Homeschool Alliance of North Carolina

Bill Summary for *HB2795 / SB3412Present law requires the following tests for high school students:

(1) Subject matter tests to measure performance of high school students in subjects designated by the state board of education and approved by the education oversight committee; and
(2) The Tennessee comprehensive assessment program tests.

This bill specifies that the above tests are required for public and nonpublic high school students.

Present law establishes requirements for home schools, including qualifications for parents desiring to home school their children and the testing standards that students home-schooled by their parents must meet. Present law provides that these present law requirements do not apply to home schools that teach K-12, where the parents are associated with an organization that conducts church-related schools, which are supervised by such organization through the director of schools of such organization’s department of education, and which administer standardized achievement tests at the same time such tests are given in their regular day schools. This bill revises this exemption so that it would not apply to those home schools requiring the same testing of other home school or public school students.

 Please read: http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/

Search HB2795.

“Parents want to help kids master what they learn,” Irene Rushing says. She’s wearing dark rimmed glasses with her black hair pulled back into a pony tail. She’s a hands-on mother of four who conducts classes for her children at the dining room table. She’s mom, teacher and principal all rolled into one.She’s been a home educator for seven years. Her oldest daughter, Shante, now 20, asked to be home schooled in the eighth grade. With encouraging results, Rushing decided to home school all her children.

Saleah Rushing, 9, and her sister, Rini, 16, say that “no drama” is what they like best about home schooling. Many parents opt to home school for similar reasons, citing school violence and negative peer influences that distract from academic achievement.

Ali Rushing, 8, hops on the computer. Her sister, Saleah, joins her. The two sisters quietly work together, taking turns on the keyboard. Rushing says closer relationships are one of many positive results of home schooling.

School is in session three to five hours per day. Home schooling proponents say smaller teacher to student ratios get the job done in less time. They break after two subjects and an hour for lunch…”

 For the complete text:

http://www.newsreview.com/reno/Content?oid=629303

“BOULDER — It’s a Tuesday morning at the hectic Coulson house and “unschool” is in session.

Upstairs, 11-year-old Julia writes in her journal as 14-year-old Gavin checks on the family stocks. Downstairs in their cramped apartment living room, Hayden, 3, cries out in frustration: He can’t make out a letter on a television learn-to-read program. Meanwhile, Corban, 5, ping-pongs among the floor-to-ceiling bins of school supplies deciding what to do next.

“Mommy, Mommy, can I do the space puzzle now?”

To an outsider, the scene looks more like summer vacation than a day of learning. But it’s all part of the free-form curriculum that defines this type of home schooling — based on the idea that learning is a natural consequence of living.

It needn’t be boxed into time increments, targeted at certain age groups, limited to traditional school subjects or measured in tests.

Generally speaking, most home-schoolers follow a traditional curriculum of math, science and social studies.

Much of their education is guided by textbooks and scheduled lesson plans.

Flip that whole notion over, and you have unschooling… ”

 For the complete story visit:

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_8385957?source=rss

“Families are fleeing to the UK from Germany to escape a law introduced by Hitler that could lead to their children being taken into care if educated at home. One father, who arrived in Britain with his wife and five children last month, has told The Observer that his family had no choice after being warned that their children would be taken into foster care unless they enrolled them at local schools. Another, who fled in October, said he believed the 70-year-old law was creating hundreds of refugees and forcing families into hiding to protect their children.Home-schooling has been illegal in Germany since it was outlawed in 1938. Hitler wanted the Nazi state to have complete control of young minds. Today there are rare exemptions, such as for children suffering serious illnesses or psychological problems. Legal attempts through the courts - including the European Court of Human Rights - have so far failed to overturn the ban.”

For the complete article:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2259509,00.html

“When school is in session for the Conrad kids, the living room of their northwest Omaha home is often their classroom.

Lessons last as long as needed to complete the day’s tasks.

Mother Natalie Conrad is the teacher to her three school-age children.

Natalie and Chris Conrad’s family is part of the 6,000-student home-school network across Nebraska. And the family is a small part of a debate in the Nebraska Legislature pitting personal choices and religious freedoms against state government’s educational responsibilities.

State Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln has proposed a bill to recast Nebraska’s generally loose regulations over home-school students.

Her bill would require home-school students to take state-mandated tests or have their schoolwork assessed by an outside evaluator. If students‘ progress falls short academically, they would be sent to public or private schools.”

For more of this article visit:

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10266451

“Anita Formichella is tired of hiding like a criminal.

“The sound of the doorbell literally strikes terror in my heart,” said Formichella, a bespectacled, middle-aged former school volunteer from Redding in her testimony to members of the legislature’s select committee on children on Tuesday.

For the past two years, Formichella said she has hidden in her house, shouting through the door when people knock because she fears the person on the other side might be a state social worker coming to take her children away.

Formichella isn’t a child abuser. She has never been cited for child neglect. She is a teacher. A home-school teacher. And therein lies the rub.

Within weeks of pulling her children from the public school system in 2006, Formichella received a letter from the local school superintendent requiring her to sign a form and submit more evidence that her children were being properly schooled. If she didn’t, Formichella said, she would risk a neglect investigation by the state Department of Children and Families. Formichella was frightened at first, then incensed.

“That’s a heinous, heinous thing to threaten a parent,” Formichella said outside the hearing room Tuesday. “And [the school superintendent] knew me!”"

For the complete article visit:

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-cthomeschool0220.artfeb20,0,4240535.story

“COLUMBIA — For the most part, the reasons that led Alicia Huff to home-school her four children mirror those of her peers in the Columbia area.She and her husband wanted to teach their children, ages 10 to 18, a certain set of values; customize a curriculum to address their children’s unique needs; and create a close family environment.

But the Huffs have one more motivating factor: the achievement gap in public schools between black and white students.

Minority students and children living in poverty tend to have difficulty with standardized tests.

Educators commonly refer to those test performance differences as the achievement gap.

“I understand that it’s not across the board,” Alicia Huff said. “(But) I think statistically black children are being left behind.”"

For the complete story visit:

http://www.heraldonline.com/109/story/371758.html

“Home-schooling advocates will be watching with interest when legislators hold a public hearing Tuesday on a bill that would change the way parents withdraw their children from public school.

The proposed law would require parents to send a certified letter informing their local school superintendent of their decision, and would mandate that the school board immediately “deem the child withdrawn from school.”

State statutes do not specify how children under 16 are withdrawn from a public school.

 State Rep. Arthur O’Neill, a Republican from Southbury, has championed the change. He said it would eliminate tension that often surfaces when parents decide to withdraw their children.”

For more on this read here:

http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-homelaw0217.artfeb18,0,3165495.story

“She has taught every subject at just about every grade level during the past 17 years, and has another 10 years to go before her last student is expected to graduate.

Janice Kopp never planned to spend so much of her life as a home-schooling mom, but that’s just what has happened.

“Early on, we just took it a year at a time,” said Kopp, who lives in Stafford with husband Dusty and their five children. “It’s been a long time, but it’s been worth it.”

Deanne, 23, and Colleen, 20, are students at the University of Connecticut now, and both say they were well-prepared under their mother’s guidance.

Austin and Nathan, who are 13-year-old twins, and Adele, 8, are still at home, doing their lessons and watching their classroom videos and keeping as busy as their neighborhood peers attending traditional schools.

For Janice Kopp, home-schooling has been an education in itself, as she has had to ensure that her children have been challenged academically, stimulated socially and generally given the chance to flourish.”

For the complete article visit:

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-schoolmom0217.artfeb18,0,4053057.story

“House rejects home-school scholarships Eds: APNewsNow.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) An effort to allow home-schooled students to qualify for state college scholarships has failed in the South Dakota Legislature.

The House killed a bill Monday that would have resulted in scholarship eligibility for home-schooled students who score at least 24 on the ACT college admission test and no lower than 22 in any of the subcategories.

Rep. Mark DeVries of Belvidere says parents of home-schooled students pay taxes even though those children don’t attend public schools, and it’s only fair that they should be eligible for the scholarships.

HB1306, which is DeVries’ scholarship bill, was rejected 34-33.

It needed 36 votes to pass.”

http://www.kxmc.com/News/208424.asp