Psychology Today blogger Laura Brodie follows up:

“Last week I posted an article with a deliberately provocative title: Should Homeschooling Parents Have College Degrees? I didn’t offer my own answer; instead I invited readers to share their thoughts on what, if any, level of education might be required by each state—a bachelor’s degree, a high school diploma, a basic literacy test, no regulation whatsoever? I did, however, state that the fact that parents with GEDs could, if they desired, conduct their children’s high school educations seemed to be ‘setting the bar very low.’

“I expected heated replies, having seen the online outcries that tend to result whenever anyone raises the sore subject of homeschooling regulation. That’s why my article began by acknowledging that the topic of regulation can make tempers flare.

“When I finished writing the piece and pressed the “publish now” button, I thought: Let the storm come. And it came promptly—in comments that ranged from thought-filled to angry to incongruous.”

Continue reading Laura Brodie’s post here.

Spoiler alert: Brodie’s assumptions and assessments are shown clearly in her responses to readers’ comments:

“…homeschooling needs some degree of regulation, especially some outside monitoring of children’s progress, which is more important than parents’ education level. I would like to see more discussion among the homeschooling community about what minimum standards for regulation most parents would feel are reasonable. I realize many people are opposed to all government intervention, but some basic oversight seems useful…”

“Without regulations in all states that require homeschooling parents to inform superintendents of their decisions to homeschool, and that require children to do some sort of annual performance review (standardized test or otherwise) under monitored circumstances, there will be no reliable data.”

Home Education Magazine has published volumes of information about these questions over the years. Here are some helpful links to articles by well-experienced and well-informed advocates for homeschooling:

• Let’s Stop Aiding and Abetting Academicians’ Folly

• Your Homeschooling Decisions Affect My Homeschooling Freedoms

• Hanging On To What Makes Homeschooling Distinctive

• Communicating the Strengths of Homeschooling

• Working for Homeschooling Freedoms: Chore or Opportunity?

• Undoing The Harms of Homeschooling: From Reaction to Prevention

• Where Will That Leave Us?

• Citizenship or Lawyership: Choosing Political Strategies for Homeschoolers

The American Homeschool Association presents a selection of articles which offer information on credentials and many different options, both for those who decide to attain diplomas – and for those who decide they aren’t needed.

The requirements for a diploma have varied over time. What has not changed, however, is the public need to feel confident that graduation from high school represents a real achievement.

But what that achievement encompasses and when students are ready to graduate remain contentious questions. Does graduation represent minimal competency or the mastery of school subject knowledge? Do high school graduates gain the knowledge and skills necessary to lead successful lives, or only those necessary for postsecondary education? These seem like important issues, but two questions most concern me today: When are students ready to graduate, and who should decide?

In response to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, many states have given over to test-makers considerable power to decide these questions.

The real bottom line question is, whose vested interest should be respected? A corporation’s vested interest in their product, a school system in its institution, or parents’ vested interest in their children?

Read the entire piece here.

A high school exit exam is keeping hundreds of Alaska students from earning diplomas and jobs for which they’re otherwise qualified, proponents of repealing the test told a state Senate committee Friday.

Educators and parents from around the state testifying in support of a bill to eliminate the High School Graduation Qualifying Exam said the tests also eat up both classroom time and resources for yet another standardized test.

The exams’ only defender to testify was Finance Director Eddy Jeans of the Department of Education and Early Development, who relayed the State Board of Education’s position. The board sees the test as a crucial accountability tool and wants it to stay in place until there is an alternative.

“It’s the hammer in the system. It’s the only hammer in the system,” Jeans said.

Alaska students are already subject to standardized tests throughout their public education, but those tests are designed to index and track progress or skills. They provide information, but don’t hold the individual students accountable, Jeans said.

In contrast, the exit exam guarantees that someone with an Alaska high school diploma has at least minimum competency in reading, writing and math, he said. Eliminating it with no alternative would revert an Alaska high school diploma to the equivalent of a certificate of attendance, Jeans said.

Sen. Bettye Davis, the repeal’s sponsor, took issue with that assertion.

“I can’t believe this is the glue that’s holding the system together,” she said. “We’re doing a disservice to our children.”

You can read the entire article here.

• Fear-mongering in California, 28 May 2005
  Ann: A week after writer/homeschooler Cynthia Walker writes an article (above) about how to homeschool in California using a private school or the R-4 affidavit, attendance officer Frank Valadez comes out with an intimidating letter to the editor, below.

• California Courage – defying bureaucratic bullying, 28 June 2005

  Ann: Last month, in a post called Fear-Mongering in California, we saw how one California truant officer is choosing to misinterpret the private school rules by suggesting that homeschoolers submit themselves to his personal opinion of what the law should be. The comments keep rolling in.

A year later, the homeschool climate in Gilroy continues to be officially chilly.

• Gilroy Dispatch, Gilroy, California, 11 July 2006, Education at Home Cut-Off

  Before James Maxwell took over the GHS helm a year ago, school officials allowed homeschooled students to jump into the program after freshmen year. Since Maxwell came on board, he said he’s told parents that students from unaccredited institutions, which includes the vast majority of homeschool programs, will not be accepted as upperclassmen.

I would think that placement testing would be a reasonable way to allow teens who want to go to school to enter without forcing older teens to enter high school as freshmen. On the other hand, it is the high school’s diploma, and if they don’t want certain people enrolling as students, I suppose that making it as hard as possible is one way to go about making sure that the undesirables don’t darken GHS’s door.

Local opinion has a bit of the same slant.

• Gilroy Dispatch, Gilroy, California, 15 July 2006, Drop-Ins Getting Shut Out by Gilroy High School

  What do you call a kid who leaves school at the age of 15 or 16, before graduating?

  A drop-out, of course.

  What do you call a kid who enters school for the first time at the age of 15 or 16, before graduating?

  A drop-in?

  …

  But I don’t think the resurrected policy is fair. GHS is a tax-supported institution, and the parents of drop-ins are taxpayers. Testing for proficiency is an easy enough matter. If a drop-in can prove proficiency in Algebra II and English Composition, he should be allowed credit for those classes. If not, he can take the classes again.