Comments on: The Law of Homeschooling via a school lawyer

By: Susan

Susan — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:02:14 +0000

You are a strong defender of this monograph, a piece that the Education Law Association would like homeschoolers to use as a reference tool. It does seem productive for school principals to be aware of school law and the exemptions to compulsory attendance laws. But I’m a little uncomfortable with his apparent focus in this book called “The Law of Homeschooling”: “The publication is intended to be used by parents, students, homeschool advocates, and public school officials to do what is in the best interests of the children: to ensure that each child receives an appropriate education within the context and scope of the law.
Homeschoolers have our own ‘reference tools’ in our state statutes/laws, and within the homeschool community.
This year, and last, California homeschoolers found some extra help with pro bono law firms (see above referenced post). Again, did Mr. Schwartz do any research i.e.. work, with any homeschoolers regarding this book?
Do you homeschool? Do you homeschool in Illinois? Since you see how this “book would benefit home school advocates”, are you a homeschool advocate? I ask because living this alternative lifestyle makes you very protective of your family rights, and properly suspicious of professional offerings from the education industry.
I hoped to provide some background about the author and his ’cause’. I think you answered your own question (after “NONE”), by stating this: “IPA represents principals and provides professional development to educators on a large scale”
Homeschoolers educate their families on a non-professional level and at a very individualized scale. We don’t make a lucrative living playing with education law.
Since Schwartz is making his living (see above referenced post) in Illinois via education law, I’ll remind there is no “homeschool” law in Illinois. I thought that was ironic.

I’ve sat in a hearing room or two (in Illinois), and can verify that the group he lobbies for (IL Principals Association) is no friend of homeschoolers. They lobby for public schools. (I do know a couple of individual principals/school administrators that I would describe as advocates of educational choice/learning in whatever manner works.)
Please let me know of any errors in my facts. I’ll be happy to correct them, as citations and accurate research is very important to me.
Thank you for your comments.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:50:10 +0000

Are you kidding me? I have read the monograph and use it regularly as a reference tool. This book was obviously not written to be critical of homeschooling! It was written to provide all interested with objective information and state specific mandates. I can see how this book would benefit home school advocates. I can also see how this would allow school principals to understand the rights of children who are homeschooled. What is so wrong with that?

What evidence do you have that the Il Principals Assoc advocates against homeschooling efforts? NONE! IPA represents principals and provides professional development to educators on a large scale. In fact, they provide this resource to public school, private school, and charter schools. Attorney Schwartz wrote this book in an effort to educate any who are interested and he did an excellent job!

I would also like to point out this resource was incredibly well researched – did you take note of the numerous citations?

It seems your negative bias could use a little “fact” checking itself.

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:39:53 +0000

Clarification-This national homeschool site (HEM) did not sponsor an Education Law Association monograph. Sorry for the poorly worded sentence in comments.
My purpose was to protest a “homeschooling guide” written by School/Education lawyers and I wanted that complaint’s record on a national homeschooling (advocacy) website/blog. It likely wouldn’t hurt to have homeschool reviews on the Education Law Association’s site, as well.

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:49:45 +0000

The purpose of this post was to protest a “homeschooling guide” written by School/Education lawyers on a national homeschooling site. In particular, I hope my Illinois perspective and experiences would be helpful.

Florida might have a different perspective for this “resource guide for homeschool families and advocates”. I find information such as The Law of Homeschooling from rather hostile Illinois sources, such as the IL Principals Association, should serve as a Heads Up for homeschoolers.

By: TMW2009

TMW2009 — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:11:07 +0000

Of greater to concern to me are the inaccuracies in the monograph. I reviewed it when it came out and found several problems: http://learningis4everyone.blogspot.com/ After looking more closely, it became clear that, as NHELD pointed out, the most egregious factual errors were due to the author culling his information from HSLDAs website. (Not even HSLDA — but their *website*) I’ve reworked my comments into a single review that I’ll be sharing at the Education Law Association’s website and elsewhere. (By the way, ELA apparently welcomes reviews on their site).

No, we didn’t ask for a legal guide, true, but that’s not why books are or should be written. If someone wants to write a book, legal or otherwise, they certainly don’t need anyone’s permission or approval to do so. But accuracy – especially in a legal guide! – should always be paramount, and a writer owes it to his audience to do his homework on his chosen subject.

Terri Willingham

By: Mary

Mary — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:53:24 +0000

I have a copy of the book as well, and I enjoyed reading your review. (I’m also glad you got some good Lincoln points and links in as well!) I heartily agree with your observations conerning his history lesson. Definitely a rewrite in my book!

Also in the preface, he writes that the monograph gives an overview of the history of homeschooling in the United States and updates homeschool statuary and regulatory requirements for all fifty states and Washington D.C. I’m not a lawyer, but I do abide by the philosophy that the best citizenry is an informed one. It has been my privilege the last few years to update HEM’s State Laws and Regulations’ pages. http://homeedmag.com/lawregs/lawregs.html While doing this, I’ve learned that the absolute best resource for keeping these updated is to rely on those homeschoolers who are on the ground in their state, following their changes and relying on their updates as changes happen.

In his footnotes I read that his “Appendix A- Homeschool Statutory Comparison” was current through June 30, 2008, but thankfully he does list the actually citations in Appendix B. Although Brian Schwartz includes homeschoolers as a part of his audience, it seems to me that the book is written primarily for bureaucrats. Some of what he writes is correct, but I do hope that homeschoolers will continue to look to other homeschoolers or the actual citations when they want to learn about their rights and responsibilities!

— Mary Nix