Michigan Home School Families Under Attack - Posted 03/27/08
Dear Home School Family,
After 12 years of relative peace for home schoolers in Michigan, 24 Democrats have cosponsored HB5912 that will force new reporting requirements on home school families. According to the language of the bill, the right to home school will “exist only if the child’s attendance is appropriately reported to public school officials.” The bill requires parents to report the names, ages and address of all their homeschooled children at the beginning of each school year to their local school district or intermediate school district.
This bill is intrusive, arbitrary, and unnecessary and every home school family in Michigan needs to let every one of the 24 cosponsors know it! Below is the complete phone and email list of the reps. (all Democrats) that cosponsored the bill. I want to strongly encourage every home school family in Michigan to become engaged in opposing this legislation. Over the next several days please contact every bill sponsor’s office by phone. You’ll likely get an answering machine, but leave your message anyway. Then follow your phone calls with an email to all 24 reps.. You should be able to copy and paste the list below directly into the TO section of your email message. Please be sure to include the email address elerts@inch.org in the BCC section of your message. This helps us to track the volume of emails the reps. receive on this issue.
Understanding our struggle to gain educational freedom to home school in Michigan helps to explain our opposition to this bill. Here are a few bullet points you can use in your phone conversations and emails.
· Home schoolers fought hard in the 80’s and 90’s for the right to home school in Michigan without unnecessary state interference. We have demonstrated dramatically since our home school law was enacted in 1996 that home schooling works and does not need more regulation.
· This is a shotgun approach being applied to all home school families because of a perceived problem that there are home schoolers who are doing little or nothing to educate their kids. Not true! The vast majority of home school families are doing an excellent job. The real problem resides with public school “kick-outs.” Public schools across the state kick problem students out of school and tell the parents they must now home school their kids. They even give them the name of a local support group in the area. Many of these parents can’t or won’t teach their kids themselves thus home schooling gets a black eye. Public school “kick-outs” are NOT home schoolers.
· Forcing home schoolers to report private information to the public schools is equivalent to putting the fox in charge of the hen house. The public school establishment doesn’t like home schools. They believe only trained, credentialed teachers are “qualified” to teach children. They also don’t get any money from the state when your kids are not enrolled in their schools. Public schools have historically demonstrated significant hostility toward home schoolers. No home school family should be required to report private information about their family to a hostile state entity.
· The information provided could be used against us in the future. This happened in the past when home schoolers were requested to fill out a non-public school report form by the Dept. of Ed. to be considered “legal”. Many of the families who complied with this request were later contacted and some were prosecuted for truancy.
· The language of this bill could be misinterpreted to mean that parents may only home school if they choose to do so at the beginning of the school year. My experience is that the obvious language of a bill is never obvious to everyone.
· Registration of home school children is just the beginning. Once that is accomplished other requirements will be enacted to further restrict our right to direct the education of our children.
· Ultimately, this bill, should it become law, will drive home schoolers back underground. Home schoolers have been able to home school openly and in public view for over a dozen years. Most home schoolers will not willingly submit private information about their children to the public schools. Instead, they will once again be forced to hide behind closed doors and teach their children in seclusion rather than being able to involve them in the many activities home school families currently enjoy.
There are many more reasons why I find HB5912 so objectionable, but these should help get you started as you communicate with the bill cosponsors. I can’t stress enough that we need to be united in our efforts to fight this proposed legislation and everyone needs to be involved in the process. Based on the reasons provided above and others that you may want to add to your communication, you should make it clear to every cosponsor that you want them to withdraw their name from the bill and ultimately change their view and oppose this legislation.
Finally, I’d like to make a shameless plug for the 25th Annual Michigan Home Education Convention hosted by INCH. We need to demonstrate solidarity and one way to do that is gather in mass numbers for this special silver anniversary event where we can continue to inform you with the latest information on this threat to our home school freedom. You can find all the information about the May 2nd & 3rd convention at www.inch.org. I hope we’ll see you there!
Blessings,
Dennis
_________________________________________________________________
Dennis Smith | Executive Director | Information Network for Christian Homes | 616.874.5656
State House of Representatives Co-Sponsors of HB5912 |
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All Democrats |
Phone |
|
Joan Bauer |
517-373-0826 |
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Brenda Clack |
517-373-8808 |
|
Bob Constan |
517-373-0849 |
|
Marc Corriveau |
517-373-3816 |
|
Robert Dean |
517-373-2668 |
|
Kate Ebli |
517-373-2617 |
|
Barbara Farrah |
517-373-0845 |
|
Richard Hammel |
517-373-7557 |
|
Ted Hammon |
517-373-3906 |
|
Shanelle Jackson |
517-373-1705 |
|
Bert Johnson |
517-373-0144 |
|
Robert Jones |
517-373-1785 |
|
Kathleen Law |
517-373-1799 |
|
Richard LeBlanc |
517-373-2576 |
|
Gabe Leland |
517-373-6990 |
|
Mark Meadows |
517-373-1786 |
|
Fred Miller |
517-373-0159 |
|
Gino Polidori |
517-373-0847 |
|
Joel Sheltrown |
517-373-3817 |
|
Mike Simpson |
517-373-1775 |
|
Alma Smith |
517-373-1771 |
|
Virgil Smith |
517-373-0589 |
|
Aldo Vagnozzi |
517-373-1793 |
|
Lisa Wojno |
517-373-2275 |
|
Dennis
_________________________________________________________________
Dennis Smith | Executive Director | Information Network for Christian Homes | 616.874.5656