Linda in NE
02-14-2008, 10:25 AM
I wish to add my comments regarding LB 1141 to the many comments I'm sure you're receiving about the bill. Before I address my opinion of LB 1141, you should know a little bit about me and my family.
[personal info deleted]
My husband and I strongly oppose LB 1141 for a number of reasons. The first and perhaps the most egregious aspect of the measure is the financial burden it places upon homeschooling in Nebraska. My husband and I currently pay almost $5000 per year in property taxes, close to $3000 of which is earmarked for BLANK Public Schools (BPS). Even though our children do not attend BPS, we are required by law to support that institution with our tax dollars, and we do so. Because we homeschool, we actually benefit BPS over and above the average BLANK taxpayer. Our tax dollars pay for the education of children other than our own and, at the same time, we bear the full cost and responsibility for our own children's educations. In essence, BPS has the benefit and use of our money to spend and, simultaneously, fewer students to spend it on. Homeschooling families do not receive any subsidy or rebate from tax dollars for the purchase of curricula or to secure instruction outside the home where it is necessary. I can tell you that for this year alone I will spend approximately $2000 for books, materials, and other curricula for use in homeschooling my two children, and I will spend approximately another $2500 to $3000 for individual instruction outside my home (i.e., for private music, foreign language, and swimming lessons for my sons). Because I actively school my boys, I cannot work outside our home. Like most homeschooling families, we are supported primarily by a single wage-earner. If you add lost opportunity cost -- the salary I forego to stay home and home educate my children -- to what my husband and I spend to buy what we need to homeschool, homeschooling is, in fact, an extremely expensive lifestyle. LB 1141 would make homeschooling even more dear by requiring homeschoolers to pay for unwanted and unneeded oversight by the State Department of Education. That aspect of the proposed legislation is punitive. In my opinion, it is an effort by the State to place homeschooling even further beyond the economic reach of many families. If the State must regulate homeschooling for the good of the general public and its interest in having well-educated citizens as the bill's proponents contend it must, then said regulation should be funded solely by the public's tax dollars.
LB 1141 is ill-conceived, based as it is on the erroneous premise that the State has a responsibility to assess the character and judge the quality of the education I provide to my children at home. The Nebraska Constitution requires the State to provide a free public education for children of a certain age, and the State spends the citizens' tax dollars to provide it. Because public funds are used in the process, the State has a responsibility to taxpayers to insure that they (the taxpayers) are getting their money's worth. However, there are no public funds involved in homeschooling. As I said previously, my husband and I receive no tax subsidies, credits, or rebates to support our homeschooling of our children. The State has no responsibility to me in this regard that parallels its proper role with regard to the expenditure of public funds. The bill's proponents can only allude to the interest of the general public in having an educated citizenry in an attempt to justify this intrusive legislation. But such a broad, general public purpose cannot outweigh my parental right to educate my children in the manner I see fit. Moreover, State law already dictates that I teach certain subjects each year logging a certain number of hours in the process, and it requires me to file with the State a list and description of the curricula I will use to teach the required subjects and a schedule for doing so. Each year I sign a sworn affidavit that these requirements will be met. LB 1141 assumes that I am a liar and sets up the State Department of Education as my judge and jury. According to LB 1141, I am guilty of neglecting my children's education until proven innocent by my children's performance on a test chosen, administered, and scored by my accusers. This is not due process under the law, as contemplated by our state and federal constitutions. Nor does the bill provide a viable alternative to testing. LB 1141 would allow me to submit several pounds of paperwork to the Department of Education every year in lieu of testing. The sheer amount and scope of the information required to be submitted clearly indicates that this is not meant to be a true alternative to the testing the bill contemplates.
I want to interject here that I do not oppose annual testing for the purpose of assessing a student's strengths and weaknesses. My children have taken the Iowa Test of Basic Skills every year since they were in third grade. Such testing, I might add, is organized and administered by a very active local homeschool organization to which I belong, and it is scored professionally by the company from which the tests are obtained. In addition to this standardized testing, I have paid to have my children tested individually at the University of Nebraska's Department of Educational Psychology for both intelligence and academic progress. They have done extremely well on all the tests they have been given. I have used the testing to help me select the proper books and materials to use in their education and to assist me in identifying areas where more work was needed and areas where they could move ahead of where normal age/grade placement would put them were they enrolled in a public or private school. In this way, annual testing allows me to individualize my instruction to fit my child, rather than mold my child to a set program of instruction as, I suspect, would be the case if I should enroll them in public school.
What I do object to is being compelled to submit my children to testing when the test is chosen by the State Department of Education or local public school officials, administered by those same authorities, graded by those same authorities, and recorded and interpreted by them. Regardless of the lip service paid to general public interest in an educated citizenry and to their concern for the welfare of homeschooled children by the State Department of Education, public school officials, the NEA , and other supporters of LB 1141, they have a vested interest that is adverse to mine as a homeschooling parent. Putting anyone connected with the public schools in charge of administering the provisions of LB 1141 is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Public school advocates are vociferous, often rabidly so, in their opposition to homeschooling on general principles. Homeschooling violates what they consider to be their turf, it threatens their stranglehold on the taxpayers' wallets and purses, and it threatens them on a political and philosophical level. They want to see homeschooling disappear, and see measures like LB 1141 as a step in that direction.
Does the State require all the students who attend private schools in Nebraska to be tested annually to assess their progress? If, in the opinion of the State Department of Education, a child attending private school in Nebraska does not make sufficient progress, is that child compelled to leave his or her private school and enroll in public school? If not, it appears to me that LB 1141 is discriminatory in both intent and in fact. Additionally, what happens to the public schooled child who fails to make adequate progress during a school year? The idea that removing a child from homeschool to public school will remedy any academic problems that child may be having is ludicrous. It assumes a child's academic problems stem from parental negligence or ineptitude in the homeschool environment. Yet, when a public schooled child fails, there is no parallel assumption that the failure is the fault of the teacher or the public school environment.
Clearly, LB 1141 is wrong-headed in its assumptions about homeschooling and homeschoolers. Parents who elect homeschooling are among the most diligent and involved parents. Speaking with a voice of experience, it is not easy to be both teacher and parent to your children. It is not easy to make the commitment of time necessary to select curricula, plan lessons, keep records, and do the actual teaching and grading. It is not easy to make the personal and financial sacrifices necessary to school children at home. Those who make the decision to homeschool do not do it lightly. In the seven years I have homeschooled, I have organized field trips for homeschoolers and networked with countless homeschooling families. I have yet to meet even one that would cause me to question whether that parent is providing an adequate education to their child or children. My experiences are anecdotal, but the formal research data also support the conclusion that homeschoolers are doing more than an adequate job. There is no need for the state to do more than is presently done to oversee home education.
Thank you for reading this lengthy message. I ask you to thoughtfully consider whether there is anything that would justify the scope of the intrusion into the private affairs of individual citizens this proposed legislation would entail and to vote against LB 1141.
[personal info deleted]
My husband and I strongly oppose LB 1141 for a number of reasons. The first and perhaps the most egregious aspect of the measure is the financial burden it places upon homeschooling in Nebraska. My husband and I currently pay almost $5000 per year in property taxes, close to $3000 of which is earmarked for BLANK Public Schools (BPS). Even though our children do not attend BPS, we are required by law to support that institution with our tax dollars, and we do so. Because we homeschool, we actually benefit BPS over and above the average BLANK taxpayer. Our tax dollars pay for the education of children other than our own and, at the same time, we bear the full cost and responsibility for our own children's educations. In essence, BPS has the benefit and use of our money to spend and, simultaneously, fewer students to spend it on. Homeschooling families do not receive any subsidy or rebate from tax dollars for the purchase of curricula or to secure instruction outside the home where it is necessary. I can tell you that for this year alone I will spend approximately $2000 for books, materials, and other curricula for use in homeschooling my two children, and I will spend approximately another $2500 to $3000 for individual instruction outside my home (i.e., for private music, foreign language, and swimming lessons for my sons). Because I actively school my boys, I cannot work outside our home. Like most homeschooling families, we are supported primarily by a single wage-earner. If you add lost opportunity cost -- the salary I forego to stay home and home educate my children -- to what my husband and I spend to buy what we need to homeschool, homeschooling is, in fact, an extremely expensive lifestyle. LB 1141 would make homeschooling even more dear by requiring homeschoolers to pay for unwanted and unneeded oversight by the State Department of Education. That aspect of the proposed legislation is punitive. In my opinion, it is an effort by the State to place homeschooling even further beyond the economic reach of many families. If the State must regulate homeschooling for the good of the general public and its interest in having well-educated citizens as the bill's proponents contend it must, then said regulation should be funded solely by the public's tax dollars.
LB 1141 is ill-conceived, based as it is on the erroneous premise that the State has a responsibility to assess the character and judge the quality of the education I provide to my children at home. The Nebraska Constitution requires the State to provide a free public education for children of a certain age, and the State spends the citizens' tax dollars to provide it. Because public funds are used in the process, the State has a responsibility to taxpayers to insure that they (the taxpayers) are getting their money's worth. However, there are no public funds involved in homeschooling. As I said previously, my husband and I receive no tax subsidies, credits, or rebates to support our homeschooling of our children. The State has no responsibility to me in this regard that parallels its proper role with regard to the expenditure of public funds. The bill's proponents can only allude to the interest of the general public in having an educated citizenry in an attempt to justify this intrusive legislation. But such a broad, general public purpose cannot outweigh my parental right to educate my children in the manner I see fit. Moreover, State law already dictates that I teach certain subjects each year logging a certain number of hours in the process, and it requires me to file with the State a list and description of the curricula I will use to teach the required subjects and a schedule for doing so. Each year I sign a sworn affidavit that these requirements will be met. LB 1141 assumes that I am a liar and sets up the State Department of Education as my judge and jury. According to LB 1141, I am guilty of neglecting my children's education until proven innocent by my children's performance on a test chosen, administered, and scored by my accusers. This is not due process under the law, as contemplated by our state and federal constitutions. Nor does the bill provide a viable alternative to testing. LB 1141 would allow me to submit several pounds of paperwork to the Department of Education every year in lieu of testing. The sheer amount and scope of the information required to be submitted clearly indicates that this is not meant to be a true alternative to the testing the bill contemplates.
I want to interject here that I do not oppose annual testing for the purpose of assessing a student's strengths and weaknesses. My children have taken the Iowa Test of Basic Skills every year since they were in third grade. Such testing, I might add, is organized and administered by a very active local homeschool organization to which I belong, and it is scored professionally by the company from which the tests are obtained. In addition to this standardized testing, I have paid to have my children tested individually at the University of Nebraska's Department of Educational Psychology for both intelligence and academic progress. They have done extremely well on all the tests they have been given. I have used the testing to help me select the proper books and materials to use in their education and to assist me in identifying areas where more work was needed and areas where they could move ahead of where normal age/grade placement would put them were they enrolled in a public or private school. In this way, annual testing allows me to individualize my instruction to fit my child, rather than mold my child to a set program of instruction as, I suspect, would be the case if I should enroll them in public school.
What I do object to is being compelled to submit my children to testing when the test is chosen by the State Department of Education or local public school officials, administered by those same authorities, graded by those same authorities, and recorded and interpreted by them. Regardless of the lip service paid to general public interest in an educated citizenry and to their concern for the welfare of homeschooled children by the State Department of Education, public school officials, the NEA , and other supporters of LB 1141, they have a vested interest that is adverse to mine as a homeschooling parent. Putting anyone connected with the public schools in charge of administering the provisions of LB 1141 is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Public school advocates are vociferous, often rabidly so, in their opposition to homeschooling on general principles. Homeschooling violates what they consider to be their turf, it threatens their stranglehold on the taxpayers' wallets and purses, and it threatens them on a political and philosophical level. They want to see homeschooling disappear, and see measures like LB 1141 as a step in that direction.
Does the State require all the students who attend private schools in Nebraska to be tested annually to assess their progress? If, in the opinion of the State Department of Education, a child attending private school in Nebraska does not make sufficient progress, is that child compelled to leave his or her private school and enroll in public school? If not, it appears to me that LB 1141 is discriminatory in both intent and in fact. Additionally, what happens to the public schooled child who fails to make adequate progress during a school year? The idea that removing a child from homeschool to public school will remedy any academic problems that child may be having is ludicrous. It assumes a child's academic problems stem from parental negligence or ineptitude in the homeschool environment. Yet, when a public schooled child fails, there is no parallel assumption that the failure is the fault of the teacher or the public school environment.
Clearly, LB 1141 is wrong-headed in its assumptions about homeschooling and homeschoolers. Parents who elect homeschooling are among the most diligent and involved parents. Speaking with a voice of experience, it is not easy to be both teacher and parent to your children. It is not easy to make the commitment of time necessary to select curricula, plan lessons, keep records, and do the actual teaching and grading. It is not easy to make the personal and financial sacrifices necessary to school children at home. Those who make the decision to homeschool do not do it lightly. In the seven years I have homeschooled, I have organized field trips for homeschoolers and networked with countless homeschooling families. I have yet to meet even one that would cause me to question whether that parent is providing an adequate education to their child or children. My experiences are anecdotal, but the formal research data also support the conclusion that homeschoolers are doing more than an adequate job. There is no need for the state to do more than is presently done to oversee home education.
Thank you for reading this lengthy message. I ask you to thoughtfully consider whether there is anything that would justify the scope of the intrusion into the private affairs of individual citizens this proposed legislation would entail and to vote against LB 1141.