Home School Fragments (and a Puppyism)

Half Past Kissing Time presents Friday Fragments.  Today I will share some Home School info that might not otherwise make it into it's own post.

SB 136 footnote.

Last year a state senator from Illinois made a name for himself in the homeschooling community by proposing that all home schools and private schools would need to be registered on the state level.  The proposed bill showed no understanding of Illinois  state law.  One reason for this is that Home schools in Illinois are considered private schools.  That means that the wording of the bill was redundant because  merely requesting that all private schools register would require home educators to do the same.  Alas private schools were never really the target of the bill and the wording was quickly changed to refer only to home schools.

The senator Ed Maloney introduced the bill and there was an instant reaction of the negative kind.  Home Educators after flooding their representatives with phone calls,  stopped what they were doing and headed to Springfield in the thousands to discuss the bill.  Ed Maloney was never able to give sufficient proof that homeschoolers were "falling under the cracks" and the bill was tabled without ever being voted on.

I wrote several pieces on the matter here and have become very interested in the career of senator Maloney.  He has decided not to seek reelection.  I did some research and found that one of the candidates running to replace him states that she is a  strong supporter of homeschooling at her campaign website.  Thanks again Mr. Maloney for bringing the people of your district a potential advocate to the institution you sought to alter.

Speaking of Frivolous Laws

One of the main reasons I opposed SB 136 besides the total lack of need to "fix" something not broken was the additional cost to taxpayers in doing so.  This is one of the reasons why I am opposed to SB 3259 which is a bill being considered to raise the compulsory school age in Illinois from 17 to 18.  The law is sponsored by Kimberly Lightford and co-sponsored by 6 other senators from her party.  Lightford like Maloney and 4 of the 6 co-sponsors received significant campaign funding from teachers unions.  I mention this because teachers and their unions are the direct beneficiaries of this law as more teachers will need to be hired if the age is increased. 

I am opposed to the bill for 5 reasons.

1. The proposed law will not be able to do what it says it will as there is no proven correlation between dropout rates and compulsory age.

2. It should be the job of parents and not the government to decide when their children should end their schooling.

3. By my reading it seemss the law would require home educators of 18 year olds to register with the state; and I think we all know how I feel about that.

4.  While the law would benefit teacher and unions and not neccesarily the students it purport to help (see objection 1) it would increase the tax burden of parent affected by the law.


5. It is a law that was conceived by lawmakers who didn't even consult with school superintendents to see if a law was needed.  There was also similar lack of reasoning for Sb136.  It has been told that Senator Maloney conceived SB136 after learning of a homeschooling relative while at a Holiday party.  Our tax dollars are certainly at work.

Mount Rushmore

I am teaching 2 classes about the Mount Rushmore Presidents at our home school co-op.  If you wanted to teach about one object in American History that encompasses more time than Mount Rushmore you might be hard pressed to do so.

The history of Mount Rushmore and the presidents thereof, goes back to the colonial period prior to the French American war and goes though to Depression Era works projects.  This has been a very enjoyable process for me and hopefully my students as well.

Non Home School Related Puppyism

Puppy sometimes pretends she's a wolf named Wolfina.  Just like when she used to play with pretend puppies on the bed she now brings pretend wolves everywhere she goes. 

On Wednesday we were visiting my Dad who is recovering nicely from a very successful prostate cancer surgery.  On the way home Puppy was sitting in the back seat and we had this conversation:

Puppy/Wolfina: Dad I left one of my wolves at Grandpa's house. 
Me: One of your Pretend wolves.
P/W: That's okay we don't have to get it.  He likes it there.

The funniest thing about the exchange was the was that Puppy said her last line as if I had fully intended to turn around and get the missing wolf.  When actually at about the same time she asked we had just passed a gas station selling it's wares at $4.52.9 a gallon.  (I had only paid $4.39.9, so that's a relief.

Well that's that for Fragments for this week and probably for a while.  I am participating in Blogging A to Z starting Sunday and if I think of a fragment idea, I will probably figure out what letter it starts with and share it on it's given day.

For more fragments click here.

Of Carrots and Sticks

I promised SB 136 update so here is one. But before I do, here is what may seem like an aside.

The Brookfield Zoo of Brookfield (Go Figure!), Illinois had a program. They allowed public and private schooled children as well as home schooled children as well as their teachers/chaperone's to attend the zoo on field trips at no cost. Last Summer the field trip policy changed. Only Public and Private schools were listed as field trip eligible on the zoo's website and Home Schoolers were listed as ineligible. One exception was given on the website, stating that home educators who registered their students at the Illinois Board of Education would be able to attend field trips free of charge.

This change was not received warmly by the home school community. I remember my reaction was that since Illinois Home schools are considered by Illinois law as private school's they should already be field trip eligible and not have to do anything else. Other's saw it as a way to try to force home educators to register with the state when they were not legally obligated to do so. The reaction was a surprise to Agnes Kovacs, Manager of School Groups and Teacher Programs at the zoo. She told me that the zoo was just wanting to make sure that only school groups were getting in and just wanted to get some proof that the students were homeschoolers. The zoo now accepts proof of home education from H.S.L.D.A, and other home school advocacy groups as well as registration with the IBOE. She advised me yesterday that other advocacy groups have been recently added besides the ones at the website.

Not 6 months after this zoo issue was resolved State Senator Maloney
introduced SB 136 to make all Illinois Home Schoolers register with the IBOE. Now I understand the zoo's interest. They want to make sure that their free field trips for Illinois students is not abused and can be maintained. I can understand that as I went on such a field trip almost 40 years ago and that trip had a great impact on my life.

What I don't understand is Maloney's interest. He offers no incentives to home schoolers for registration. His motives are explained a little more in this e-mail I received from HSLDA . . .

======================================================================
From the HSLDA E-lert Service...
======================================================================


Illinois--SB 136 Epilogue

Dear HSLDA Members and Friends:

Following up on his decision to table SB 136, Senator Maloney asked
several of us involved in the SB 136 hearing to meet with him.

Yesterday Sen. Maloney reiterated to us his belief that the government
needs to know the names and addresses of all homeschooled children. We
reiterated that this was neither necessary nor useful. After all, if
merely knowing a child's name and address could produce a quality
education, a quarter of Illinois public school students would not
still be without a diploma after four years of high school.

Sen. Maloney reiterated his concern about homeschooled children
"falling through the cracks." We reiterated that according to
published figures from State Superintendent Dr. Christopher Kock (who
was also present at the meeting), three-fourths of a million public
school children (765,989 to be exact) were truant for 2008-2009--so
that is where the state should focus its efforts concerning children
"falling through cracks."

Sen. Maloney reiterated his worry that nothing could be done to those
who violate the law while asserting they are homeschooling. We handed
him a copy of the State Board of Education's own webpage that points
to the Levisen case and describes exactly what procedure should be
followed.

While it was obvious that Senator Maloney still wants to increase
government control over homeschoolers, he said he would not move
forward on anything of this nature without first talking to us.

Before filing SB 136, he never asked for the input of those who would
be affected--the thousands of homeschool families in Illinois. We
welcome his new willingness to talk.

We are not asking families to take any action at this time. We will
continue to watch the situation carefully and let you know if and when
it's time to put down the books and drive to Springfield.

Sincerely,

Scott Woodruff
HSLDA Senior Counsel

Maloney needs to realize that home educators in Illinois aren't going to accept registration for registrations sake. I won't register for incentives like field trips. I will register if the law demands it. However, I will actively oppose any bill that even smells like SB 136. I still have not been given a good answer to how the state will pay for making sure home educated children don't fall through the cracks when they already can't fund the ones seeking public education. While this post may truly be an epilogue for SB136, I am sure it is not the end of the registration issue in the state of Illinois. I wonder what is next, more carrots or more sticks?

Thanks to the folks at Life Nurturing Education for putting this in the recent carnival of Homeschooling. Click here to go back to that carnival.

Fitness Center Alpha (Hopefully not Omega)

This may be my first blog post that contains the word treadmill. This is probably because today was one of the first times in the 2+ year history of this blog that I have been on one. Amy and I both joined a fitness center yesterday. It was a pretty cool deal actually. $19.95 a month for me and $15.00 for Amy (plus 1 month free for me for referring her). The best thing is that there were no contracts or cancellation fees. So this morning I woke up at about 6 a.m. drove to the center and spent 35 minutes on the treadmill and watched live t.v.! I hadn't watched live t.v. since the Oscars. The workout went pretty well, I went a little more than 2 miles. Next time I may try some of the other machines. Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Amy and I grew up in the Catholic faith and since embracing an Evangelical Protestant Christianity we have not really observed Lent in the same way. This reminds me of a joke I told in the early early eighties. I gave up Catholicism for Lent, and once it was over, I wasn't Catholic anymore so I didn't have to take it back. (My jokes were much more cerebral back then.) Actually many protestants observe Lent. So each Wednesday during this Lenten Season I will share some observations and activities. This morning I will kick off school with this fun lesson I found about the pretzel and its Lenten origins. Well the nice thing about exercising in the blessed a.m. is being awake and alert to get a post out before the school day commences. But it's that time again to get with it. Have a good day I should be back today or tomorrow with a SB136 epilogue.

Sunday's Cool

I am trying out a new feature today. It's called Sunday's Cool: A Link up and a Look Ahead. Our family has several other blogs here in the blog-o-sphere. The majority of them go untended for and ultimately unread. I have decided that each Sunday I will link up one of those blogs here. This should give me the encouragement I need to have those update more often. That will be the link-up portion of the title. The look-a-head will just be a sneak peek at what may be appearing on this blog in the coming 7 days. As my loyal readers may have noticed, I used to end each post with a sneak peek of what my next post would be about. Sometimes the hardest part of writing a post was simply writing the next time tag. So, I gave up on it. This will give me a chance to give you a warning if I'm starting a six post series on lawn furniture feng-shui.

So with that build up here is the innaugural episode . . .

Sunday's Cool

A Link Up and a Look Ahead

A link up: A few weeks ago our family went to Springfield to indicate our disapproval with proposed Senate Bill SB136. It was tabled so we must have done some good. At our home school web site : Izola Becker Home School, I put up a few pictures from our time there. We chose this picture because past Puppy and the Liberty Bell replica you can see the lines of people waiting to enter the Capitol building and attend the discussion on the bill. Click on the picture to see the entire post.



A Look Ahead: Speaking of SB 136. I plan to post this week parts of an epilogue to SB 136 I saw at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). I will give it a HSD twist and plan to call it "Of Carrots and Sticks." On Monday, I will be announcing the winner of the home school conference mp3 give-a-way. This is your last chance to enter. Click here to do so. Hopefully the week won't get away from me and there will be loads of interesting tidbits here. Enjoy your Sunday and have a great week!.

Six Word Saturday In Praise Of . . .

Here are my 6:

Why I Like Home Spun Juggling:

I have been a big fan of the Blog, Home Spun Juggling since I started blogging 2+ years ago. It may be because Christina (the blogs author) can do two things extremely well that I wish I could do at all. These are Juggling and Cartooning. I love cartoons but could not draw myself out of a paper sack. I spent most of 1997 in a paper sack as a result. (It's not something I am yet ready to talk about.) In the late 80's I produced a newsletter for some friends. One of the features was called "If I could draw, this would be a cartoon." I would describe a picture and then say what the dialogue or punch line would be.

Here is one I just thought of so I can give you an example . . .

Scene: A Tax Office. On one side is the tax consultant. He is looking rather put out. On the other side is his client who doesn't seem to like what He is being told.
The tax consultant says "No, Mr. Smith, "liking" your church on Facebook is not deductible."

But who needs to set up a scene when you can just draw one up like this . . .

If you click on the strip you will get to one of my favorite blogs: Home Spun Juggling. The cartoon and heartfelt post is an example of why Christina's artwork and writing is one of the gems of the homeschooling blog world.

Her beautiful explanation of the economic choices all families make to do what is important to them ends with a flourish:

"Can we afford it? I would think many of these families would say they can't
afford not to. We make it work, because we want it to. I'm thankful I made
the choice to homeschool. It's a tough job, and I know it's not for everyone, but
it was something I had to do."

I thought much about why we home school this week especially in light of driving to Springfield to protect our rights to do so. It is sometimes a sacrifice, an encumbrance, even an inconvenience. But in the end I I came to the same conclusion Christina did. Even if I do have to avoid paper sacks like the plague.

For more Six Word Saturday click here.

Dole - Now in 100% Juice Aloha Sweepstakes and other fragments

It is Friday Fragment time again. I have had a strange and wonderful week. Drove to Springfield with the Family on Tuesday to protest a bill that would take away some of the freedoms we have here in Illinois to Home School, The bill was tabled and I blogged about it here. ************************************************************************************ My next Fragment reminds me of the book and movie The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio. This is a contest to win a Hawaiian vacation. There are several ways to win. Any time Amy and I see a contest we know for sure that we are "slated" to win. It doesn't matter that, we often forget to enter and that we never win. We just know we are going to win. So enter if you want, but Amy and I have got the vacation in the bag. Dole - Now in 100% Juice Aloha Sweepstakes ************************************************************************************ We saw this add on Hulu this week. I know I've been sharing lots of commercials lately but this one is hilarious. Bunny Girl especially liked it. Even though one of her favorite creatures was threatened. ************************************************************************************ This commercial by the same airlines does a very good job of explaining why companies don't say Super Bowl in their radio and t.v. spots. It's also very funny. ************************************************************************************

Final Fragment. The pictures that started this post were taken last Saturday at our Church for Awana Bible Quizzing. Both Spider Droid and Bunny Girl were just a small # of the kids participating to get 8 of 8 correct in their multiple choice round. It is rewarding to put God's word in your heart!

It's done! It's done! The home schoolers won!

To see my original post about SB 136 click here.

A few years ago Bunny Girl started a pretty good post victory tradition while listening to White Sox games on the radio or following them on the computer (We are very 21st century) with me. She would get all animated and say "It's done! It's done! The White Sox won!"

For the past few weeks I have been following the SB 136 Homeschooling Registration Bill as if it were a late season White Sox playoff push. I even went on a "road trip" this past Tuesday in Springfield to show my opposition to the bill.


Here is some footage from outside and inside the hearing.






I have received information today that the bill has been tabled. Just like in baseball, government has it's own special terms. According to the glossary at the Illinois Gleneral Assembly website,Tabling means:
Laying on the table or killing. Tabling removes a bill, resolution, or amendment from consideration.



The ILGA site shows that the Bills sponsor Ed Maloney tabled the bill today. This is a great victory for home schooling in Illinois. Illinois continues to be one of the least restricted states for Homeschooling in the nation and I hope the coverage this issue has received shows that this is a good thing. A right worth defending.





Before finding out about the tabling I was all geared up to use today's post to get on my high box (combination of high horse and soap box) and clear up some misconceptions that the bill has brought up. Even though the bill has been killed, I would still like to clear up these misconceptions:



1) In a Daily Southtown Star Editorial against the bill, Maloney was quoted as saying: “There are virtually no regulations on homeschools. No curriculum, no periodic checks on their progress,” he said. “We want more accountability.”

Illinois home schools under the law are considered private schools. (This is I believe why SB136 originally wanted to register both
private schools and home schools. When Maloney started receiving push back about the registration, He then stated he wanted to rewrite the bill to include only home schoolers. Leading many to think that He was after homeschoolers all the time.) The law states that all private schools have to teach the same amount of hours of instruction and the same type of courses as the public schools. That is regulation. Homeschoolers as the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) attorney, Scott Woodruff stated at the hearing (it's in the video clip) that homeschoolers have to provide proof that they are homeschooling if asked. That is regululation. It is ridiculous for Maloney to say that home schoolers do not have a curriculum. I am a home schooler and I have curriculum.e I've driveen to Rockford at 9 a.m. on a Saturday for Curiculum fairs, for crying out loud. I just don't have a government assigned curriculum. No private schools do.

2) There seems to be a fundamenental difference in opinion as to what the state's role in home schooling should be.
In meeting last week with Homeschooling proponents Maloney told them that: since the State was responsible for the education of our children, the State should know who was being homeschooled.

The state is not responible for my children's education. God entrusted them to me, not the state. The state gets their power from the people, not the other way around. Perhaps Maloney will realize where his power base is after the next senatorial election.

Well that is all I have to say at this time. I am very glad that SB 136 has failed and I thank everyone who had a part of defeating it.

If we ain't broke don't fix it.

I am a sign reader. I especially like reading signboards over local schools. The ones that say things like Book Fair Tuesday through Thursday, or Congratulations to our students who were just in the state robotics tournament. Recently these signs have been more about money than merriment. Signs like Illinois owes our district 10.6 million dollars.


Yes, wherever I am in this great state of mine, I see signs outside schools telling passersby that they can't do the job educating their students because the state ain't showing them the money. I often joke with friends and family that I should put a sign outside our home/school that the state of Illinois doesn't owe our school any money.


So the fact that our state is broke and can't afford to educate the students they now have in the public system should be a problem that our lawmakers in Springfield to sink their teeth into. Instead one state senator , Ed Maloney (D-Chicago) is taking a different approach. He is trying to cost the state more money.

Maloney introduced SB 136 on 1/27/2011. The gist of the bill is to have all non public schoolers register annually with the Illinois Board of Education. Illinois law currently doesn't mandate any
registration annual or otherwise.

Home Educators in Illinois are considered private schools and pending this legislation, Illinois is one of the least restricted states in the country to home school. Last year my local state representative came by for a visit and wanted to know how he could help me. I told him that Illinois was one of the least restricted states for home schooling. I told him that if he wanted to keep me happy he should keep Illinois that way (Guess who's getting a phone call tomorrow?).

In Illinois my taxes go to public education. I am fine with that. On top of that I pay for all the materials and other learning (co-operatives, lessons etc.) for my students out of my own pocket. Home school families aren't the only ones, parents who send their children to private schools have to pay tuition on top of the taxes they pay for public education. I imagine that most private schoolers don't mind paying double as long as they have the freedom to educate their children the way they see fit.

I said earlier that State Senator's Maloney is trying to cost the state more money. What I meant by that is that overseeing the annual registration of all the privately educated children in Illinois is going to cost the state money. Money, they currently don't have. Money that could be going to pay all the school districts what they owe them. Money that could be used to hire more teachers, fund more programs and decrease class sizes.



But instead of using tax dollars for the job of educating the public, it seems that Sen. Maloney would like some of our tax money to regulating the private and that frankly is not a sign I'd like to see.



Note: I am certainly not the only one blogging about this issue. Click here, here or here for more views.

To return to the carnival of homeschooling click here.