Drew Gamblin,  a Maryland public high school student, was homeschooled from 6th grade until he chose the high school experience of “debate team, music, drama and senior prom.”  He’s getting more than he bargained for trying to integrate his homeschool educational work into his public high school transcript.

Gifted Student Is Being Held Back By Graduation Rules
By Jay Mathews Monday, October 5, 2009

After a series of inexplicable decisions by Howard County school officials, such as requiring him to stay in a Howard High algebra class he had already mastered, his parents decided to home-school him and put him in college classes. But Drew insisted on his high school dream.

So he is back at Howard, although it’s not clear what grade he is in, and the school district is making it hard to enjoy what the school has to offer. He is being forced to take a world history course he already took at Howard Community College and a junior-year English course he took at home, as well as classes in other subjects he has studied.

ht to Why Homeschool

Related post:  Educational Rigor Prevails: Indian Prairie School District Homeschool Policy

A former homeschooler – now University of Illinois graduate student – wrote an insightful perspective.

Taking away the youth of students Daily Illini Colleen Lindsay

We have already started educating children earlier. Kindergarten went from being a fun-filled day to strict guidelines and drills. Now, we have introduced Pre-K. If you dare go into Kindergarten without having been to Pre-K you will be at a disadvantage and “behind” other students. When mothers start comparing about the knowledge and understanding of 3 and 4-year-olds then you know there are problems. Not that I don’t think that 4-year-olds are smart. I know one who is, arguably, the smartest little boy I know. But, it is not because he spends his days undergoing number and letter drills. What are we willing to sacrifice to improve our national image? We have already sacrificed our small children. And what has this gotten us? Well, the scores have not improved, but our children’s lifestyles have been compromised. Now, we want to take the happiness and fun away from school-age children and teens.

Quality education beats the quantity every day. Instead of having our students sit under the same learning environment for longer and expect them to improve, maybe we need to change that learning environment. Maybe the problem is not with the students. Perhaps it is in the curriculum, or the teachers, or the learning environment, or the class size.

She goes on with her own homeschooling experience that could be used as a successful model. More one on one, less of what John Gatto describes as social management, and decidely shorter ’school day’ hours for most of us homeschoolers.  That ’school day’ not negating the motto that we’re always learning, while our eyes are open.

Being raised in a homeschool learning environment, I can speak first-hand about the positives. I watched my peers and siblings achieve lofty goals. One such homeschool graduate graduated junior college at age 16 and is a college senior at age 18. This is not atypical of the homeschool community.

In comparison, the education hours expended per Japanese child was mentioned:

By increasing the amount of hours spent in school, something will have to be cut. Students in public school today have school to attend, homework to do, extracurricular activities to do at school, extracurricular activities outside of school, a job, and family/friend time. The first thing to go, if students are like me, is sleep. In order to do “everything” as normal, hours must be added to the day. Students will be more likely to fall asleep in classrooms, and what can they learn when they are sleeping? Should we instead cut the extracurricular activities? Let’s take all the fun out of being a child. Many Japanese students spend extra hours outside the classroom attending private tutor lessons. How long will students have to focus on school before we deem it too long?

Educator Appreciation Week runs through Oct. 7 at Oak Brook Borders, 1500 16th St. Borders will honor current and retired teachers, librarians, licensed homeschoolers, school administrators and daycare facilitators with 30 percent off the list price of nearly everything in stores, including books, music, movies, toys and games, gifts and stationery and Seattle’s Best Coffee cafe products. Educators will need to present proof of educator status, which can be a pay stub or an identification card with a current date. Homeschoolers must present their homeschool certification.

Any homeschooler can create a nice looking educator ID card.

The license and certification might be a bit of a problem per this Borders’ behest. Certainly not a bad problem.  Illinois homeschoolers don’t need, or have licenses/certification.

Surely other Borders stores aren’t requiring this?  The tone seems antagonistic, in singling out homeschoolers who “must present….”.

Word was passed along to the Illinois Homeschool Freedom Watch list that HSLDA lawyer, Chris Klicka, is in hospice care in Colorado.  Mr. Klicka represented the HSLDA members in Illinois.

More information from his wife and other loved ones is being passed along at the Caring Bridge site.  Sympathy and prayers are extended to the Chris Klicka family during this time.

In June of 2009, the Carlinville School Board unanimously passed this Resolution to send on to IL Association of School Boards (IASB).

“that the Illinois Association of School Boards shall recommend that all home school students be required to take the same assessment tests as those required for public school students”

The IASB procedure requires that 21 board members from the different IASB regions, plus the IASB Vice President, are part of the Resolutions Committee.  They determine whether local school board Resolutions are approved and passed on to the IASB General Assembly that meets in November. This Committee met in August.

The Resolution didn’t pass through the IASB Resolutions Committee.

9. Home School Student Assessment

Submitted by: Carlinville CUSD 1

Be it resolved that the Illinois Association of School Boards shall recommend that all home school students be required to take the same assessment tests as those required for public school students.

Rationale: Home school students that decide to enter public schools would be better prepared for their age-appropriate grade in all subjects. It would allow the home school parent(s) to identify and remediate areas that are in need.

Resolutions Committee RECOMMENDS “DO NOT ADOPT”

Resolutions Committee Rationale: The Committee noted that, in Illinois, home-schooled students are treated the same as students enrolled in a private or parochial school, by law. The State allows a school district to require students transferring in from home schooling or a parochial school to take a subject matter proficiency test similar to any assessment the State requires. It was the consensus of the Committee that the current IASB position statement (6.11) on Home Schooling is sufficient as it requires students to demonstrate their education level upon entering the public school system. It may not be the best use of Association resources to attempt to change laws to require students in other school systems (private, parochial, home schools) to take an examination merely based upon the regularly scheduled state assessment calendar.

This is one of the IASB positions:

6.11 HOME SCHOOLING POLICY

The Illinois Association of School Boards shall support legislation to enact appropriate laws and policies to demonstrate that the education received by home-taught students is of sufficient quality to ensure appropriate transfer to schools that have current certification and recognition status from the Illinois State Board of Education. (Adopted 1996; Amended 1998; Reaffirmed
2000)

The IASB Resolutions Committee did the right thing.  The Naperville school district situation comes to mind.  Their school board approved individual assessments for homeschoolers going into the ps, rather than an outside accreditation agency affirming their educational status. I thought the homeschoolers there made a great argument.

One has to wonder why the Carlinville School Board chose to push a Resolution such as this; that affects homeschoolers.

The Carlinville School District is in Regional Office of Education 40. The ROE 40 site has a specific “Home Schooling” category that is “Coming soon, please check back!”  Homeschoolers understand that accurate information comes from experienced homeschoolers.  (As noted in this post, many public school administrators seem to have a different agenda that ultimately protects public schools.)  One has to wonder why ROEs and the Carlinville school (and others) are so obsessed with homeschoolers, when homeschoolers are exempt from public school compulsory school attendance?  Don’t they have something better to do in their school districts?

Senator Deanna Demuzio represents Carlinville and serves on the Education Committee.  The other State Representative Betsy Hannig (98th District), succeeded her husband after his Secretary of Transportation appointment earlier this year.

This homeschool policy (705.02: Part-Time Attendance by Private or Home-School Students) was approved unanimously by the Indian Prairie School District 204 on June 22, 2009.

From the Beacon Herald:

D204 compromises on home-school policy

June 25, 2009 By TIM WALDORF

The first draft of this policy, presented at the May 25 board meeting, upset some home school families, who argued it would effectively prevent home school students from ever graduating from the district because their programs more often than not aren’t and can’t be accredited.
“The difference that you’re going to see in this new version versus the old is that in the old we indicated that we were not going to accept any credits from a no-accredited school toward graduation. So they would all have to be accredited or else we weren’t going to issue a diploma,” said Mike Popp, District 204’s school improvement and planning director.
“In this version, we’re saying, ‘You know what? That’s not appropriate.’ We’re going ahead and saying we are going to accept those credits, but we put in what you talked about last time: is there a way for us to sit down with an individual student and talk about those individual courses to go ahead and honor the credit that he or she earned?”

This policy below seems appropriate:

The policy will also require these students to complete two credits in a District 204 high school in each of two consecutive semesters prior to graduation. So, in their senior year, these home school students seeking District 204 diplomas — District 204 estimates there are roughly 15 of them a year — will have to attend a District 204 high school on nearly a full-time basis, and pass four senior-level classes in order to graduate.

Previously, these students only needed to amass two and a half credits for a District 204 high school over the course of their high school career to earn a District 204 diploma.

Home school families whose students don’t meet these criteria would, instead, have to issue their own diplomas.

That seems like a fair policy.  Oddly, the  National Center for Educational Statisics (NCES) criteria uses criteria that homeschoolers are any kids who are in the public school 25 hours or less/week.  5 hours a day in the public school classroom could deem one a homeschooler in the federal Department of Education definitions.

One other question is why homeschoolers would be entering the public high school just to get a public school diploma? That piece of paper might not be as useful as a homeschool diploma, or doing as many Illinois homeschoolers do,  and just entering ‘higher education’ with transcript in hand.

“The example, by way of analogy that’s in my head, is that it’s what a university would tell you,” said board member Mark Metzger. “You can’t accumulate credits at Eastern and Western and Southern, and then call up U of I and say, ‘I’m going to take a class there, and I want my diploma from you.’ It doesn’t work that way.”

If a public school diploma is sought, the student should be enrolled and that public school should be attended.

More here about the May meeting:
Educational Rigor

The Lee/Ogle Regional Office of Education notes in their 2008 Fiscal Report that 67 Lee/Ogle County homeschoolers are registered with their office.  The 2007 Lee/Ogle ROE reported  58 kids were registered in Lee/Ogle Counties.

We shouldn’t and don’t need to know that information.  Again this good advice bears repeating:

Illinois Homeschoolers –­ Eight Reasons Not to Register

By Harvey Bluedorn, New Boston, Illinois
1. Because there is no requirement to register in Illinois. Period. Administrators attempt to impose their will upon individuals through intimidation, harassment and coercion. They invent requirements which have no foundation in law. When our freedoms are infringed upon by government bureaucrats, they become emboldened to take the matter another step. Continued at Trivium Pursuit site

The Lee/Ogle ROE reports this information in their HEART Center (Homeless Education and At-Risk Team) Report under the heading of Funding for Lee/Ogle Programs for Struggling Students.

There is no good reason that the Lee/Ogle County Regional Office of Education authorities should consider homeschoolers as  “struggling students” who are “at-risk“.

Under the Lee/Ogle Dropout Intervention System (LODIS) in this report, it makes note of this:

Home-schooled student registration-67 students registered

Illinois homeschoolers do not have to report or register with the Illinois public school system.

Illinois Homeschoolers –­ Eight Reasons Not to Register

By Harvey Bluedorn, New Boston, Illinois
1. Because there is no requirement to register in Illinois. Period. Administrators attempt to impose their will upon individuals through intimidation, harassment and coercion. They invent requirements which have no foundation in law. When our freedoms are infringed upon by government bureaucrats, they become emboldened to take the matter another step. Continued at Trivium Pursuit site

Our only contact should be when a family is leaving the public school to transfer into a private school as a homeschooler.  Illinois homeschools are considered private schools via a 1950 Illinois Supreme Court ruling.

But yet, the Peoria County Regional Office of Education reports 20 homeschooled children in their 2008 Fiscal Report.

STUDENTS ENROLLED
Public    29,217
Non Public    4,553
Home School Students    20

Since Illinois homeschoolers are non-public students, it’s unfortunate that homeschoolers are separated out from private schools in this report.  Let alone homeschoolers filling out an invasive IL State Board of Education over-compliance demand.

This form is filed in ISBE’s Data Analysis & Progress Reporting Department.  The expectation being that family would file a registration form annually.  It’s an unnecessary form.

Further information is provided in the ROE’s 2008 Fiscal Report:

HOME SCHOOLS MONITORED

Families        17
Students        20
Phone Inquiries        35

Homeschools should not be monitored unless there is proof of educational neglect.  It appears that these Peoria County homeschools are monitored because the 17 families chose to fill out an Illinois State Board of Education Home School Registration Form.

Here’s the link to the ~3 1/2 minute video from yesterday about public virtual schools: Virtual Schooling

Homeschooling came up immediately.

We all know home schooling is growing like wild fire spreading like — in this country. Tell me about — how virtual schooling differs from traditional home school ….

The guest responded accurately:

It’s full time public school so that differentiates from home schooling … home schooling is …not state funded. There are no report cards traditionally. It [virtual schooling] is public school and you abide by the test scene and — the requirements of the brick and mortar schooling.

She also gave a representation of the public virtual school advantages:

It’s self paced. It’s working at .. how they learn best and also you can engage in so many wonderful enriching curriculums that may not be provided — by your public school. “

They have more time outside the classroom with their family.

Illinois had a public virtual high school.  It is now called the Illinois Virtual School for grades 5 through 12, and is run by the Peoria County Regional Office of Education. Here’s what they say on their website:

Schools

The Illinois Virtual School partners with public, private, and home schools to provide online learning for students and educators.

Chicago has one public virtual school.  Information about the school is located on the private K12 corporation’s site.

Here is a Chi-Town article about the Chicago Teachers Union lawsuit against this virtual public school. The lawsuit was dismissed last spring:

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Daniel A. Riley rejected both arguments. He wrote that although the school shares attributes of home schools, it is not a home-based school. Further, he said, because it is a charter school, it may define supervised instruction differently from state law.

“There are differences between the way we do education and traditional home schooling,” says Bruce Law, head of the Chicago Virtual Charter School. “On that difference — that’s where we were making our case.”

Marilyn Stewart, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, says the difference was not enough to merit public funding. Since students of the virtual school spend most of their time learning at home, she says, they are essentially home-schooled.

“For someone to take public funds to home-school their children is not right,” she says. “It should not be on the backs of a majority of our students who are in our public schools.”

Rocket launch in back yard

It was appealing to see homeschooling mentioned in a travel article.  Homeschoolers know the travel and time advantages visiting museums, parks and other learning opportunities.

From the Chicago Tribune’s Travel Section:
Taking the Kids — When Everyone Else is Back in School
Chicago Tribune

So what if you’re toting a stroller and diaper bag or home-school assignments, while everyone else is waiting for the school bus and arranging car pools.

The best part — besides the great deals everywhere — “There are no lines at anything,” whether you are heading to a theme park or a new museum exhibit, says San Diego mom and blogger Sugar Jones, who is homeschooling her 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son this year so that they can continue to travel, learning as they go at butterfly gardens, museums and mountaintops.  (Follow their adventures at www.SugarJones.TV.)

The Jones family enrolled in the California Virtual Academy.  Their family enjoys many of the freedoms of homeschooling, while also being accountable to the California school system.

The Chicago Virtual School also uses K12 curriculum.  The Chicago Teachers Union sued in order to close the public school. There’s more information here:

Who was representing homeschoolers?