges across the nation require homeschoolers to take GED or SAT II
tests not required of school graduates.
In Pennsylvania, graduates of
PHAA (and the other 5 diploma programs) attend colleges without being required
to take such additional tests.
·
They realize that some high school kids would
not do the work just for Mom. With outside requirements the parents can be on
their teenagers’ side helping them to do the required work but do not have to
be the heavy who makes the requirements.
·
The legitimacy and track record of the PHAA
diploma helps them and their kids feel secure that their kids’ futures are not
being endangered. In other states many
homeschoolers feel that they have to take the GED in order to get a legitimate
diploma.
If
you take a look at surrounding states, you’ll see that Pennsylvania has a much
more vibrant high school at home movement than its neighbors. Susan and I have fielded inquiries from state
after state wishing they could accomplish what only we and South Carolina have
accomplished so far— gain recognition
for diplomas awarded by homeschoolers to homeschoolers.
Principles for Legislative Action
Homeschoolers who
engage in legislative efforts must agree to an essential principle without
which we lose the trust of the homeschooling community: Not one step
backward. Promote only what would
provide homeschoolers with new options.
Oppose any bill or amendment that would take away options already won.
If a
homeschool bill goes awry because an unfriendly amendment is inserted that
would take homeschoolers backward, then we must all work together to oppose
it. Virginia homeschoolers, for
example, recently had their bill gutted and an unfriendly amendment added
(requiring that all homeschoolers take the state’s Standards of Learning
Exams). They then worked successfully
to remove the unfriendly amendment.
In
the past in Pennsylvania, homeschoolers have worked hard together to fight the
lowering of Pennsylvania’s beginning compulsory school age from eight. (We have had a temporary truce in this
battle stemming, perhaps, from the campaign promise that Governor Ridge gave to
PA Homeschoolers six years ago.)
I
don’t know what the June 12 meeting will bring. It could result in one bill, several bills, or no bill at
all. It could result either in unity or
alternatively in such deep divisions within the homeschooling community that we
will have a difficult time working together into the far distant future.
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