Comments from a local “position 6″ political race.

Candidates for Pos. 6 on FCSB say millage needed for students, 15 September 2008, Times-Herald, Forrest City, Arkansas

Wilson also said she also feels there are several critical issues facing the district. “We’ve got to address discipline better … We’ve also got to have adequate funding … “… I don’t feel that a child should be allowed to disrupt a classroom … but at the same time we can’t put those children out of school … We have to find a happy medium … in order to find out what the problems are our students are facing.”

According to Smith, the most critical issue facing the district is the decline in the number of students. “We have to find a way to stop our declining enrollment. Whether the problem is the economy and people leaving to find better paying jobs elsewhere or private or home schooling, I feel we need to try our best to get these students back into public schools,” he said.

… ”We also need to work on getting those parents who are choosing to home school their children to send those children back to the disrict, …”

And I suppose the road-works division needs to work on getting bike riders and pedestrians into cars so people will pay more road taxes, and junior football teams need to entice kids from other sports to keep the football program going, and junior choirs should poach from each other to buttress their groups, and so on and so forth.

Homeschooling broke the grip of mandatory, institutionalized child-raising so that parents can give their children family-centered childhoods instead of group-centered childhoods, if that is important to the family.  Possessive institutional school advocates still seem to see that desire as heretical.  The institution’s need for itself to continue outweighs the desires of the people the institution needs to exist.  Milton Gaither points that out in his answer to a reader of his blog post, “Lips and Feinberg on Homeschool Economics.”

• Q.  How do homeschooled children cost school districts money?
• A.  Local school districts lose per-pupil funding even though higher levels within the government-provided school system keep the tax money from the family.

Your money isn’t enough.  The economic aspect of human social imperative via institutional schooling demands your body, or rather your child’s body, too.

——————

Just as an aside, I wonder how that ‘uniforms for teachers’ thing is going to work out.

In defense of home schooling, 26 July 2008, The Times Gazette, Hillsboro, Ohio

A request was made by a local public school administrator at a recent board of education meeting that the newspaper “do” an exposé on home schooling.

…

Why challenge the newspaper? We are not the home school police. Frankly, we have enough to do to keep up with those public bodies that spend more and more of taxpayers’ money each year. But I digress.

Sounds as if the public school administrator might be an advocate of the style of journalism practiced by the Akron Beacon Journal.

Among the articles are positive stories about people involved in homeschooling, but the overall picture is one of murderously incompetent adults who are pretending to know how to raise the children that they’ve stolen, and lying about how well they’re doing, while trying to take over the world in their spare time.

What if, instead, the paper published Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) results for local public schools in the education section of the paper? That seems a bit more reasonable since the public schools use public money, unlike homeschooling families who use what’s left of their own money.

• Bright Elementary
• Hillsboro Elementary
• Hillsboro Middle
• His Elementary (no decline in scores, unlike the others)

I don’t like appearing to bash public schools by pointing to test scores, although highlighting public information is only just referencing information bought and paid for by the public and available to the public — it isn’t the fault of the person doing the pointing out if the information is ‘unattractive.’ But calling for an “exposé” in a public forum — especially “by a school board president” — is as good as writing slurs about people on the walls of public bathrooms. You don’t even have to follow up the information; the seed of doubt is planted.

If the school board president knows that something is amiss, then tell the proper authorities. This is required of public school employees.

If this was a re-run of the Harper Valley PTA, then dummy up.

I received this press release today from Rina Groeneveld.

Robert and Rina Groeneveld, Kathy Sinnott

Thursday, 17th July 2008

European Commission to open dialogue with Germany on their hypocritical home schooling law following Irish petition

 

A petition on a ban on home schooling, hosted by Kathy Sinnott, MEP for Ireland South, was discussed in the European Parliament Petitions Committee this morning. Catherina Groeneveld, the petitioner and an Irish citizen married to a South African, travelled to Brussels to present her petition to the Petitions Committee and Commission.

Catherina and her family moved to Germany temporarily because of her husband’s job. She chose for linguistic and other reasons to home-school her children while in Germany. She was surprised to find that not only was home schooling illegal, home schoolers were subject to persistent harassment by local authorities.

Catherina lodged a petition with the Petitions Committee in 2007 making the case that Germany’s education policy contradicts the freedom of workers within the EU. She as an Irish citizen has a constituted right to educate her children and Germany’s refusal to accommodate her makes it hard for her family to work in Germany. This is in clear contradiction to the EU’s mobility of workers. In her presentation, the petitioner pointed out that foreigners who home school their children are subject to harassment, fines, jail sentences, removal of their children by the Jugendamt (children’s courts) and criminalisation. 15 out of the 16 German States allow exemptions but only to circus children and young people who have music careers. These exemptions do not extend to foreigners. Such families who wish to home school their children are subjected to draconian measures. Catherina points out that if her family were German citizens living in Ireland, they would be encouraged by the German authorities who would offer her the national curriculum to teach her children at home. The petitioner asked the Petitions Committee to help the German Government rectify this hypocrisy.

The Petitions Committee have been paying close attention to this petition and both the Committee and the Commission congratulated the petitioner on an impressive presentation. The Commission have decided to open a dialogue to put this issue on the agenda of their regular meetings with Germany. The Petitions Committee is already embarking on a report of abuses by the Jugendamt towards non-German parents and has decided to include this aspect in the report. German law, unlike Ireland, identifies the State as the principle authority responsible for a child’s rights not his or her parents. Germany has the highest rate of children taken into care from their parents by the State in the EU.

Kathy Sinnott, Vice President of the Petitions Committee, stated “This petition brings into question workers’ mobility. One of the guarantees of the internal market is the freedom of movement of workers in the EU. There is an increasing awareness that workers have families and that flexibility to meet their needs should be part of employment law. However, Germany’s approach to home schooling compromises this and forces families to choose between a job and the best interests of the children. The need for family friendly employment policies must be recognised throughout the EU. We need to have flexibility in the education of children temporarily resident because of work. There is also an issue around the attitude to non-German families in the German children’s courts. I hope the dialogue between the Commission and the German State will resolve this discriminatory situation.”

 

For further information, questions or comments, please contact Kathy on:

Brussels office: +32 228 47692
Cork office: +353 21 4888 793
Email: kathy.sinnott@europarl.europa.eu
Website: www.kathysinnott.ie

Search at Thomas, if interested.  At this point, any information about these resolutions seems to be of the order of “fyi.”  NewsComm is a day late and a dollar short in reporting this, but the NewsComm staff (me, 2 cats and the granddog) just didn’t catch it at the time.  Hat tip to Mary, whose staff is Mary and the spirit of her late-beloved pooch Reba.

House Resolution 1076 was introduced 3 April 2008 by Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-California).  The resolution has 56 co-sponsors.  The actions have been:

• 4/3/2008: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
• 6/3/2008: Referred to the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property.
• 6/3/2008: Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.

Senate Resolution 572 was introduced May 21, 2008 by Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina), and co-sponsored by Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma).  So far, the resolution is still in committee:  “Latest Major Action: 5/21/2008 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.”

Both resolutions have near-identical language, with the only difference that I saw being that the Senate version calls specifically upon the Court of Appeal in California’s Second District, while the House version “calls upon the courts.”

The Senate version follows:

Title: A resolution calling upon the Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District of California to uphold the fundamental and constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

RESOLUTION Calling upon the Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District of California to uphold the fundamental and constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

Whereas the modern homeschool movement in the United States demonstrates that homeschooled children are a vital component of the United States education system;

Whereas homeschool graduates act responsibly as parents and as students in colleges and universities, are valuable in the workplace, and are productive citizens in society at large;

Whereas many studies confirm that children who are educated at home score considerably above the national average on nationally-normed achievement tests, and above the average on both the SAT and ACT college entrance exams;

Whereas homeschooled children, such as 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, are receiving national recognition for their victories in national competitions, such as national spelling bees and geography bees, and are being highly sought after by nationally-recognized colleges and universities;

Whereas homeschooling families contribute significantly to the cultural diversity important to a healthy society;

Whereas notable individuals such as Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, Patrick Henry, Ansel Adams, Charles Dickens, and General Douglas MacArthur all received a high-quality education at home;

Whereas over 2,100,000 children are being homeschooled nationwide;

Whereas the Supreme Court has ruled that parents have a fundamental and constitutional right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, in the cases of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972);

Whereas on February 28, 2008, the Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District of California, in Los Angeles, California, issued an opinion in the case of In re Rachel L., 73 Cal. Rptr. 3d 77 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008), that homeschool parents who did not hold a teaching credential could not legally homeschool their children;

Whereas the initial decision by the Court of Appeal in that case would have had an adverse impact on approximately 166,000 children in California who are receiving a quality education at home; and

Whereas on March 25, 2008, the Court of Appeal granted a motion for rehearing in the In re Rachel L. case, with respect to the decision that required parents to hold a teaching credential in order to legally homeschool their children: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate–

(1) commends the Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District of California, in Los Angeles, California, for allowing a rehearing in the case of In re Rachel L., 73 Cal. Rptr. 3d 77 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008); and

(2) calls upon the court to uphold the Supreme Court’s opinion that parents have a fundamental and constitutional right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

ParentalRights.org (a subsidiary of HSLDA) sent out an email that another resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States to protect parental rights was introduced into the House of Representatives by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Michigan). Search for “H. J. RES. 97″ at the Thomas site (the site does not save searches).

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

`Article –

`Section 1. The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right.

`Section 2. Neither the United States nor any State shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.

`Section 3. No treaty may be adopted nor shall any source of international law be employed to supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article.’.

It has been 12 years since the first proposed parental rights amendment was introduced.

This latest introduction, according to the ParentalRights.org website’s page, “Threat from Federal Courts,” is needed because of the decision in the Troxel v. Granville ruling. (underlining added)

But despite these strong statements and a favorable outcome, the Troxel case also contains some sobering warnings about the future of parental rights in America.

…

The vital relationship between child and parent is far too precious to be entrusted to such slender odds, but if we rely on the Supreme Court to guarantee our freedoms, these are precisely the odds we are risking.

This statement stands in opposition to an analysis at the HSLDA website in 2001, soon after the Troxel ruling.

U.S. Supreme Court: Parents’ Rights Are Fundamental: A Review of Troxel v. Granville

On June 5, 2000, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark opinionon parental liberty. The decision was Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000).
…
The U.S. Supreme Court cited a long history of their decisions upholding parental rights as fundamental.
…
Parents battling oppressive state regulations and invasions of their families have a clear decision that upholds their parental rights. In essence, this decision means that the government may now not infringe parents’ right to direct the education and upbringing of their children unless it can show that it is using the least restrictive means to achieve a compelling governmental interest.

How odd that the ruling was lauded in 2001, but is now the basis for introducing another Parental Rights Amendment. Given that the first Parental Rights Amendment was introduced in 1995, and Troxel was decided in 2000, why wasn’t it a danger then? Has something happened in the past seven years to change the effect of the decision?

The following are excerpts from previous discussion about parental rights amendments:

Parental Rights Measure Not So Simple, 4 November 1996, The New York Times, New York, New York

”It’s explosive in its ambiguity,” Gov. Roy Romer, a Democrat, said at a news conference in mid-September. ”The only thing certain about it is that it’s going to lead to very expensive lawsuits. This is a full employment bill for lawyers.

Issues Raised by the Parental Rights Initiatives, People for the American Way

Clogging the Courts

The potential for costly, repetitive and unnecessary lawsuits is in itself a cause for concern. Parental rights legislation is often characterized by opponents as a “lawyer’s full-employment act,”59 referring to the endless lawsuits that will result from such vaguely worded legislation. This is not a baseless concern, as even amendment proponents have stated that is their intent. Jeffrey Bell recently stated that the amendment was “meant to be general,” and “meant to be argued out in court.”60 Leah Delay, leader of the Colorado initiative effort, has stated, “If we’re in court for the rest of our lives, thank goodness.” Tom Tancredo, Independence Institute founder and leading parental rights amendment supporter, echoes this: “The reality is that almost everything [in the amendment] will have to be adjudicated.”61 A lawyer for the Georgia-based Southeastern Legal Foundation, involved in that state’s parental rights push, stated “We are out to make bad law in order to provoke legislatures to repeal bad laws.”62

So here we have a membership group staffed preeminently by lawyers sponsoring a bill similar to other bills that have been characterized as a way to provide “full employment for lawyers.” Hmmm.

Other discussions of parental rights amendments and the U. N. Convention on the Rights of the Child are at:

• U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, Belgium’s homeschool climate, and the United States Constitution
• NHELD’s bulletins on the U. N. Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Opposition to the Convention on the Rights of the Child

At the entry above, “NHELD’s bulletins on the U. N. Convention …”, the part about “Non-self-executing treaties — think presidential signing statements,” is interesting.

As far as repeat introductions for amendments to change the Constitution of the United States, if this one fails, there will probably be others. I’m reminded of a comment by then-HSLDA lawyer Scott Somerville concerning military enlistment of homeschoolers.

Scott Defisks HoNDA Sect. 10: Military Recruiting

But, speaking for HSLDA again, our 80,000 member families are united in opposition to a “just say no” policy to homeschool recruits. We aren’t going to drop this issue.

I doubt they’ll drop the parental rights issue either.

Home-schooling in court, 23 June 2008, San Jose Mercury News, San Jose, California

The 2nd District Court of Appeal will hear arguments in a legal fight over whether parents who home-school their children must have teaching credentials. The same appeals court earlier this year sent shock waves through the nation’s home-schooling movement, finding that parents who lack teaching credentials are violating California’s compulsory-education laws if they home-school their children.

…

The appeals court has 90 days to rule, which would result in a decision sometime around the start of the next school year. The California Supreme Court may still have the last word in the case.

Political segregation: The Big Sort, 19 June 2008, Economist, UK

And the home-schooling movement, which has grown rapidly in recent decades, shields more than 1m American children from almost any ideas their parents dislike. Melynda Wortendyke, a devout Christian who teaches all six of her children at her home in Virginia, says she took her eldest out of public kindergarten because she thought the standards there were low, but also because the kids were exposed to a book about lesbian mothers.

…

[Bill Bishop, the author of “The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart”] goes too far, however, when he says the “big sort” is “tearing [America] apart”.  American politics may be polarised, but at least no one is coming to blows over it.  “We respect each other’s views,” says Mrs Wortendyke of the few liberals in the home-schooling movement. “We hate each other cordially,” says the liberal Mr Balis.

Mary has the bill details.  You can read the entire bill by entering S. 3076 in the “Search Bill Text” box at Thomas.

My first thought after seeing this was whether parents who use private schools get tax writeoffs.  I don’t think so, but it isn’t something that I’ve looked into.  If the trend in the whole ‘choice’ matter concerning schooling is that anyone who pays anything for a child’s education, then relief from the alleged ‘double taxation’ should apply across the board to all people who pay for any child’s education.  Support for a homeschoolers-only deduction looks self-centered.

I see that the sponsor, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, says that parents who pay for private school for their children get a deduction.

Vitter Introduces Home Schooling Tax Relief Bill

“Like those who choose to send their children to private schools, home school families pay an inequitable share of education-related expenses,” said Vitter.  “Even as they pay for expenditures related to home school activities, they fund public schools through their tax dollars.  We need to provide them with the same relief offered to private school families, and this bill is intended to do just that, by minimizing the financial burden of these families.”

In a quick search for private school tuition deductions, I didn’t see anything saying that was the current practice.

• Tax Deduction FAQs:  “The tuition [for parochial school] is neither deductible as an educational expense nor as a charitable contribution, and there are no tax credits for the tuition.”
• Tax Deduction for Private School – Questions from Readers:  “Education Expenses are tax-deductible, but only for college tuition and fees.”

Given that this legislation would break new ground — tax deductions for non-college education – I would guess that the IRS would be obliged to determine what constitutes a legitimate expense, and that could possibly come to define what constitutes legitimate homeschooling.  We all know how stuff like this rolls downhill (see the comments by the Washington, D.C. state superintendent about compulsory education and ‘allowing’ parents to choose homeschooling).

A refresher about homeschoolers and tax breaks (“credits” were the hot topic in 1998) is at:

Are Tax Credits for Educational Expenses a Good Idea for Homeschoolers?

How Do Tax Credits Work?

Why Do Governments Offer Tax Credits?

Why Are Tax Credits for Educational Expenses Being Promoted?

Why Are Homeschools Being Included in Proposed Tax Credits for Education?

How Would Tax Credits for Homeschooling Expenses Affect Homeschoolers?

Could Tax Credits Be Made Safe For Homeschoolers By Including Provisions that Prevent Increased Regulation of Homeschools?

‘While looking for something else’ I found an article about what used to be pre…schools (and that earlier were known as ‘nursery schools’) and are now called “preK.”  I think the change in wording from “pre[before]-school” to ”pre[before]-K[indergarten]” is significant, but I will leave that point alone this time, as I will the point about education as an industry.

Campaign Watch: Spotlight on Two Early Education Laggards, 3 June 2008, The Early Ed Watch Blog, New America Foundation

Today’s final Democratic presidential primaries have focused public and media attention on South Dakota and Montana, two largely rural western states that get the last vote in the 2008 primary season. Here’s something else these two states have in common: They’re both early education laggards

…

Debate over the measure illustrated that “culture wars” opposition to preschool, from conservatives who view it as a gateway to government intrusion in the family, is still alive and well in some states, particularly those that lag on early education.

The name-calling caught my interest – I don’t find anything neutral about ”laggards.”  I did a search for “New America Foundation” and found many items in my email alone.

• Charter Schools: An Important Partner Supporting Quality Pre-k, 2 April 2008
• Pre-K Advocates of a Certain Age, 25 March 2008
• Let’s Count: Boosting Math in PK-3, 18 March 2008
• Continuing the Investment, 19 November 2007

That last item, “Continuing the investment,” has some strong statements, so I pause here in listing the emails for “New America Foundation” – Google says I have “21 results stored on your computer.”

Advocates of universal pre-K are nothing if not visionary. They view universal pre-kindergarten as not just an end in itself but also a first step toward much more comprehensive public social welfare programs for preschool-age children and their families: prenatal care, parental leave, universal children’s health care, and quality child care. For these advocates, the case for universal pre-K is also the case for new state-level systems, policies, and institutions that would serve children from birth through preschool.

The universal pre-K movement isn’t just about offering another social service: Pre-K advocates are actually building a whole new system of public education, and that has implications for the existing K-12 public education system.

Put a “whole new system of public education” together with compulsory schooling laws, and add in the “vision” of the advocates of “universal pre-K.”  The picture I see is of parents delivering babies and children to wherever it is that the visionaries see the cadre of professional child-raisers bringing up the babies and children.  That place sure does not look like home.

The writer explains that contrary to conservative opinions, and despite conservatives ‘fretting’ about sending children to school at increasingly younger ages:

By working together to build high-quality pre-K programs, education reformers and pre-K advocates can also open the door for improvements in the elementary and secondary education system. 

This means that the schooling experiments on little kids can lead to better schools for bigger kids, so the people in South Dakota and Montana had best get with the program.  It doesn’t matter that these states have low numbers of citizens – Montana is #44 in population and South Dakota is #46 — and that the number of children not schooled as toddlers must also be low, everyone must participate.  

The tertiary system — colleges and universities  — isn’t neglected either. 

States must also build new systems of teacher preparation and professional development to help experienced preschool teachers who lack a bachelor’s degree meet new, higher education standards.

That reminds me of something a drill sergeant told us recruits, “There’s the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way.”  Apparently, the “experienced preschool teachers” are to learn the Educational Industry way.  Their vision is of people either as students or teachers, with the teachers teaching the students to be teachers.

I understand that the article is about schooling, but given the amount of time taken from the lives of people as they grow, do these visionaries see infants, babies, toddlers, children, teens, young adults, and adults doing anything other than living at school?

Dana writes about a network that I’ve thought about, but haven’t yet got round to putting into many electronically distributed words.   Shouting at home doesn’t count.

The Education Industrial Complex

This “complex” is of course the interrelationships between unions, local school boards, and increasing state and national control of eduction.

I also include the jobs networks that supply everything from push-pins for bulletin boards on up to textbooks, library shelving, school building architects and real estate buyers.