HE DID?
In the middle of an overview of school choice (in the broad sense), there’s something I never heard before:
Legislators may restrict and regulate nonpublic options to make those options less appealing and more difficult. Former President Clinton argued against all evidence to the contrary, that home schooling might be considered parental neglect. For that reason, as well as to ensure that children are really learning, he said there should be state and federal regulation of home schooling.
Now, I didn’t get into this game till ’96 or thereabouts, so maybe this happened in Clinton’s first term and never registered in my mind. Or was it later but not widely discussed because it was pre-blog?
7 Responses to “HE DID?”
 Comment by maryalice February 24th, 2005 at 8:15 pm |
I don’t know about the parental neglect statement, but I do remember when Clinton wanted homeschoolers “organized” (bring us under bureaucratic control) and test us (national testing). Clinton had comments about homeschooling in 2000. Clinton wants to ‘organize’ home schoolers Concluding his two-day “school reform tour,” President Clinton yesterday said home-schooled children should “have to prove that they’re learning on a regular basis” — or be forced to go to school. “I think that states should explicitly acknowledge the option of home schooling, because it’s going to be done anyway,” Clinton said. “It is done in every state of the country and therefore the best thing to do is to get the home schoolers organized,” he said. Clinton said while he would not choose it for his own child, home schooling can work well when students and parents are made to answer for the students’ learning. “We should say, ‘Look, there’s a good way to do this and a not-so-good way to do this,”‘ and require that home-schooled students meet academic benchmarks, he said. “But if you’re going to do this,” he added, “your children have to prove that they’re learning on a regular basis, and if they don’t prove that they’re learning then they have to go into a school — either into a parochial or private school or a public school.” |
|
Comment by Anonymous February 24th, 2005 at 9:02 pm |
I don’t recall this or media coverage, but perhaps that is because I had my only K-12 kid in a private school at the time. Apparently the remarks were made as part of a webchat hosted by Channel 1, which as I recall was broadcast into schoolrooms. This site offers a transcript of the remarks: homeed...e7.htm |
|
Comment by Tim Haas February 24th, 2005 at 9:16 pm |
Maryalice, thanks — now that you’ve jogged my memory, I do remember the “organize” bit. |
 Comment by Gene February 25th, 2005 at 1:29 am |
Another important event that didn’t even make the news paper was the US Dept of Education Hearings in March 1984. Over 1,300 pages of testimony from parents, teachers and interested citizens of their eye-witness accounts of psychological abuse of children in public schools. Statistically speaking, these 1,300 pages don’t even begin to represent the abuses that occur to helpless children in the name of “education”. I have witnessed and endured plenty of abuse while at school, first hand, and everyone I know has a few, if not many, horror stories from school. It is sad that they were able to keep this quiet. |
 Comment by Richard Rybarczyk February 25th, 2005 at 8:24 am |
Yes, all well and good, but what is the remedy when a child is not making adequate progress when enrolled in public school? |
|
Comment by Eric Holcombe February 25th, 2005 at 8:51 am |
Oh Richard, More funding of course… |
|
Comment by Gene February 25th, 2005 at 12:43 pm |
Good question Richard. Does an oversite group even exist? |