Tennessee: Homeschool diploma worthiness

Tennessee’s Senator Dewayne Bunch is sponsoring  legislation that: requires that diplomas issued by home schools be recognized by all state and local governmental entities as having the same rights and privileges of diplomas issued by public school systems.

This diploma issue along with Tennessee Department of Education interference with homeschoolers, has carried over from last year.  It appears that one governmental agency with a bias, talking to other governmental agencies, can deem homeschooling diplomas insufficient to be a daycare worker. Inter-agency networking at its worst?

Last year, Valerie blogged it here:

Category IV diplomas in Tennessee

and here:

Tennessee diploma discussion

According to Kay Brooks’ 2009 Legislation updates, the bill has currently passed out of the Education Committee and is scheduled for a full Senate vote this evening.

Update- The Senate bill passed.

Bill to give equal weight to home school diplomas Fox 17
May 04, 2009

Diplomas issued in home schools in Tennessee would have the same weight as those given by public schools under a proposal that has passed the Senate.

The measure sponsored by Republican Sen. Dewayne Bunch of Cleveland was approved 30-0 Monday evening.

HB0431 is an affiliated House bill  and is scheduled to be heard in the Rules Committee on Wednesday, May 6.  This year, Kay Brooks said that the Rules Committee is chaired by a former homeschooling dad, Representative Bill Dunn.

More about this year’s legislation on equivalent diplomas is on Red Hat Rob’s (Shearer) blog:

Tennessee’s jihad against homeschoolers

The Tennessee Education Association also has an opinion:

The diploma issue also raises serious concerns around
standards and accountability since the home school “teacher” has very minimal requirements placed on them by the state of Tennessee.

Tags: Category IV diplomas, Dewayne Bunch, homeschool diplomas, Kay Brooks, Rob Shearer, Tennessee homeschooling

This entry was posted on May 4, 2009 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Laws, News-Commentary, Politics, Regulations, State News, Successful Homeschoolers, Weblogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.