The “Tebow” Bill is up again in Alabama. The proposal has been raised in years past and defeated by legislators.
WHNT Lawmakers Review “Tebow Bill” For Home-Schooled Athletes by Nick Banaszak
Senate Bill 186, better known as the “Tim Tebow Act”, would erase the barrier that currently exists between home-schooled students and public high schools in Alabama. The Tebow Act would allow home-schoolers to play as long as they’re good enough to make the team.
Alabama is one of 25 states that still bar home-schoolers from playing for their local high public high school, with lawmakers staunchly rejecting similar legislation in the past. Tim Tebow famously won the Heisman Trophy and two national championships during his time at the University of Florida, but those honors were preceded by Tebow’s performance as a home-schooler when he led his public high school football team in Florida to a state championship.
There are currently five sponsors and it’s sitting in the Senate Education Committee.
Over in the Pacific, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Home-school bill on hold again by Nanea Kalani
Lawmakers have again shelved a bill to allow Hawaii’s home-schooled students to participate in extracurricular activities at public schools — a recurring debate at the state Capitol for at least the past decade.
But the issue remains in play, as Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Jill Tokuda said she will ask the state school board to thoroughly vet the issue and make a recommendation to lawmakers before next year’s legislative session.
It was a bit shocking to see extracurricular participation was popped into a bill that calls for Hawaiian homeschoolers to enroll in public schools. As I read it, that carrot would not be appealing with the stick. It is good to see the Senate Education Chair and sponsor of this bill chose to defer it. Let’s hope it dies a quick death too. SB 922 called for this:
Requires all home school students to enroll at the public school in the student’s service area. Requires home school students who are enrolled at the school in their service area to be calculated as an unspecified per cent of a non-home school student at that public school under the weighted student formula. Allows home school students to participate in any extracurricular activities offered by a public school. Amends section 302A-101, HRS, to add definitions for “enroll” and “home school”.
In a Patch blog post, Fairfax County School Board member Ryan McElveen highlighted the defeat of the bill as one of the three most important actions residents could advocate for this session as Richmond pressed on with what he called an “educational extremism.”
The school board voted to advocate against the proposal, McElveen wrote, ”because, in short, the bill would be unfair to current FCPS students who must comply with academic standards in order to participate.”
“While the Tebow bill would require home-schooled students to meet academic benchmarks for two years before joining a team, those standards are not clear. As some have argued, public schools aren’t “a la carte”—students and their families have the choice to participate in the public school system and all of the activities it provides.”
It seems incredible that defeat of this bill could be one of the most important actions regarding Virginia education. The opponents’ tone seems to go along with many other anti-homeschooling comments. The impression given is homeschoolers are slackers and it’s obviously not true. We made the commitment to educate our children, we have high standards and we get the job done. That piece of homeschooling criticism gets old and stale very quickly.
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