Commenter John left an excellent response to my entry on Nebraska’s proposed anti-homeschool legislation:
- LB1141 is condescending and contemptuous to all parents; homeschool, private, parochial, and public. These limitations upon the educational choices proposed by LB1141 usurp a parent’s primary obligation, authority, and responsibility for the education of their children. This constitutes an attempt to redefine the State’s current level of parens patriae. The mere consideration and introduction of this bill is nothing short of an all out infringement and assault upon the liberties of the citizens of Nebraska. The State does not posses a higher authority than the parent.
- The legislature should focus instead upon repairing the disastrous mess the State has created within the current public school system. The members of the State of Nebraska Legislature instead should be considering ways to understand why private schooling, including homeschooling, has proven overwhelmingly to be a more successful method by which parents have chosen to educate their children. Consider the real possibility that the answer to this success lies within the parents and not the State?
- The burden of responsibility to show accountability of results is not that of the parents. Contrary to Senator Schimek’s assumption that parents owe some burden of proof to the State, the actual burden of responsibility falls upon the State to convince parents that the public school system is a viable option for their children. When parents believe that the system provided by the State does not meet their standards, needs, and expectations; current and effective alternatives exist. The results that the State has continuously shown through the public school system is the reason that the families of nearly 50,000 children in Nebraska exercise their liberty to choose a private school (parochial, private, or home school) for their children. These families do this with no additional tax burden upon the State, all the while continuing to contribute their portion of taxes to the public system.
- Perhaps now is the time to focus upon a few real pressing issues such as to the failure of public school system to provide a decent education to rather large segment of children enrolled and even consider vouchers to relieve the burden the State places upon the families who have opted out of the State’s public education system.
The legislature here does seem to have a general disdain for public education and has made a “disastrous mess” of things. Nebraska has a long history of local control, a tradition of which I am very proud. In fact, we must be doing something right, for while we rank 34th in per pupil spending on education, we rank at the top when it comes to measurements of academic success. A few years ago, however, a bill was introduced to force the consolidation of Class I schools. This was hotly opposed. It passed. The governor vetoed it. The legislature overrode his veto. It was put on the 2006 ballot and the people voted to repeal it. But it was too late. The schools had already been consolidated.
And LB1141 is not the only bill currently being considered by the education committee that deserves to be challenged.
A bill (LB987) introduced by Lincoln Sen. Ron Raikes would create the Quality Education Accountability Commission to ensure statewide testing, reporting, upgrading of standards and tracking of student achievement, which were put into law last year. It also would create a quality education accountability office that would be under the auspices of the governor. American Society for Quality
This Commission will be responsible for some of the most important decisions the state can make regarding education, and it will be completely outside of voter control. Even our elected State Board of Education which is currently charged with this task, will only be allowed to send three representatives to the Commission.
Members of our legislature are certainly condescending and contemptuous of parents, and it doesn’t matter where your children are educated.
For more on what is going on with the homeschooling legislation in NE, please check the links in my sidebar.
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For more information on LB 1141, you can click on the category LB 1141 and find everything I have written so far.
[tags]homeschooling, homeschool, Nebraska, LB 1141, LB 987[/tags]
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
What often comes to mind when I read these educational proposals is that they are attempting something that is bound to self-destruct when they bind themselves solely to results.
What I mean by that is one cannot hold the ‘tool’ responsible for its use. I can have the best, most expensive hammer they make, but if I never use it, or use it to dispose of the neighbor’s obnoxious dog, is that the hammer’s fault? It seems to me that educrats have this build-a-better-mousetrap mindset of new curriculums and programs and reducing class sizes and accountability methods… but if those who use the system don’t take care of it and nurture it, is the system EVER going to be successful?
This is why parental choice is important, allowing and even forcing families to decide how they want to go about providing an education for their children. When you have a PS system that is the default, requiring no thought or planning, and it’s ‘free’- thus limiting or eliminating one’s personal investment in the system, then is it any wonder that so many have a “So what?” attitude about school. School sucked for them, so if it sucks for their kids, then they will have the same cultural experiences as every other kid, and “So what?”
I have always wondered why so many folks barely plan for their children’s education, but they will plan exhaustively for home ownership, or their dream car or vacation, or retirement.
Wow. Isn’t it amazing how easily we shift away from democracy?
I’ve been concerned about the degradation of parental rights ever since I had kids and realized that everyone has an opinion about my parenting skills.
Now my state has decided it will not provide special education services to homeschoolers (it is provided to private school students). We are still responsible for telling our school board how we will provide services, but the public schools aren’t giving it. Doesn’t this sound like a set-up to force children back into school? How long before parents of special needs students have CPS knocking at their door?
I wish parents of public and private schoolers would realize that homeschoolers are merely the front line against the undermining of all parents rights. It is not an us and them situation, homeschoolers are simply the easiest target for the limitation of parental rights.
Sunniemom, I agree. But what is really sad is that our system is working. It is one of the best in the nation, and what have we done? Left local decisions in the hands of local school boards.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that parents with kids in public school are quite as likely to be on multiple e-lists discussing how to approach this legislation. So this may well pass before anyone realizes what is at stake and the result will be as difficult to get rid of as Class I schools were to attempt to save.
Cristina, you are right. My husband was talking to someone yesterday and his response was to shrug his shoulders and say, “well, it doesn’t affect me.” So my husband mentioned the possibility of taxes and then he listened.
It is kind of sad.
Thank you for writing about this. I never called them Class I schools. We always called them country school, and we were very proud of ours. When our kids went to town for high school, they were always in the top ten percent. We had 3 different towns that our kids went to. I have not done the background work that you have, but I think if you check, you will find that the “powers that be” were already trying to get rid of them in the 60’s. The part about these “activists” that really bothers me, is that they never give up. I keep wondering about our education system, because of what I read. I am new to the computer, but I am constantly amazed by the writing. It seems that spelling, grammer, punctuation, and using the correct word is no longer important. I can only assume that the incorrect word usage is because of spell check. If this is not common, why do I see it in newspapers also? Do they still have editors? I don’t have kids, but I completely agree with what you have said about parental authority. It seems from what I see, that anyone can tell you how to raise, educate, discipline or feed your children. This seems like a specific symptom of a general attack on freedom. Do you think that we are moving more rapidly than in the past to Communism?