This isn't surprising considering the nature of most parents who want to
home school their kids. I think this potentially is a very dangerous issue
and these parents are doing their children a great disservice as involvement
in school leads to socialization and experiences that can't be had while
home schooled. but then this is what these parents are wanting. These people
don't want any government intervention and their libertarianism borders on
anarchy if it isn't.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Saturday, September 5, 2015 1:35 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Small Group Goes to Great Lengths to Block
Homeschooling Regulation
Small Group Goes to Great Lengths to Block Homeschooling Regulation
Saturday, 05 September 2015 00:00 By Jessica Huseman, ProPublica | Report
In the fall of 2003, police in New Jersey received a call from a concerned
neighbor who'd found a boy rummaging in her garbage, looking for food. He
was 19 years old but was 4 feet tall and weighed just 45 pounds.
Investigators soon learned that the boy's three younger brothers were also
severely malnourished.
The family was known to social workers, but the children were being
homeschooled and thus were cut off from the one place where their condition
could have gotten daily scrutiny - a classroom.
After the story of the emaciated boys appeared in national newspapers, New
Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg was moved to introduce new
legislation. "My question was, how does someone fall off the face of the
earth so that no one knows they exist? I was told it was because he was
homeschooled," she said.
Her bill, introduced in 2004, would've required parents, for the first time,
to notify the state that their children were being homeschooled, have them
complete the same annual tests as public school students, and submit proof
of annual medical tests.
Soon afterward, a small group of homeschooling parents began following
Weinberg around the capitol. The barrage of phone calls from homeschooling
advocates so jammed her office phone lines that staffers had to use their
private cellphones to conduct business. "You would have thought I'd
recommended the end of the world as we know it," said Weinberg. "Our office
was besieged."
Many of the "hundreds and hundreds" of calls she said her office received
came in response to an email alert from the Home School Legal Defense
Association, a small but fierce advocacy group based in Purcellville,
Virginia. The email, sent May 3, 2004, urged members to immediately place
calls opposing a bill that would "devastate homeschooling in New Jersey" by
giving the state Board of Education "virtually unlimited power to impose
additional restrictions" - a claim Weinberg said was untrue. Additional
alerts with similar language were sent out on May 13, 14, 18, 21, 26 and 28.
"There are very few fights I have given up in the more than 20-some-odd
years I have been involved in the state Legislature, but this was one of
them," Weinberg said. While Weinberg dropped the bill that year, she has
picked it up several times since - as recently as 2014 - even removing the
testing requirement in favor of reviews of student work in an attempt to
compromise with the HSLDA. Each attempt has failed.
To lawmakers who have made similar efforts across the country, this comes as
no surprise. Since homeschooling first became legal about 25 years ago,
HSLDA's lobbying efforts have doomed proposed regulations and rolled back
existing laws in state after state. The group was founded in 1983 by lawyer
and ordained Baptist minister Michael Farris, who also founded Patrick Henry
College. Although its members represent only about 15 percent of the
nation's estimated 1.5 million homeschooled children - up from 850,000 in
1999 - its tactics have made it highly influential.
"To my knowledge, I can't think of an occasion where we went backwards [in
our goal]," said Farris, who said the HSLDA has been involved in "virtually
all" legislative efforts involving homeschooling in the past two decades.
"Somebody who wants to file a bill, they should expect to hear from every
homeschooler in their state. We will do everything we can do to make sure
every homeschooler knows what is going on," said Farris.
Judy Day, a former Democratic assemblywoman in New Hampshire, experienced
this firsthand when she attempted to pass a bill that would have required
annual tests and evaluations of student work, called portfolio reviews, in
2009. In November 2008, before the text of the bill was even released, the
HSLDA sent an email alert to its members, listing Day's phone number and
personal email address. A subsequent alert sent in January 2009 called the
bill the "most serious legislative threat ever faced by New Hampshire
homeschoolers."
Day said she often talked with homeschooling parents for upward of an hour,
explaining that the only intent of the bill was to catch the children who
were receiving a poor education. "The general response was that they weren't
that interested in the other kids - they were interested in their own
children and that's where it stopped," she said. These discussions, she
said, further convinced her that regulation was necessary. The bill went to
a vote but overwhelmingly failed. Day believes other legislators didn't want
to deal with the blowback she'd received.
That same year, David Cook, a former representative from Arkansas, attempted
to pass a bill that would have required homeschooling parents to seek
approval from the local district to homeschool. "I was a superintendent for
18 years, and in that time I saw a lot of folks that said they were
homeschooling and they really weren't," he said. But all of Cook's
cosponsors removed their names from the bill after HSLDA-prompted calls
flooded in. "They thought it was good legislation until the heat got to
them," he said, noting that a similar bill he'd written in 2005 had died in
committee. After meeting with several homeschooling groups to attempt to
compromise on the 2009 bill, Cook came up empty. "They told me the only
legislation they wanted was what Alaska had, which was nothing," he said.
In an alert sent shortly afterwards, the HSLDA thanked its members. "There
is no question that your outcry against this terrible bill is what made the
difference," the email read. "I have no doubt that had you not contacted
these legislators, this bill would have become unstoppable."
The HSLDA's campaigns have continued over the past few years. At the end of
2013, Ohio Sen. Capri Cafaro proposed a bill that would have required social
services to interview parents who wished to homeschool. Her office was
flooded with angry phone calls from all over the country. She wasn't
surprised when the particularly threatening email arrived. According to a
copy provided by the senator's office, it said she had made a "fatal"
mistake and that she "wouldn't see her next birthday," By that time, she'd
received thousands of emails, more responses than she'd gotten for any other
piece of legislation during her more than seven years in office. She
withdrew the bill two weeks after introducing it. Last year, Pennsylvania -
among the few states that broadly regulates homeschooling - rolled back some
of its laws under pressure from the HSLDA. And this year, West Virginia's
state Legislature passed bills that would have drastically reduced
homeschooling requirements in the state, but the governor vetoed the
measures.
"I've never seen a lobby more powerful and scary," said Ellen Heinitz, the
legislative director for Michigan Rep. Stephanie Chang, who ran up against
HSLDA backlash when she tried to pass homeschooling regulations a few months
ago. "They make the anti-vaxxers seem rational."
The HSLDA has even fought and won battles over a broad swath of issues that
seem only tangentially related to homeschooling. Farris said the group has
three "bedrock" concerns - not only homeschooling, but also parental rights
and religious freedom. In Washington, the group's efforts blocked laws that
would have allowed grandparents to petition for visitation rights, claiming
that such policies made it possible for disapproving grandparents to stop
children from being homeschooled. In Montana, the group thwarted proposals
that would have made high-school attendance mandatory beyond age 16.
Initiatives ranging from prekindergarten programs at public schools to the
legalization of gay marriage have pushed the HSLDA to action.
Farris said the HSLDA "always encourages people be polite" and often
provides a script to help guide conversations. Threats are not sanctioned by
the organization, he said. "Iget death threats. I would never want anyone
else to receive a death threat," he told me. Still, he recognizes that the
calls and visits can get out of hand. He said it comes with the territory.
"Look, politics is a rough-and-tumble business at times," he said. "If
somebody can't take some criticism, then they shouldn't be in politics."
When Farris established the HSLDA in the mid-1980s, homeschooling was
illegal across the country. Today, it's legal in all 50 states, but
regulations vary dramatically. Some of the discrepancies (many of which were
highlighted in a new report from the Education Commission of the States)
include:
. Forty-eight states have no background-check process for parents who
choose to homeschool. Two have some restrictions. Arkansas prevents
homeschooling when a registered sex offender lives in the home, while
Pennsylvania bans parents previously convicted of a wide array of crimes
from homeschooling.
. Fewer than half of states require any kind of evaluation. In some of
these, including Washington, New Hampshire and Georgia, homeschooled
students are tested, but these tests are not submitted to the school
district and there are no ramifications for failure. Others, like Oregon,
require parents to submit the test scores only if the local districts
request them. A third category of states, including Maine, requires that
test scores be submitted but set no minimum score.
. Seventeen states have no required subjects for homeschooled
students. Of the 33 states that do, 22 have no means of checking whether a
parent is actually teaching those subjects.
. In 40 states, homeschooling parents are not required to have a
high-school diploma, even if they intend to homeschool through 12th grade.
. Twenty-five states do not require homeschoolers to be vaccinated.
Another 12 mandate vaccinations but do not require records. Only five states
require homeschoolers to submit proof of vaccinations at any time.
In states with more vigorous homeschool regulation, officials have a good
idea of how each child is performing. In New York, for instance, parents who
wish to homeschool must notify the state and submit an education plan. Each
year, they must provide the results of one of several approved standardized
assessments - including the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Stanford
Achievement Test - or, if parents prefer not to test their children, an
agreed-upon portfolio review. If their children aren't making adequate
progress, parents can be put on probation and eventually forced to enroll
their children in school.
But if parents don't like this degree of oversight, they can move across the
Hudson to New Jersey. The word "homeschooling" is not mentioned once in the
education regulations of New Jersey; it's covered under a broadly worded
provision that allows children to receive "equivalent instruction elsewhere
than at school." The state is so uninvolved in homeschooling that it took me
two weeks and over a dozen phone calls to the New Jersey Department of
Education to locate someone who could answer any questions about it. The
person who eventually fielded my call said he'd never been asked about
homeschooling before and called our conversation "a learning experience."
Christopher Lubienski, an education professor at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign who studies homeschooling, notes that public-school
students are flagged if they are chronically truant, while homeschooled
children might be illiterate, suffering from acute medical conditions or
enduring abuse and no one would notice. "We put basic requirements and
limitations for who can teach our children in schools," he said. "But when
you introduce homeschooling outside the ability for the community to see
what happens in the home, that becomes even more of a problem." Parents who
have committed violent crimes against children, he said, can legally
homeschool, and there's often "nothing the state can do."
Similar criticisms have been levied against private schools, which
frequently do not require children to pass state-mandated assessments or
follow the same background check processes as public schools. In some
states, accreditation is optional, giving private schools greater freedom to
deviate from public-school requirements. But even these schools are expected
to meet minimum requirements and conduct screenings that may expose abuse or
neglect. In Texas, where homeschooling is not regulated in any capacity,
private schools are at least required to offer vision and hearing
screenings, as well as screenings for scoliosis. New Jersey, where
homeschooling is also totally unregulated, prevents private schools from
using corporal punishment.
Milton Gaither, a professor of education at Messiah College in Pennsylvania
and the author of "Homeschool: An American History," pointed out that
private schools, by their nature, also fulfill a need homeschooling does
not: to have eyes other than the parents' observing the child.
There's one way the government can check in on homeschooled families: by
sending social workers. These visits typically happen only when officials
get a tip from a concerned neighbor or have other reasons to suspect neglect
or abuse.
Farris believes such visits present a dire threat to homeschooling families,
encroaching on personal freedom and family life. Social workers, he said,
fundamentally misunderstand homeschooling and too often target families that
are in no way abusing their children. "These are armed officers invading
people's houses, in many instances without a warrant," Farris said. "The
reality is that we want to stand together as a movement. If they touch one
of us we are going to go to their defense, and we have the ability to go to
their defense with rigor and expertise."
Farris said his group gets 300 calls a year from dues-paying members
worrying about "social workers at the door." This number, however,
represents just 0.35 percent of the HSLDA's membership, assuming each call
came from a different family.
But Gaither said Farris' view is outdated. When homeschooling was first
legalized, social workers often misunderstood the intent of parents who
chose to keep their children home, he said, and visited homes unnecessarily.
He said similar behavior today is rare because of how mainstream
homeschooling has become.
If social workers are particularly interested in homeschooling families,
it's not because they assume those parents are predisposed to be abusive,
said Barbara Knox, a University of Wisconsin pediatrician who specializes in
child abuse. It's because parents who do have a pattern of abuse often pull
their children from school under the guise of homeschooling in order to
avoid scrutiny. A 2014 study conducted by Knox and five colleagues looked at
38 cases of severe child abuse and found that nearly 50 percent of parents
had either removed their children from public school or never enrolled them,
telling their respective states they were homeschooling.
"This is a pattern all of us see over and over and over again," Knox said.
"Certainly there are wonderful homeschooling families. But the lack of
regulation for this population makes it easier to disenroll children from
public school to further isolate them and escalate abuse to the point of
reaching torture."
Farris acknowledged that such cases exist, but believes more often social
workers are simply harassing parents who choose to educate their children
outside the mainstream.
In 1995, when the organization was first growing into a national power, the
HSLDA put out a role-playing guide called "How To Handle Visits From Social
Service Agents," written by former HSLDA attorney Chris Klicka. The social
worker in the scene is named Orwell, and he forces his way into the home
without a warrant and attempts to strip search the children.
Every family who pays the HSLDA's annual $120 membership fee is entitled to
legal aid from the group whenever social workers come calling. Farris said
families would otherwise find it "almost impossible" to track down a lawyer
who understood the applicable laws and had the resources to act quickly.
Whenever a family does reach out to the group for help, the HSLDA sends out
electronic alerts to all its other members and posts articles on its site
advising families how to avoid the same fate. An article from August 2014 is
titled "Social Workers Snatch Sick Kids."Another, from 2013, is headlined
"Social Worker Says 'I'll Be Back!' Attorney Says 'Make My Day.'" Another,
from 2012: "Let Me In or I'll Huff and I'll Puff and . I'll Take Your Kids!"
Farris is frequently paid to give talks to conventions and homeschooling
organizations on the risks of allowing children to talk to social workers.
He published the book "Anonymous Tip" in 1996 - a 470-page fictional account
of an overzealous and abusive social worker who fakes bruises in order to
take a mother's children away. A fictional lawyer (and fictional graduate of
Farris' real-life law school) comes to the mother's rescue.
Julie Ann Smith, who homeschooled her seven children in Oregon until last
year, joined the HSLDA after she heard one of the group's attorneys speaking
at a conference, telling parents about "difficult cases" in which children
were taken from homeschooling parents. She began receiving the group's
monthly magazine and clipping out instructions on handling social workers,
taping them to the inside of her cupboard for easy access. She even followed
HSLDA's advice not to tell any of her neighbors or family members she was
homeschooling for fear one of them would call social services. Her children
weren't allowed to play outside or answer the door during school hours
because she thought someone would report her for truancy. "It robbed my kids
of opportunities to be outside, and honestly, it robbed my sanity not to
send them outside for a break," said Smith, who now sends her children to a
local school.
LaDonna Sasscer had a similar experience when she was homeschooling her two
children in Florida. She was so worried about social workers that she became
the legislative liaison for her local homeschooling group, and she was the
HSLDA's main point of contact for lobbying efforts. She said she encouraged
people to join the HSLDA by telling them "scary stories that social workers
were going to come and take your children."
"I used to read [the monthly report] cover to cover and flip to my state
right away and say 'Oh my gosh! Look what's happening in Florida!'" said
Sasscer, who has since left the HSLDA and no longer homeschools. "They had
us all paranoid."
Farris rejected the idea that the HSLDA is scaring people into buying
memberships. "I think it would be strange that anyone would think I would do
anything differently than teach people their constitutional rights," he
said. "I don't know how it's scary to tell the stories of my experiences."
He adds that Smith and Sasscer represent only a "small percent of people,"
and that those who are unhappy are free to leave the HSLDA at any time and
receive a full refund.
Although the HSLDA is the nation's leading homeschooling advocacy group, its
85,000 memberships - which Farris said encompass more than 250,000 children,
an average of three per member - represent only a small portion of the
homeschooling population. Some of these families, and almost certainly a
majority of HSLDA members, have religious motivations for choosing to
homeschool; many use alternative textbooks that teach creationism instead of
evolution and offer a Christianity-centered view of American history.
Non-HSLDA members, who constitute about 85 percent of the nation's
homeschoolers, choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons, said Gaither,
the Messiah College professor and homeschooling expert. Some hope to protect
their children from what they see as the systematic racism of public
schools, while others want to give a child with special learning needs more
individual attention. Some families homeschool because a parent's job
requires constant moving, and still others do it simply to become closer to
their children.
Karen Myers Bergey homeschools her two daughters, ages 10 and 13, in
Pennsylvania, the most heavily regulated state for homeschooling in the
country. She said she began homeschooling because she thought she could give
her daughters a better, more self-driven education than her local school
district could.
"I wanted to be able to live as creative of a life as possible," she said.
"If we want to go take in a show in the city, I can have them get their
schoolwork done to allow time for that. We can also take a week off to do an
educational trip or even a fun trip somewhere without someone questioning
that."
While she says her family is faithfully Christian, she doesn't homeschool
because of that. She teaches evolution and Howard Zinn's "A People's History
of the United States," which she says her evangelical friends frown upon.
While she's confident homeschoolers like her make up much of the population,
she said she's frustrated she doesn't see this represented.
"We aren't for or against anything in society at large - we are just
experiencing life together with our children. That voice isn't heard," she
said. "What you hear on TV and the radio is the HSLDA saying to leave us
alone." Bergey said she's never felt like she was "jumping through hoops" to
meet Pennsylvania's standards, and says she's willing to deal with the
regulation if it means keeping kids safe.
"I'm confident that I'm doing a good job for [my children] but I'm willing
to give up some of my freedom to make sure that every child is being
educated in a healthy and beneficial way," she said.
Some of these smaller groups complain that the HSLDA is perpetuating a
stereotype. "Because of the HSLDA, people think we are all far-right,
extremely religious, maybe even fanatics," said Shay Seaborne, a long-time
homeschooling activist and former board member of The Organization of
Virginia Homeschoolers. Gaither said many parents like Bergey never join
homeschooling organizations because their reasons feel so unique to their
own families. Secular homeschooling groups exist in every state, but their
primary role is to offer support and resources, not to lobby politicians.
Even if these groups were to feel strongly about a potential new law, their
lack of organizational prowess and funding would make it impossible for them
to mount campaigns on the scale of the HSLDA's.
The HSLDA argues that it is advancing the goals of all homeschooling
parents, not only through its lobbying but by funding most of the published
research on homeschooled children. There are few independent studies
measuring how much these kids are learning, Gaither said, since it is
difficult to get a random sample of students because notification laws vary
so drastically by state. When homeschoolers take the ACT and SAT, they tend
to perform fairly well. But those who choose to take these tests are likely
already on the higher-achieving end of the group; as a whole, studies have
shown homeschoolers take college entrance exams at a lower rate than their
public or private-schooled peers.
The HSLDA has funded dozens of studies on homeschoolers' academic
performance, most of them conducted by Brian Ray at the National Home
Education Research Institute. Every study Ray has published on homeschoolers
indicates they are performing at or above the level of similarly situated
public school students. Studies not funded by the HSLDA do not tend to be as
positive or have such definitive findings, though most find that the small
sample of homeschooled students studied are not performing demonstrably
worse than their peers.
Gaither said Ray's studies are generally as sound as surveys, but they don't
necessarily indicate how homeschooling impacts the average student, since
they rely on voluntary surveys given to members of HSLDA and similar
organizations. Parents whose children do poorly, he said, are unlikely to
volunteer to submit their results.
The HSLDA tends to draw conclusions from Ray's studies far beyond even Ray
himself. While Ray typically includes disclaimers that the studies should
not be used to draw broad conclusions, one HSLDA pamphlet touting his
research leaves this out, claiming, "Homeschoolers are still achieving well
beyond their public school counterparts - no matter what their family
background, socioeconomic level, or style of homeschooling."
Ray acknowledges the way in which his work is used by the HSLDA. "I wouldn't
say it's fine, but it's what they do," he said. "I try to be responsible for
what I write, but I'm not their policeman."
Over the past few years, some members of the first homeschooled generation
have begun advocating for stronger regulations. Ryan Stollar is the
co-founder of Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out, with a mission of improving
homeschooling for future generations. "When homeschooling is done
responsibly, it can be amazing," the group says on its website. "What we
oppose is irresponsible homeschooling, where the educational method is used
to create or hide abuse, isolation, and neglect."
Stollar said the homeschool alumni he has spoken with "never felt like they
had a right" to speak out because they were always expected to be "perfect
examples and show homeschooling can work." Now, he said, that's changing.
"These last three years have been the first time people have felt like it's
okay to say, 'Hey, everything wasn't perfect.'" On the HARO website, alumni
are encouraged to share their experiences of abuse and neglect and provide
critical analysis of the curricula, principles and leaders who dominated the
field when they were growing up.
Rachel Coleman, a co-founder of the Coalition for Responsible Home
Education, said she felt for years that if she criticized homeschooling she
would be labeled "a traitor." Her group advocates for homeschool reform and
aims to make homeschooling "a child-centered option, used only to lovingly
prepare young people for an open future."
When asked about the groups, Jim Mason, an attorney with the HSLDA, told me
that, while he takes issue with what he called their "tone," he thinks "some
of their criticisms [are] very well taken or valid." The HSLDA is "certainly
open to considering constructive criticism" he said. But when I spoke to
Farris, he dismissed both organizations outright, calling them "a group of
bitter young people" who are "fighting against homeschooling . to work out
their own issues with their parents."
Farris has rebuttals to each of the five practices recommended by CRHE,
Coleman's group. At the moment, no state follows all five recommendations,
and only a small percentage of states follow any of them.
First, CRHE said all states should require homeschooling parents to annually
notify the state of their intent to homeschool. "Do we ask parents to
annually notify the state that they are feeding their kids?" Farris
responded. "No. But that's necessary for well-being, too. We trust parents
to feed their kids, and we have an elaborate infrastructure called society
that interfaces with people and checks up on them. Does it work every time?
No. Do people fall through the cracks? Yes. Nonetheless as a free country we
have decided that we do not want the country invading every home."
The HSLDA also takes issue with CHRE's second suggestion: that all parents
who choose to homeschool are subjected to a background check. The HSLDA
contends such a policy would be redundant, as parents convicted of abuse are
already subject to additional oversight. But Coleman said this isn't always
the case, as social workers tend not to remove children from the home unless
extreme circumstances are present. Also, she said, parents convicted of
crimes such as drug abuse or assault against someone other than their child
may still have custody.
The CHRE's third recommendation is that homeschooled students complete
annual standardized tests or a portfolio review, to be assessed by a
non-relative. The HSLDA strongly opposes all types of standardized testing,
which Farris said forces a curriculum onto parents by default. The group
recently succeeded in lobbying the state of Arkansas to repeal its testing
provision, which an HSLDA news alert said had "no stated purpose." (This was
true - the test had no minimum score and was not submitted to the state,
which meant it could not be used to intervene in a child's education.)
Fourth, the CRHE advocates for a system that would flag homeschooling
families with a troubling history of social services involvement, subjecting
them to additional oversight such as random visits or additional testing.
Mason, the HSLDA lawyer, said this ran counter to American principles by
punishing families for unproven wrongdoing. "We live in a country of
presumed innocence," he said. "Suspicion of wrongdoing shouldn't limit the
actions of anyone."
Knox, the abuse expert, disagrees. She supports increased communication
between family services agencies and school systems, so that when a child
with a history of family services involvement is removed from public school
for homeschooling they can be flagged and monitored.
Finally, CRHE said homeschooled students should be subject to the same
medical requirements as public-school students. At the moment, almost every
state requires public school students to submit medical forms filled out by
a doctor. The HSLDA is neutral on whether parents should vaccinate their
children, but it opposes "any attempt to weaken exemption provisions
currently in state law" and sends out emergency alerts when states propose
removing exemptions. This year alone, alerts have been sent out warning
parents of bills concerning vaccination requirements in Maine, California,
Rhode Island, New Jersey, Oregon, Maryland, and Mississippi.
Rob Reich, a professor of political science at Stanford who has written
extensively about homeschooling regulation, said it's "hard to oppose" laws
that would limit abusive parents from homeschooling. But, he said,
legislators should first pass laws that gather data on homeschooling.
"The HSLDA points out their success stories, and the skeptics point out the
abuse," he said, but neither side has real numbers to back up its claims.
Luis Huerta, an associate professor of education and public policy at
Teachers College-Columbia University, is also in favor of CRHE's data
collection proposals and says he's fascinated by the group's emergence.
"Never have we had this strong of a group who are advocates [of
homeschooling] and who are also demanding that we have information from
which to be able to draw empirical conclusions that influence policy
decisions," he said. "This can potentially change the landscape."
Farris is frustrated by the criticism from groups like CRHE and HARO,
insisting that many of these groups will "say the opposite, no matter what
we say." When I told him that I'd spoken to homeschoolers who told me HSLDA
doesn't represent their views, he responded, "We don't ever say that we do.
But 15 percent, I will say, is bigger than anything they can organize."
Stollar, the co-founder of HARO, said his group is constantly struggling to
let legislators know there are other perspectives out there. Last year, he
and several other former homeschoolers showed up at the Virginia statehouse
to lobby in favor of a resolution proposed by Tom Rust, a Republican
assemblyman. Rust had proposed a study of the state's religious exemption
law: In Virginia, homeschoolers are officially required to register and
document their children's progress. But parents who file a religious
exemption are allowed to forego school without any requirements at all.
About 7,000 Virginia children are currently homeschooling under this
provision. Rust said he wrote the bill after receiving phone calls from
constituents who felt members of their extended family were receiving a poor
education under the exemption.
HSLDA quickly sent a notification out to its member families, urging them to
"accept the possibility that Rust's call for a study is a mere pretext, and
that his true intention is to try to take away some of your freedom once the
study gives him some 'cover.'" Carol Sinclair, Rust's legislative assistant,
answered most of the group's phone calls, which came from all over the
country. She said most of the callers were "downright difficult" and refused
to acknowledge that some homeschooled children were being poorly educated.
"If you care enough about homeschooling, I would think you would want to
make sure children didn't slip through the cracks of the system," she said.
Until I spoke to Rust, he had assumed, as many legislators do, that the
HSLDA represents the majority of homeschooling families. "They clearly came
across as speaking for all homeschoolers - that's certainly the impression
they gave - and to be honest with you, I thought that's what they were
doing," he said.
It may take some time to change that impression, said Stollar. When he and
his fellow homeschooling alumni showed up at the statehouse to voice their
support for Rust, many of the legislators assumed they were part of the
HSLDA and dismissed them immediately.
"One legislator in particular put her hand up and said 'I'm not even going
to talk to you guys,'" he recalled. "We explained our position several
times, and she just didn't get it. Finally, it dawned on her that we were in
favor of the bill. She was astonished by that."
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
JESSICA HUSEMAN
Jessica Huseman recently graduated from the Stabile Center for Investigative
Journalism at Columbia University, which provided support for this project.
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Small Group Goes to Great Lengths to Block Homeschooling Regulation
Saturday, 05 September 2015 00:00 By Jessica Huseman, ProPublica | Report
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. In the fall of 2003, police in New Jersey received a call from a
concerned neighbor who'd found a boy rummaging in her garbage, looking for
food. He was 19 years old but was 4 feet tall and weighed just 45 pounds.
Investigators soon learned that the boy's three younger brothers were also
severely malnourished.
. The family was known to social workers, but the children were being
homeschooled and thus were cut off from the one place where their condition
could have gotten daily scrutiny - a classroom.
After the story of the emaciated boys appeared in national newspapers, New
Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg was moved to introduce new
legislation. "My question was, how does someone fall off the face of the
earth so that no one knows they exist? I was told it was because he was
homeschooled," she said.
Her bill, introduced in 2004, would've required parents, for the first time,
to notify the state that their children were being homeschooled, have them
complete the same annual tests as public school students, and submit proof
of annual medical tests.
Soon afterward, a small group of homeschooling parents began following
Weinberg around the capitol. The barrage of phone calls from homeschooling
advocates so jammed her office phone lines that staffers had to use their
private cellphones to conduct business. "You would have thought I'd
recommended the end of the world as we know it," said Weinberg. "Our office
was besieged."
Many of the "hundreds and hundreds" of calls she said her office received
came in response to an email alert from the Home School Legal Defense
Association, a small but fierce advocacy group based in Purcellville,
Virginia. The email, sent May 3, 2004, urged members to immediately place
calls opposing a bill that would "devastate homeschooling in New Jersey" by
giving the state Board of Education "virtually unlimited power to impose
additional restrictions" - a claim Weinberg said was untrue. Additional
alerts with similar language were sent out on May 13, 14, 18, 21, 26 and 28.
"There are very few fights I have given up in the more than 20-some-odd
years I have been involved in the state Legislature, but this was one of
them," Weinberg said. While Weinberg dropped the bill that year, she has
picked it up several times since - as recently as 2014 - even removing the
testing requirement in favor of reviews of student work in an attempt to
compromise with the HSLDA. Each attempt has failed.
To lawmakers who have made similar efforts across the country, this comes as
no surprise. Since homeschooling first became legal about 25 years ago,
HSLDA's lobbying efforts have doomed proposed regulations and rolled back
existing laws in state after state. The group was founded in 1983 by lawyer
and ordained Baptist minister Michael Farris, who also founded Patrick Henry
College. Although its members represent only about 15 percent of the
nation's estimated 1.5 million homeschooled children - up from 850,000 in
1999 - its tactics have made it highly influential.
"To my knowledge, I can't think of an occasion where we went backwards [in
our goal]," said Farris, who said the HSLDA has been involved in "virtually
all" legislative efforts involving homeschooling in the past two decades.
"Somebody who wants to file a bill, they should expect to hear from every
homeschooler in their state. We will do everything we can do to make sure
every homeschooler knows what is going on," said Farris.
Judy Day, a former Democratic assemblywoman in New Hampshire, experienced
this firsthand when she attempted to pass a bill that would have required
annual tests and evaluations of student work, called portfolio reviews, in
2009. In November 2008, before the text of the bill was even released, the
HSLDA sent an email alert to its members, listing Day's phone number and
personal email address. A subsequent alert sent in January 2009 called the
bill the "most serious legislative threat ever faced by New Hampshire
homeschoolers."
Day said she often talked with homeschooling parents for upward of an hour,
explaining that the only intent of the bill was to catch the children who
were receiving a poor education. "The general response was that they weren't
that interested in the other kids - they were interested in their own
children and that's where it stopped," she said. These discussions, she
said, further convinced her that regulation was necessary. The bill went to
a vote but overwhelmingly failed. Day believes other legislators didn't want
to deal with the blowback she'd received.
That same year, David Cook, a former representative from Arkansas, attempted
to pass a bill that would have required homeschooling parents to seek
approval from the local district to homeschool. "I was a superintendent for
18 years, and in that time I saw a lot of folks that said they were
homeschooling and they really weren't," he said. But all of Cook's
cosponsors removed their names from the bill after HSLDA-prompted calls
flooded in. "They thought it was good legislation until the heat got to
them," he said, noting that a similar bill he'd written in 2005 had died in
committee. After meeting with several homeschooling groups to attempt to
compromise on the 2009 bill, Cook came up empty. "They told me the only
legislation they wanted was what Alaska had, which was nothing," he said.
In an alert sent shortly afterwards, the HSLDA thanked its members. "There
is no question that your outcry against this terrible bill is what made the
difference," the email read. "I have no doubt that had you not contacted
these legislators, this bill would have become unstoppable."
The HSLDA's campaigns have continued over the past few years. At the end of
2013, Ohio Sen. Capri Cafaro proposed a bill that would have required social
services to interview parents who wished to homeschool. Her office was
flooded with angry phone calls from all over the country. She wasn't
surprised when the particularly threatening email arrived. According to a
copy provided by the senator's office, it said she had made a "fatal"
mistake and that she "wouldn't see her next birthday," By that time, she'd
received thousands of emails, more responses than she'd gotten for any other
piece of legislation during her more than seven years in office. She
withdrew the bill two weeks after introducing it. Last year, Pennsylvania -
among the few states that broadly regulates homeschooling - rolled back some
of its laws under pressure from the HSLDA. And this year, West Virginia's
state Legislature passed bills that would have drastically reduced
homeschooling requirements in the state, but the governor vetoed the
measures.
"I've never seen a lobby more powerful and scary," said Ellen Heinitz, the
legislative director for Michigan Rep. Stephanie Chang, who ran up against
HSLDA backlash when she tried to pass homeschooling regulations a few months
ago. "They make the anti-vaxxers seem rational."
The HSLDA has even fought and won battles over a broad swath of issues that
seem only tangentially related to homeschooling. Farris said the group has
three "bedrock" concerns - not only homeschooling, but also parental rights
and religious freedom. In Washington, the group's efforts blocked laws that
would have allowed grandparents to petition for visitation rights, claiming
that such policies made it possible for disapproving grandparents to stop
children from being homeschooled. In Montana, the group thwarted proposals
that would have made high-school attendance mandatory beyond age 16.
Initiatives ranging from prekindergarten programs at public schools to the
legalization of gay marriage have pushed the HSLDA to action.
Farris said the HSLDA "always encourages people be polite" and often
provides a script to help guide conversations. Threats are not sanctioned by
the organization, he said. "Iget death threats. I would never want anyone
else to receive a death threat," he told me. Still, he recognizes that the
calls and visits can get out of hand. He said it comes with the territory.
"Look, politics is a rough-and-tumble business at times," he said. "If
somebody can't take some criticism, then they shouldn't be in politics."
When Farris established the HSLDA in the mid-1980s, homeschooling was
illegal across the country. Today, it's legal in all 50 states, but
regulations vary dramatically. Some of the discrepancies (many of which were
highlighted in a new report from the Education Commission of the States)
include:
. Forty-eight states have no background-check process for parents who
choose to homeschool. Two have some restrictions. Arkansas prevents
homeschooling when a registered sex offender lives in the home, while
Pennsylvania bans parents previously convicted of a wide array of crimes
from homeschooling.
. Fewer than half of states require any kind of evaluation. In some of
these, including Washington, New Hampshire and Georgia, homeschooled
students are tested, but these tests are not submitted to the school
district and there are no ramifications for failure. Others, like Oregon,
require parents to submit the test scores only if the local districts
request them. A third category of states, including Maine, requires that
test scores be submitted but set no minimum score.
. Seventeen states have no required subjects for homeschooled
students. Of the 33 states that do, 22 have no means of checking whether a
parent is actually teaching those subjects.
. In 40 states, homeschooling parents are not required to have a
high-school diploma, even if they intend to homeschool through 12th grade.
. Twenty-five states do not require homeschoolers to be vaccinated.
Another 12 mandate vaccinations but do not require records. Only five states
require homeschoolers to submit proof of vaccinations at any time.
In states with more vigorous homeschool regulation, officials have a good
idea of how each child is performing. In New York, for instance, parents who
wish to homeschool must notify the state and submit an education plan. Each
year, they must provide the results of one of several approved standardized
assessments - including the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Stanford
Achievement Test - or, if parents prefer not to test their children, an
agreed-upon portfolio review. If their children aren't making adequate
progress, parents can be put on probation and eventually forced to enroll
their children in school.
But if parents don't like this degree of oversight, they can move across the
Hudson to New Jersey. The word "homeschooling" is not mentioned once in the
education regulations of New Jersey; it's covered under a broadly worded
provision that allows children to receive "equivalent instruction elsewhere
than at school." The state is so uninvolved in homeschooling that it took me
two weeks and over a dozen phone calls to the New Jersey Department of
Education to locate someone who could answer any questions about it. The
person who eventually fielded my call said he'd never been asked about
homeschooling before and called our conversation "a learning experience."
Christopher Lubienski, an education professor at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign who studies homeschooling, notes that public-school
students are flagged if they are chronically truant, while homeschooled
children might be illiterate, suffering from acute medical conditions or
enduring abuse and no one would notice. "We put basic requirements and
limitations for who can teach our children in schools," he said. "But when
you introduce homeschooling outside the ability for the community to see
what happens in the home, that becomes even more of a problem." Parents who
have committed violent crimes against children, he said, can legally
homeschool, and there's often "nothing the state can do."
Similar criticisms have been levied against private schools, which
frequently do not require children to pass state-mandated assessments or
follow the same background check processes as public schools. In some
states, accreditation is optional, giving private schools greater freedom to
deviate from public-school requirements. But even these schools are expected
to meet minimum requirements and conduct screenings that may expose abuse or
neglect. In Texas, where homeschooling is not regulated in any capacity,
private schools are at least required to offer vision and hearing
screenings, as well as screenings for scoliosis. New Jersey, where
homeschooling is also totally unregulated, prevents private schools from
using corporal punishment.
Milton Gaither, a professor of education at Messiah College in Pennsylvania
and the author of "Homeschool: An American History," pointed out that
private schools, by their nature, also fulfill a need homeschooling does
not: to have eyes other than the parents' observing the child.
There's one way the government can check in on homeschooled families: by
sending social workers. These visits typically happen only when officials
get a tip from a concerned neighbor or have other reasons to suspect neglect
or abuse.
Farris believes such visits present a dire threat to homeschooling families,
encroaching on personal freedom and family life. Social workers, he said,
fundamentally misunderstand homeschooling and too often target families that
are in no way abusing their children. "These are armed officers invading
people's houses, in many instances without a warrant," Farris said. "The
reality is that we want to stand together as a movement. If they touch one
of us we are going to go to their defense, and we have the ability to go to
their defense with rigor and expertise."
Farris said his group gets 300 calls a year from dues-paying members
worrying about "social workers at the door." This number, however,
represents just 0.35 percent of the HSLDA's membership, assuming each call
came from a different family.
But Gaither said Farris' view is outdated. When homeschooling was first
legalized, social workers often misunderstood the intent of parents who
chose to keep their children home, he said, and visited homes unnecessarily.
He said similar behavior today is rare because of how mainstream
homeschooling has become.
If social workers are particularly interested in homeschooling families,
it's not because they assume those parents are predisposed to be abusive,
said Barbara Knox, a University of Wisconsin pediatrician who specializes in
child abuse. It's because parents who do have a pattern of abuse often pull
their children from school under the guise of homeschooling in order to
avoid scrutiny. A 2014 study conducted by Knox and five colleagues looked at
38 cases of severe child abuse and found that nearly 50 percent of parents
had either removed their children from public school or never enrolled them,
telling their respective states they were homeschooling.
"This is a pattern all of us see over and over and over again," Knox said.
"Certainly there are wonderful homeschooling families. But the lack of
regulation for this population makes it easier to disenroll children from
public school to further isolate them and escalate abuse to the point of
reaching torture."
Farris acknowledged that such cases exist, but believes more often social
workers are simply harassing parents who choose to educate their children
outside the mainstream.
In 1995, when the organization was first growing into a national power, the
HSLDA put out a role-playing guide called "How To Handle Visits From Social
Service Agents," written by former HSLDA attorney Chris Klicka. The social
worker in the scene is named Orwell, and he forces his way into the home
without a warrant and attempts to strip search the children.
Every family who pays the HSLDA's annual $120 membership fee is entitled to
legal aid from the group whenever social workers come calling. Farris said
families would otherwise find it "almost impossible" to track down a lawyer
who understood the applicable laws and had the resources to act quickly.
Whenever a family does reach out to the group for help, the HSLDA sends out
electronic alerts to all its other members and posts articles on its site
advising families how to avoid the same fate. An article from August 2014 is
titled "Social Workers Snatch Sick Kids."Another, from 2013, is headlined
"Social Worker Says 'I'll Be Back!' Attorney Says 'Make My Day.'" Another,
from 2012: "Let Me In or I'll Huff and I'll Puff and . I'll Take Your Kids!"
Farris is frequently paid to give talks to conventions and homeschooling
organizations on the risks of allowing children to talk to social workers.
He published the book "Anonymous Tip" in 1996 - a 470-page fictional account
of an overzealous and abusive social worker who fakes bruises in order to
take a mother's children away. A fictional lawyer (and fictional graduate of
Farris' real-life law school) comes to the mother's rescue.
Julie Ann Smith, who homeschooled her seven children in Oregon until last
year, joined the HSLDA after she heard one of the group's attorneys speaking
at a conference, telling parents about "difficult cases" in which children
were taken from homeschooling parents. She began receiving the group's
monthly magazine and clipping out instructions on handling social workers,
taping them to the inside of her cupboard for easy access. She even followed
HSLDA's advice not to tell any of her neighbors or family members she was
homeschooling for fear one of them would call social services. Her children
weren't allowed to play outside or answer the door during school hours
because she thought someone would report her for truancy. "It robbed my kids
of opportunities to be outside, and honestly, it robbed my sanity not to
send them outside for a break," said Smith, who now sends her children to a
local school.
LaDonna Sasscer had a similar experience when she was homeschooling her two
children in Florida. She was so worried about social workers that she became
the legislative liaison for her local homeschooling group, and she was the
HSLDA's main point of contact for lobbying efforts. She said she encouraged
people to join the HSLDA by telling them "scary stories that social workers
were going to come and take your children."
"I used to read [the monthly report] cover to cover and flip to my state
right away and say 'Oh my gosh! Look what's happening in Florida!'" said
Sasscer, who has since left the HSLDA and no longer homeschools. "They had
us all paranoid."
Farris rejected the idea that the HSLDA is scaring people into buying
memberships. "I think it would be strange that anyone would think I would do
anything differently than teach people their constitutional rights," he
said. "I don't know how it's scary to tell the stories of my experiences."
He adds that Smith and Sasscer represent only a "small percent of people,"
and that those who are unhappy are free to leave the HSLDA at any time and
receive a full refund.
Although the HSLDA is the nation's leading homeschooling advocacy group, its
85,000 memberships - which Farris said encompass more than 250,000 children,
an average of three per member - represent only a small portion of the
homeschooling population. Some of these families, and almost certainly a
majority of HSLDA members, have religious motivations for choosing to
homeschool; many use alternative textbooks that teach creationism instead of
evolution and offer a Christianity-centered view of American history.
Non-HSLDA members, who constitute about 85 percent of the nation's
homeschoolers, choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons, said Gaither,
the Messiah College professor and homeschooling expert. Some hope to protect
their children from what they see as the systematic racism of public
schools, while others want to give a child with special learning needs more
individual attention. Some families homeschool because a parent's job
requires constant moving, and still others do it simply to become closer to
their children.
Karen Myers Bergey homeschools her two daughters, ages 10 and 13, in
Pennsylvania, the most heavily regulated state for homeschooling in the
country. She said she began homeschooling because she thought she could give
her daughters a better, more self-driven education than her local school
district could.
"I wanted to be able to live as creative of a life as possible," she said.
"If we want to go take in a show in the city, I can have them get their
schoolwork done to allow time for that. We can also take a week off to do an
educational trip or even a fun trip somewhere without someone questioning
that."
While she says her family is faithfully Christian, she doesn't homeschool
because of that. She teaches evolution and Howard Zinn's "A People's History
of the United States," which she says her evangelical friends frown upon.
While she's confident homeschoolers like her make up much of the population,
she said she's frustrated she doesn't see this represented.
"We aren't for or against anything in society at large - we are just
experiencing life together with our children. That voice isn't heard," she
said. "What you hear on TV and the radio is the HSLDA saying to leave us
alone." Bergey said she's never felt like she was "jumping through hoops" to
meet Pennsylvania's standards, and says she's willing to deal with the
regulation if it means keeping kids safe.
"I'm confident that I'm doing a good job for [my children] but I'm willing
to give up some of my freedom to make sure that every child is being
educated in a healthy and beneficial way," she said.
Some of these smaller groups complain that the HSLDA is perpetuating a
stereotype. "Because of the HSLDA, people think we are all far-right,
extremely religious, maybe even fanatics," said Shay Seaborne, a long-time
homeschooling activist and former board member of The Organization of
Virginia Homeschoolers. Gaither said many parents like Bergey never join
homeschooling organizations because their reasons feel so unique to their
own families. Secular homeschooling groups exist in every state, but their
primary role is to offer support and resources, not to lobby politicians.
Even if these groups were to feel strongly about a potential new law, their
lack of organizational prowess and funding would make it impossible for them
to mount campaigns on the scale of the HSLDA's.
The HSLDA argues that it is advancing the goals of all homeschooling
parents, not only through its lobbying but by funding most of the published
research on homeschooled children. There are few independent studies
measuring how much these kids are learning, Gaither said, since it is
difficult to get a random sample of students because notification laws vary
so drastically by state. When homeschoolers take the ACT and SAT, they tend
to perform fairly well. But those who choose to take these tests are likely
already on the higher-achieving end of the group; as a whole, studies have
shown homeschoolers take college entrance exams at a lower rate than their
public or private-schooled peers.
The HSLDA has funded dozens of studies on homeschoolers' academic
performance, most of them conducted by Brian Ray at the National Home
Education Research Institute. Every study Ray has published on homeschoolers
indicates they are performing at or above the level of similarly situated
public school students. Studies not funded by the HSLDA do not tend to be as
positive or have such definitive findings, though most find that the small
sample of homeschooled students studied are not performing demonstrably
worse than their peers.
Gaither said Ray's studies are generally as sound as surveys, but they don't
necessarily indicate how homeschooling impacts the average student, since
they rely on voluntary surveys given to members of HSLDA and similar
organizations. Parents whose children do poorly, he said, are unlikely to
volunteer to submit their results.
The HSLDA tends to draw conclusions from Ray's studies far beyond even Ray
himself. While Ray typically includes disclaimers that the studies should
not be used to draw broad conclusions, one HSLDA pamphlet touting his
research leaves this out, claiming, "Homeschoolers are still achieving well
beyond their public school counterparts - no matter what their family
background, socioeconomic level, or style of homeschooling."
Ray acknowledges the way in which his work is used by the HSLDA. "I wouldn't
say it's fine, but it's what they do," he said. "I try to be responsible for
what I write, but I'm not their policeman."
Over the past few years, some members of the first homeschooled generation
have begun advocating for stronger regulations. Ryan Stollar is the
co-founder of Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out, with a mission of improving
homeschooling for future generations. "When homeschooling is done
responsibly, it can be amazing," the group says on its website. "What we
oppose is irresponsible homeschooling, where the educational method is used
to create or hide abuse, isolation, and neglect."
Stollar said the homeschool alumni he has spoken with "never felt like they
had a right" to speak out because they were always expected to be "perfect
examples and show homeschooling can work." Now, he said, that's changing.
"These last three years have been the first time people have felt like it's
okay to say, 'Hey, everything wasn't perfect.'" On the HARO website, alumni
are encouraged to share their experiences of abuse and neglect and provide
critical analysis of the curricula, principles and leaders who dominated the
field when they were growing up.
Rachel Coleman, a co-founder of the Coalition for Responsible Home
Education, said she felt for years that if she criticized homeschooling she
would be labeled "a traitor." Her group advocates for homeschool reform and
aims to make homeschooling "a child-centered option, used only to lovingly
prepare young people for an open future."
When asked about the groups, Jim Mason, an attorney with the HSLDA, told me
that, while he takes issue with what he called their "tone," he thinks "some
of their criticisms [are] very well taken or valid." The HSLDA is "certainly
open to considering constructive criticism" he said. But when I spoke to
Farris, he dismissed both organizations outright, calling them "a group of
bitter young people" who are "fighting against homeschooling . to work out
their own issues with their parents."
Farris has rebuttals to each of the five practices recommended by CRHE,
Coleman's group. At the moment, no state follows all five recommendations,
and only a small percentage of states follow any of them.
First, CRHE said all states should require homeschooling parents to annually
notify the state of their intent to homeschool. "Do we ask parents to
annually notify the state that they are feeding their kids?" Farris
responded. "No. But that's necessary for well-being, too. We trust parents
to feed their kids, and we have an elaborate infrastructure called society
that interfaces with people and checks up on them. Does it work every time?
No. Do people fall through the cracks? Yes. Nonetheless as a free country we
have decided that we do not want the country invading every home."
The HSLDA also takes issue with CHRE's second suggestion: that all parents
who choose to homeschool are subjected to a background check. The HSLDA
contends such a policy would be redundant, as parents convicted of abuse are
already subject to additional oversight. But Coleman said this isn't always
the case, as social workers tend not to remove children from the home unless
extreme circumstances are present. Also, she said, parents convicted of
crimes such as drug abuse or assault against someone other than their child
may still have custody.
The CHRE's third recommendation is that homeschooled students complete
annual standardized tests or a portfolio review, to be assessed by a
non-relative. The HSLDA strongly opposes all types of standardized testing,
which Farris said forces a curriculum onto parents by default. The group
recently succeeded in lobbying the state of Arkansas to repeal its testing
provision, which an HSLDA news alert said had "no stated purpose." (This was
true - the test had no minimum score and was not submitted to the state,
which meant it could not be used to intervene in a child's education.)
Fourth, the CRHE advocates for a system that would flag homeschooling
families with a troubling history of social services involvement, subjecting
them to additional oversight such as random visits or additional testing.
Mason, the HSLDA lawyer, said this ran counter to American principles by
punishing families for unproven wrongdoing. "We live in a country of
presumed innocence," he said. "Suspicion of wrongdoing shouldn't limit the
actions of anyone."
Knox, the abuse expert, disagrees. She supports increased communication
between family services agencies and school systems, so that when a child
with a history of family services involvement is removed from public school
for homeschooling they can be flagged and monitored.
Finally, CRHE said homeschooled students should be subject to the same
medical requirements as public-school students. At the moment, almost every
state requires public school students to submit medical forms filled out by
a doctor. The HSLDA is neutral on whether parents should vaccinate their
children, but it opposes "any attempt to weaken exemption provisions
currently in state law" and sends out emergency alerts when states propose
removing exemptions. This year alone, alerts have been sent out warning
parents of bills concerning vaccination requirements in Maine, California,
Rhode Island, New Jersey, Oregon, Maryland, and Mississippi.
Rob Reich, a professor of political science at Stanford who has written
extensively about homeschooling regulation, said it's "hard to oppose" laws
that would limit abusive parents from homeschooling. But, he said,
legislators should first pass laws that gather data on homeschooling.
"The HSLDA points out their success stories, and the skeptics point out the
abuse," he said, but neither side has real numbers to back up its claims.
Luis Huerta, an associate professor of education and public policy at
Teachers College-Columbia University, is also in favor of CRHE's data
collection proposals and says he's fascinated by the group's emergence.
"Never have we had this strong of a group who are advocates [of
homeschooling] and who are also demanding that we have information from
which to be able to draw empirical conclusions that influence policy
decisions," he said. "This can potentially change the landscape."
Farris is frustrated by the criticism from groups like CRHE and HARO,
insisting that many of these groups will "say the opposite, no matter what
we say." When I told him that I'd spoken to homeschoolers who told me HSLDA
doesn't represent their views, he responded, "We don't ever say that we do.
But 15 percent, I will say, is bigger than anything they can organize."
Stollar, the co-founder of HARO, said his group is constantly struggling to
let legislators know there are other perspectives out there. Last year, he
and several other former homeschoolers showed up at the Virginia statehouse
to lobby in favor of a resolution proposed by Tom Rust, a Republican
assemblyman. Rust had proposed a study of the state's religious exemption
law: In Virginia, homeschoolers are officially required to register and
document their children's progress. But parents who file a religious
exemption are allowed to forego school without any requirements at all.
About 7,000 Virginia children are currently homeschooling under this
provision. Rust said he wrote the bill after receiving phone calls from
constituents who felt members of their extended family were receiving a poor
education under the exemption.
HSLDA quickly sent a notification out to its member families, urging them to
"accept the possibility that Rust's call for a study is a mere pretext, and
that his true intention is to try to take away some of your freedom once the
study gives him some 'cover.'" Carol Sinclair, Rust's legislative assistant,
answered most of the group's phone calls, which came from all over the
country. She said most of the callers were "downright difficult" and refused
to acknowledge that some homeschooled children were being poorly educated.
"If you care enough about homeschooling, I would think you would want to
make sure children didn't slip through the cracks of the system," she said.
Until I spoke to Rust, he had assumed, as many legislators do, that the
HSLDA represents the majority of homeschooling families. "They clearly came
across as speaking for all homeschoolers - that's certainly the impression
they gave - and to be honest with you, I thought that's what they were
doing," he said.
It may take some time to change that impression, said Stollar. When he and
his fellow homeschooling alumni showed up at the statehouse to voice their
support for Rust, many of the legislators assumed they were part of the
HSLDA and dismissed them immediately.
"One legislator in particular put her hand up and said 'I'm not even going
to talk to you guys,'" he recalled. "We explained our position several
times, and she just didn't get it. Finally, it dawned on her that we were in
favor of the bill. She was astonished by that."
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Jessica Huseman
Jessica Huseman recently graduated from the Stabile Center for Investigative
Journalism at Columbia University, which provided support for this project.
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