Affirmative Action "Homeschoolers Who Can't Hack It" Bill Given Social Promotion by GOPer-led TNGA

Perhaps the most far-reaching affirmative action bill passed by the Tennessee General Assembly since the 1960s Civil Rights era:

Bill orders equality for home-school diplomas
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090508/NEWS0201/905080380/Bill+orders+equality+for+home-school+diplomas
By Juanita Cousins • ASSOCIATED PRESS • May 8, 2009

A proposal to make diplomas issued in Tennessee home schools have the same weight as those given by public schools has likely cleared its last major hurdle.

The House approved the measure 61-27 on Thursday after extensive debate. The Senate, which unanimously passed the measure earlier this week, must agree to a technical change before the bill is sent to the governor for his consideration.

The proposal sponsored by Rep. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, would require that all state and local governmental entities recognize diplomas issued by home schools and church-related schools as having the same rights and privileges of diplomas issued by public school systems. It will not allow these students to be eligible for state lottery-funded scholarships to college.

State representatives debated the bill for nearly an hour before taking a recess and returning to the chamber with a 30-minute limit on discussion.

Opponents said home-schooled students should not be given the same accreditation as those in public and private schools because there is no standardized testing to monitor the lessons.



Rep. Joe Towns Jr., D-Memphis

"We need to produce as many young talented people as we can," said Joe Towns Jr., D-Memphis. "But how can we recognize them if we do not know how they are being educated?"

The military and all public and private higher education institutions in Tennessee recognize home-schooled students' diplomas as valid. However, Bell said some of his constituents who were home-schooled have not been able to get or keep jobs such as auctioneers, police officers and day-care workers because state laws require those workers have a high school diploma.

(...)

The laws had been mostly unknown until about three years ago, when the state Department of Education began enforcing them, said Kay Brooks of Inglewood. One of Brooks' four home-schooled children will earn her high school diploma this year.

Brooks, who runs the Web site TNHomeEd.com for parents who home-school and their students, said graduates were losing jobs once it was discovered they had home-school diplomas.

"It didn't matter that they had already been in the military and had received police officer training and had been in the job. Once it was determined they had the wrong kind of diploma, they were out on the street," she said.

Bill stalled last year (2008)

The bill came up last year but was voted down in a House committee. Brooks said she thought the Republican majority in the House helped push the legislation this year.

(...)



Rep. Mike Bell, GOPer -Riceville (23)
Tennessee General Assembly Ego-Driven Asshat Quote of the Week:

Home-schooled students can get accredited diplomas from their local school directors, Bell said, but many do not to because it conflicts with their parents' religious views. Other students take the General Educational Development test, but Bell said it demeans their education by putting them in the same category as dropouts.
(... more at hyperlink above)

A slightly different take was presented just last year:

Tennessee: Home- school diploma bill held
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2008/may/26/tennessee-home--school-diploma-bill-held/?local

By: Kelli Gauthier
Monday, May 26, 2008

Tennessee church-school and home-school graduates must wait until next year before legislators debate whether to give state approval to their high school diplomas.

The sponsor of a bill that would give the same status to diplomas earned from schools that operate outside state regulation as to those earned from public schools pulled the legislation until next session.

The legislation passed in the House Education Committee, but the companion bill in the Senate died in a subcommittee, legislators said.

“It’s an issue we need a little more time to look at,” said Rep. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, whose wife home schools their five children.

Rep. Bell said he would come back with a new bill in January after getting more input from Tennessee Department of Education officials and members of the church-school and home-school communities.

The issue surfaced earlier this year when at least six state workers — five day-care employees and one police officer — were fired from their jobs because state Department of Education officials said they could not verify whether they met graduation standards, Rep. Bell said.

State Department of Education officials recently said they would not be responsible for evaluating credentials of “Category IV” schools.

Without oversight of these schools or students, state education officials cannot be responsible for validating their diploma, according to a memo from Tim Webb, acting education commissioner.

“The Department of Education and the Board of Education have no authority to monitor the curriculum or faculty of Category IV nonpublic schools. Therefore, it is impossible and inappropriate for the department to issue opinions regarding the validity of (Category IV) diplomas as a whole,” the memo states.



Rep. Les Winningham, D-Huntsville

Rep. Les Winningham, D-Huntsville, chairman of the House Education Committee, said, “It’s just an issue of rubber-stamping something you know nothing about.”



Rep. Mark Maddox, D-Dresden

Rep. Mark Maddox, D-Dresden, agreed, calling the bill somewhat of a double standard.

“Parents that choose to send their children to a Category IV school are saying, ‘We don’t want a state-sanctioned curriculum,’” he said. “But the bill is saying, ‘We’ll take your state-sanctioned diploma.’”

As a compromise, officials suggested that home-school and church-school students might earn a GED certificate to prove the adequacy of their education. Rep. Bell said that’s demeaning.

“It diminishes the worth of the education (parents) are giving their children,” he said.

Since Category IV schools are legal under state law, Rep. Bell said it only makes sense that their diplomas should be recognized.

“We’re trying to come up with a way to clarify this,” he said.

(... more at hyperlink above)

Reader Comments (2008):

My son spent 4 years attended a homeschool program that is a category IV school. When he went to join the military, only the Army would take him, but they wouldn't allow him to receive any of the bonuses because the diploma isn't recognized by the military. It didn't even rank a GED. I find this extremely frustrating as a parent that my son is considered so worthless by his own government. I wonder if the high schools for "problem kids" are given a higher ranking than faith based schools. My niece went to one, earned a diploma for basically sitting around doing nothing for 4 hours a day. If that type of degree is worth more to the State of Tennessee than ones kids earn actually working their tails off then something needs to change.

***

CATEGORY IV SCHOOLS

State law says this type of school is “church related.” If a family wishes to homeschool its children through this statute, the parents can sign up with a church school as a sort of satellite campus. Neither the church school nor home school is subject to any regulations in regard to curriculum or faculty.

TRADITIONAL HOMESCHOOL

A typical home-schooled student in Tennessee must take the same standardized tests as any public school student in the state. The parent-teacher must have either a high school diploma or GED certificate.

Sources: Tennessee Department of Education, Tennessee Code Annotated

It has obvious appeal to control freaks, fanatics of all stripes, sociopaths, haters of modernity.

to people who don't want their kids bullied, molested and strip searched by the state with absolute impunity.

^

For many of them who are evangelical fundamentalists, it's based on their desire to provide a religion centered experience for their children. Some churches here very strongly encourage their members to home school their children. Since many of these parents aren't very well-educated themselves, it might be hard for them to provide a quality education experience for their children but there's no testing or review that's done to determine that.

For one couple I met, it's based on wanting to give their child a better education than is available in the local public schools (which are pretty bad). Parents were both advanced degree scientists and very serious about providing an academically challenging environment for their children.

One couple here, where the mother is a physician and the husband does the home schooling, does it for both the religious aspect and the academic challenging education they can provide.

I would guess that the percentage of home-schooled chldren here approaches 20%.

SharonAnn: "I would guess that the percentage of home-schooled chldren here approaches 20%."

Is that 20% based on empirical evidence or merely a return to the Dark Ages faith-based estimate...? Homeschooling originated with the 1960s hippies who weren't afraid of saying that they and their kids were dropping out.

You really have to be joking and pulling out extremes to make that argument. I even once heard the homeschooled Rep. Matthew Hill state during his former talk radio show that he was a "special-ed math student" in the Sullivan County school system...just another happless evangelical kid that could not hack the public school academics and was coddled by his parents.

As you suggest, in some cases there can be valid quality-of-coursework issues, and as post #2 mentions, matters of safety, bullying, and abuse. However I am aware that in many locales at least, public oversight (checks, testing, approval and supervision of curriculum, etc.) of homeschooling is purely theoretical, and homeschooling becomes part of a nasty system in which "parents' rights" are carried to the point of children becoming mere property in the sense that a toaster or an old shirt are property. As you also suggest, religious zealotry (as I'd put it) is a big part of it -- and, I would add, of the whole problem of weighing children's autonomous interests against parental rights against society's interests -- which also keeps playing out in the cases of religious nut parents who deny their kids modern medical treatment.