The above quote is from an Illinois bill [HB 2448- Remote Educational Programs] sponsored by House Representatives David Miller, Darlene Senger, Robert Pritchard, Jerry Mitchell and Jehan Gordon .  Here’s the synopsis and as in so many other Illinois bills, “a fiscal note may apply”.

Amends the School Code. Allows a school district, by resolution of its school board, to establish a remote educational program. Defines “remote educational program” as an educational program delivered to students in the home or other location outside of a school building that meets specified criteria. Provides that days of attendance by students in a remote educational program may be claimed by the school district and shall be counted for general State aid purposes in accordance with the State aid formula provisions of the Code. Effective immediately.

Miller and Gordon are Democrats.  Mitchell, Pritchard and Senger are Republicans. Representative Mitchell serves as the Republican spokesperson of the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee.
This brand new section presented in this bill has the usual language that teacher unions like: certificated instructors required, along with clock hours for the money.

(3) The remote educational program is delivered by instructors that meet the following qualifications:
(A) they are certificated under Article 21 of this Code
(B) they meet applicable highly qualified criteria under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001; and
(C) they have responsibility for all of the following elements of the program: planning instruction, diagnosing learning needs, prescribing content delivery through class activities, assessing learning, reporting outcomes to administrators and parents and guardians, and evaluating the effects of instruction
(4) The school district has in place a system to  calculate the number of clock hours a student is participating in instruction in accordance with the remote educational program.

There is a troubling piece that seems to codify parental roles in their homes.

(6) The remote educational program is at all times under the direct supervision of a parent, guardian, or  other responsible adult identified in the approved remote educational plan. The parent, guardian, or other responsible adult may engage only in non-teaching duties not requiring instructional judgment or the evaluation of students. The parent, guardian, or other responsible adult shall be designated by the school district as non-teaching personnel or volunteer personnel.

When do “clock hours” start and stop when a child is learning at home?  How are those hours determined?

Apparently this was the first of a procession of bills to open up a state-wide virtual public school to replace the IL Virtual High School.  Colin Hitt (IL Policy Institute) wrote an informative piece about Private Sector Educators, Public School Students

Facing massive enrollment growth, the Illinois State Board of Education requested proposals in December 2008 for an outside provider to assume management responsibilities of the Illinois Virtual High School.  The new management firm will oversee the expansion of IVHS into the new Illinois Virtual School – an online portal for students in grades 5 through 12.

The Wisconsin Parents Association wrote a piece (pdf) about the Wisconsin Virtual School and public monies heading towards a Virginia company:

Fact Sheet: How Virtual Charter Schools Threaten Public Schools

HB 3743 is a new Virtual Public School Acts bill and there is a troubling “home-school” portion in the bill. The sponsor for this bill is Representative Chapa LaVia.  The bill is set for a hearing in the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee tomorrow morning.
It has a whole section related to the “home-schooled”:

Did the homeschooling community ask for all of this attention in a bill related to public school at home?  I should note that in HB 2448 (passed out of the Committee), it is stated that: “The home or other location outside of a school building shall not be deemed to be a public school facility. ”

My question is this: Who’s watching out for homeschoolers?  This legislative/legal quest to poke around trying to find what works educationally for children, by seemingly trying to mimic what works for independent homeschoolers could be counter-productive.

Homeschooling successes have often occurred because no governmental strings were attached and nothing is holding back an individual child’s educational needs in the home.  Besides shooting the “home-schooled” out from under the much larger Illinois private school umbrella with the language in HB 3743, these educational statutes/bills are codifying what family homes are or aren’t and what parental roles should and shouldn’t be when and where.

All this codification of “the home”.  With due respect to good intentions, we should be paying very close attention to every word inserted into these bills. Let’s not throw the little bits that do work under the school bus.

Posted by Susan Ryan

Cross posted at the Illinois Review

Senate flunks home-school bill Salt Lake Tribune March 4, 2009

SB61 failed 16-13 after some lawmakers said they felt it would give home-school students an unfair advantage. The bill would have required home-school students to demonstrate academic eligibility by submitting an affidavit signed by the person providing instruction.

SB 61 is documented below:

HOME SCHOOL AND PRIVATE SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
General Description:
This bill addresses private school and home school students’ eligibility to participate in extracurricular activities.
Highlighted Provisions:
This bill:
provides that a minor who is enrolled in a private school or a home school shall be  eligible to participate in extracurricular activities at a public school;
provides that, with certain exceptions, a private school or a home school student may only participate in extracurricular activities at the public school within whose  boundaries the student’s custodial parent or legal guardian resides or a public school from which the student withdrew; and provides that, with certain exceptions, private school students and home school students shall be eligible for extracurricular activities at a public school consistent with eligibility standards for fully enrolled public school students.

Other related articles:
Home-schooled kids taking part in schools’ activities is aim of bill February 19, 2009  Deseret News

Home-school sports bill advances February 19, 2009 Salt Lake Tribune

An editorial by the Bowling Green Daily News was published yesterday (February 17, 2009)

Homeschooled kids deserve the same chances

We believe that the idea of allowing homeschooled students to participate in extracurricular activities such as athletics and band has merit and deserves consideration.

A House bill filed by state Rep. Brad Montell, R-Shelbyville, would allow homeschooled students to participate in public school sports, music events and other extracurricular activities.

Kentucky House Bill 179 excerpt:

(a)    “Home school” means a nonpublic school in which one (1) or more children of not more than two (2) families or households receive full-time supervised academic instruction from a parent, legal guardian, or member of either household; and
(b)    “Interscholastic extracurricular activity” means participation in a school authorized band or sports team practice or competition.
(2)    (a)    A student enrolled in a home school is eligible to participate in interscholastic extracurricular activities sponsored by or engaged in by the public school to which the student would be assigned according to district school board attendance policies or which the student could choose to attend pursuant to district open enrollment provisions.

From the Bowling Green commentary:

Twenty-four other states have already passed laws to allow equal extracurricular access, yet many of their eligibility requirements differ.

Nine other states, including Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina, are proposing similar legislation.

Proponents of an Alabama “Tim Tebow Bill” -Variations of the bill have not left the Education Committee for last four years

From January 2, 2009 Tim Tebow a shining example for homeschooled athletes Different rules: Oklahoma homeschoolers have own teams By Jenni Carlson

Listen to Oklahoma’s homeschool community, and you’ll hear few complaints.

Perhaps that is because the opportunities are meeting the needs. Just in the Oklahoma City area, there are homeschool teams in basketball, baseball, softball and football among others.

There’s even homeschool fencing.

Final words from the BG Daily News editorial:

There are legitimate questions and concerns on both sides of the issue. They need to be further addressed and answered, but these same types of questions likely arose in the 24 states that have similar laws and were ultimately resolved.

Hopefully, the bill, which is currently in the House education committee, will be discussed and these questions answered.

Why the Question of Homeschoolers’ Playing Public School Sports Affects All Homeschoolers

Home Education Magazine columnists-Larry and Susan Kaseman

Should homeschoolers be allowed to play on public school sports teams? This question is being asked around the country, especially as the number of homeschoolers of high school age increases and as homeschooling gains wider acceptance.

At first glance, having homeschoolers on public school sports teams might seem like a good idea. It would provide one more opportunity for homeschoolers, one more example of society’s acceptance of homeschooling. However, a closer look reveals that it would undermine our homeschooling freedoms. Fortunately, the vast majority of homeschoolers do not support homeschoolers’ playing public school sports, and many are opposed.

Unfortunately, the question is receiving more attention than it deserves. A few of the families who do want their children to play public school sports are strongly committed and vocal. In addition, inaccurate information on the issue has appeared in the mainstream media. And some legislators who want to help homeschoolers and gain our support (and votes) mistakenly think they can do this by introducing legislation to make it possible for homeschoolers to play public school sports.

This column will discuss problems with changing state laws and regulations to allow homeschoolers to play public school sports. It will then show how the uncritical acceptance of media coverage of this topic can lead to loss of homeschooling freedoms. Finally, suggestions will be given for what we can do.

continued here

Times-News, Dec. 2: Rep. Steven Thayn wants to give parents another choice for their youngster’s kindergarten year that would come with financial benefits.

Under Thayn’s proposal, which he plans to introduce in the 2009 Legislature, parents could teach their children kindergarten at home. In exchange, they would get part of the state funding that’s saved by not having the youngster attending a public kindergarten class. Parents would only be eligible for funding after their children passed a test showing a readiness for first grade.

Tacoma, Washington. Dec. 4: State auditors contend online programs run by three school districts, including two in the South Sound, might owe the state anywhere from $80,000 to $5.3 million for incorrectly documenting the number of students taking Internet classes.

They say the problems cited by auditors stem from trying to track enrollment, learning hours and academic progress in the expanding frontier of online education.

Auditors dinged Federal Way for not having a form signed by those students’ parents saying they understood their children were not being homeschooled, Federal Way chief financial officer Sally McLean said.

She said requiring parents to sign a form in those cases seems bureaucratic. While tweaking that rule would be easy, she said, “Some of the more challenging discussion might wrap around how you measure student progress in an online academy.”

HEM Editorial: While the public school programs have effectively served the needs of some families, it is unwise to allow the perception to grow that they are equivalent to homeschooling. The very construct of these public school programs runs counter to the ability of families to handcraft an education for their children.

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.

School board OKs class credit policy, 7 August 2008, Cumberland Times-News, Cumberland, Maryland

Mineral County’s policy on accepting class credits from outside sources will remain the same.

The Mineral County Board of Education Tuesday voted unanimously to approve the policy, Compulsory School Attendance/School Entrance, which includes an outline of which class credits will be accepted when a student transfers from either another school system or an accredited program.

The policy was of particular interest to supporters of home schooling, as it stipulates that credits will be accepted only from “all public secondary schools and credited nonpublic schools.”

“We do not accept credit for secondary courses taught in home schools,” Superintendent of Schools Skip Hackworth said when he presented the proposed policy to the board members last month.

It is up to each school (system) to decide what constitutes credit for the diploma that they issue.  This is just an fyi for any readers with an interest in enrolling in the schools of Mineral County, West Virginia.

Other information about Mineral County is at:

• West Virginia area in flux over homeschooler participation
• West Virginia school board deciding what makes a homeschooler

This article has a strong school-at-home theme to it (which is fine, if that’s your style).  Too bad other styles of homeschooling are not included in the run-down of “tools.”

The homeschooling structure in Iowa includes public funding for “home school assistance programs” (HSAPs) as well as dual-enrollment, so reviewing articles about Iowa is probably best done by an Iowan.  Unfortunately, Iowa is under-represented here at NewsComm staff, as are 48 other states, so ‘we’ do the best ‘we’ can.

Home school program assists families with the “tools they need,” 11 August 2008, Boone News Republican, Boone, Iowa

As the 2008-09 school year draws near, it’s not only back to school for public school students, but also for students who are home schooled as part of the Boone Home Assist Program (HASAP).

“Back to school” needn’t be a specific date for homeschooled kids, but we can file that opinion in the ‘different strokes for different folks’ folder.  The sentence that caught my eye, though, was:

In the beginning, Melton-Streeter said there was not a set curriculum for home school students like there is today.

Does Iowa have a “set curriculum?”  I knew (vaguely) about the HSAPs, and Iowa’s relatively involved form of legal compliance (as compared to states such as Texas or Missouri), but I didn’t know there was a specific curriculum required.  Intrigued, I went looking, and found the Handbook for Competent Private Instruction.  Page 4 of the Handbook states,

• 7. Is there a particular curriculum that must be used to provide CPI?  

  No, the State of Iowa does not have a mandated curriculum for students who receive CPI. The type of curriculum and instructional materials is the decision of the parent/guardian.

I’m hoping that the context of “there was not a set curriculum” meant that there were fewer providers of prepared courses of study available nineteen years ago without some snail mail detective work on the part of the parent.  At least, that’s how I remember it.

In any case, the Handbook for Competent Private Instruction does all the i-dotting and t-crossing that any Iowa homeschooler would need, to include a timeline.  Iowans have a list of items to comply with, but not a set curriculum.

Not a right, but a privilege, 9 June 2008, Hot Springs Star, Hot Springs, South Dakota

Mr. Watts wrote a guest editorial in the Hot Springs Star of May 20, which prompts me to comment on some issues he raised. In particular, he was disgruntled with the Hot Springs School Board policy which requires students who wish to participate in school sports to take a class.

…

Because we understand that this is a privilege, not a right. It can be revoked at any time. We didn’t want to ruin it for ourselves, or other home schoolers who may follow. When we made the decision to home school, we took the responsibility for our children’s education. We realized there were privileges they would be denied because of this choice. Mr. Watts made the statement that he didn’t feel it is right to hold these programs ransom for financial gain.  …

Rodney Watts, 9 June 2008, Hot Springs Star, Hot Springs, South Dakota

This is in response to the John and Tracy Romey guest editorial in last week’s paper. Their point was that home school participation in public school isn’t a right, but a privilege. I agree that it’s a privilege, but I believe with all my heart that it’s our right also. I’ve placed the property tax statement for our home in this paper to illustrate that point.

…

We circulated a petition, requesting the school board allow home-school students to participate without having to attend classes. We collected 353 signatures with little effort. A couple thousand could have easily been obtained; 95 percent of people approached were willing to sign.

The previous city council and our past/present mayor signed this petition. Is it just me or does it speak volumes that they all agreed on something?