Looks like the New Year is bringing two new bills affecting Oklahoma homeschoolers.
Senate Bill 472 would require parents or guardians who homeschool their child to notify the local school district and provide a report of academic progress to school officials. Senate Bill 308 would let local police or truancy school officials interview and temporarily detain a child not in school. NewsOK
SB 308 actually seems somewhat redundant to me since SB 472 strikes the same passage out of the law exempting homeschoolers from the ability of school officials and local law enforcement to interview and temporarily detain youth suspected of being truant.
Oklahoma does not currently require any notification of an intent to homeschool and this is obviously of grave concern to some politicians in the state, particularly Senator Jim Wilson who is sponsoring SB 308.
On the average, homeschooled students who go into public schools are two years behind students their age, Wilson said. Ibid.
Fancy that. Parents who find themselves failing at this whole home education thing put their children back in school. On their own. Without the state telling them they have to. Do you think just maybe these parents care enough about their children to realize things aren’t working out and to seek out alternatives?
Interestingly enough, according to the Children’s Defense Fund (pdf), 74% of Oklahoma fourth graders are below grade level in reading and 77% are below grade level in math. And according to the D.C.-based think tank Education Sector, “Oklahoma has, on the whole, set unusually low educational standards for its students, teachers and schools.” Those parents with children performing below grade level may find themselves sorely disappointed if they expect the school system to help. It appears to be struggling enough on its own.
“You hear examples of homeschool students excelling, but that is not the norm,” Wilson said.
And how exactly would you know? Because some parents who realized they weren’t doing well decided to seek out an alternative? You hear examples of public schooled students excelling, but that isn’t the norm. After all, the norm by definition means scoring in the 50th percentile.
Wilson cited potential abuse among some of the homeschooling parents as the reason behind the bill.
Some parents are not teaching their children but are putting them in front of a television, he said.
“I call that child abuse,” Wilson said. Ibid.
Wow. Some teachers show up drunk to school. Fondle students. Even have sex with them. And that is just from a quick search of Oklahoma teachers in the news. I call that abuse. But I’m not about to ask for a breathalizer from every teacher, nor video cameras in every classroom to watch the thousands of innocent Oklahoma teachers who show up to do their best to teach your state’s children every day.
And the potential for abuse, defined as television viewing, is the reason behind your bill? The one that says it is ok for school officials and local law enforcement to interview and temporarily detain children suspected of truancy? The one that specifically states that it “shall not be used as a pretext for investigating criminal matters?”
How does this bill do anything to correct the problem you find so dire as to declare an emergency, immediately neccessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety?
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Funny you should write this today. I am upset that our public school spent time and money showing the inauguration on TV to all the students. Think of all the staff time they wasted carting the kids back and forth, heating the buildings, hiring teachers… so the kids could watch tv.
This is the same school district that didn’t let the children know what was happening on September 11 so they wouldn’t lose any instructional time. Yeah.
When my kids were in PUBLIC SCHOOL they were routinely shown movies (some rated PG13 – and this was in elementary school) while the kids who needed extra help were out of the classroom getting it.
There was some weird law that the teacher couldn’t introduce any NEW MATERIAL while these kids were out of the classroom, so the kids that didn’t need any extra help were “abused” by being forced to watch TV instead of learning. That was one of the many reasons we choose to homeschool.
I do hope these bills are defeated. Great post as always Dana.
Yeah, there is a lot of television viewing in school. And you can’t even make up the instructional time later. I don’t mind a bit of it, but the last three days of the school year in the school I taught in may as well have not been. Nothing but movies.
Wow! What a mess.
Has there been an organized response to this?
Another well-reasoned dismantling of a proposal someone was paid to write. Why do our law makers, supported by our taxes, so often lack reason?
~Luke
Some parents are putting their children in front of televisions.
Humph.
I had a math teacher in eighth grade who loved to tell us about her personal life. In great detail. I’d have been better off in front of the television.
Oh, Dana, you’re killin’ me!
Didn’t you hear? It is only those mean old homeschoolers who are failing their children. Over 70% of kids below grade level in public schools? How can that be when they have a great local football team? Where are your priorities?
Lizzie, I’m sure there is or will be a response. The homeschool associations there have been talking to the press and I noticed an HSLDA e-lert while I was looking for the text of the bills. They haven’t even been introduced yet and have no co-sponsors. Hopefully that means it won’t get very far.
And I may put the children in front of the television this afternoon. Mom needs an inservice day after being up with dogs all night (a puppy and a lab with diarrhea. It’s wake up or clean up!)
And I always love this reason:
“If they are doing a good job, they shouldn’t mind anyone looking at their curriculum,” Wilson said.
But our Constitution wasn’t written with the principle that if you are doing nothing wrong, you shouldn’t mind having your property searched. If you are doing nothing wrong, you shouldn’t mind your computer being monitored by the state. If you are doing nothing wrong, you shouldn’t mind being detained by the state until they are done with their case.
Why is it suddenly such a great reason to monitor private citizens when it comes to education?
I live in Oklahoma. These bills are rediculous, as are his comments. He offers no support for the inflammatory statement that some homeschoolers only watch TV. I am almost certain on a whole the HS kids watch less TV than PS kids, but that is beside the point. As you noted, it would not be hard to excel PS standards in the state, even with a lot of TV.
Great points too about the PS abuses that children suffer. No one is suggesting tighter restrictions on PS teachers. If I dug deeper I am sure I would find a link between him and a certain teacher’s union.
OK is the only state which allows for HS in the state consitution. This legislation is unnecessary, redundant and hostile.
Why, only yesterday, my children were watching T.V. The little one learned a lot. Magic School Bus is amazing. Then, there’s their math, which is instructed by video. Darnit. Now, I’m going to have to turn off the T.V. completely. Geez.
Great post. I’m forwarding it to my local hs list and my husband. I’m in OK, and yes, there is an organized response. We have already heard from the state senators local to us, that they are not in support of these bills. Thanks for getting the word out!
I’d like to see his source for the homeschooler TV watching. If a parent really doesn’t care about their kids education, and just wants them out of their hair, so they turn on the TV… wouldn’t that parent who doesn’t want to be bugged by their kids PUT THEM IN SCHOOL for free babysitting, instead?
We watched TV in school today. I DVR relevant Nature, NatGeo, etc. We watched a Discovery special on Polar bears.
Homeschooled kids are two years behind coming back to public schools? Judging by Oklahoma’s proficiency numbers, they’ll fit right in, won’t they?
SB 472 sounds perfectly logical to me. If you remove your child from school, why not tell the school district and report academic progress? It, if anything, ensures that decent homeschooling statistics can be obtained. Those statistics can be used to make sure that children aren’t sold short on their education. If they were to show that home-schooled students are worse-off than their public school counterparts, steps could be made to make more stringent home school laws and educational standards, so that those children get a good education. Or, if the opposite were true, laws could be made to ensure that public school students get an education as good as home-schooled students.
Also, if “PS” students are detained if suspected of truancy, “HS” students should also be detained. That’s only fair. The better thing, though, would be to not detain anyone.
You said, “Parents who find themselves failing at this whole home education thing put their children back in school. On their own. Without the state telling them they have to. Do you think just maybe these parents care enough about their children to realize things aren’t working out and to seek out alternatives?”
Um…in the end they’ve still put their children behind two years. And that is behind the average student who is already below grade level in math and reading.
And, while what Wilson said about TV being child abuse is kind of overkill, don’t you think he might just be expressing anger about how lots of home-schooled kids are just being taught about Jesus all day?
S.B. 308 should be on shaky ground for the simple fact that in almost any other instance kids are not to be interviewed without a parent or guardian present.
Rebecca P. said,”It, if anything, ensures that decent homeschooling statistics can be obtained. Those statistics can be used to make sure that children aren’t sold short on their education.”
Um, like many are in the public schools? How are the NCLB stats looking? Also, what is to be the criteria for measurement? Again, I refer you to NCLB.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t see how the law would do anything but harass citizens and create bureaucracy.
Oh, and we don’t study about Jesus ALL day.
We try to include other trivial matters like math and science.
FYI…. as a rule, my 4 children watch NO t.v on school nights! We do learn a bible verse each day, I am trying to counter what negative influences my children were subjected to for the years they were in public and private school! In 1 day my children learn more math, science and history than in a week of classroom! Moreover, My kids, My decision. When officials can promise my children a safe environment for learning, I might consider a return. I am not ambivalent about MY choice! I have a responsibility to keep my children safe, and be smart enough to retain extra tutoring when my education doesn’t fit the bill! Back off government…. don’t mess with the momma bear!
Rebecca, in our system you are supposed to be proven guilty of something before being searched or before your property is seized. Why do we respect that in suspected drug offenders, and not in people educating their children?
Because you or someone has decided that homeschooled kids are just being taught about Jesus all day doesn’t make it so. There are a lot of false stereotypes out there. And while I’m positive their are homeschoolers out there doing less than a stellar job, I know their are public schools doing the same. But the state has the right and responsibility to oversee public schools. Those parents have entrusted their children to the state and their needs to be accountability for that trust.
I on the other hand am a private citizen who has done nothing to arouse suspicion. And yet the state can come in and question my children just because?
It makes sense for officials to be able to question a public schooled youth found away from school during school hours. It is their responsibility to keep track of those kids.
And while I wouldn’t raise a big fuss about my child being stopped and asked what they were doing (how would an officer know the difference?), once the fact the child is homeschooled is established, fair has nothing to do with it. The state has no jurisdiction over that child.
Unless s/he is breaking a law, and if you are homeschooled simply being out and about during school hours is not breaking any laws.
The bill allows the police, truant officer, school administrator or their designee… so if the principal okays it, any one he or she picks can pick up your kid and assume temporary custody!
The PS system does not have the authority to require private citizens to get their stamp of approval.
You could apply the same thought process to every sale of baseball bats, belts, and duct tape. All have been used to abuse children, so everyone who purchases one of these items should fill out a form with their name, address, social security number, names and birth dates of all children in the house, and submit to visits to make sure that these objects are being used in the manner in which they were intended.
“If just one child was saved from abuse…” is such a “Have you stopped beating your wife yet” type statement, because if you object to any invasion of gov’t into the private lives of citizens on behalf of “the children”, then obviously you think it is OK for children to be abused.
Rubbish.
Have blogged and linked on the “teaching about Jesus all day” thing. I’m sure secular homeschoolers are glad to know they’re doing such a great job with those Bible verses. :]
“On the average, homeschooled students who go into public schools are two years behind students their age, Wilson said.”
Does anyone know the source of this supposed statistic?
Wilson’s imagination? The NEA? A teacher he talked to? Hard telling, because he doesn’t cite any sources. Nor has he offered any supporting documentation for his bill at this time.
Once again, the government is sticking its nose where it does not belong. Our government needs to fix what is broken, not actively search for other ways to interfere in our daily lives. These proposals are RIDICULOUS.
I have been home schooling my 8th grade daughter since October 09. I withdrew her from public school and filled out the forms they asked me to. My son, who is in the 9th grade, is failing due to being sick at the beginning of the year and really never catching up. Right before I withdrew him from school, I received a letter for each of my children explaining truancy and that I can be fined or go to jail. This agency has requested what curriculum I am using, what testing and grades I am reporting and what standardized tests are they taking. I can provide them with all the above except where we will do our standardized testing. Are they out of line asking for all this information from me ?