My name is Laura
Askelson and I am a junior honors student at The University of Montevallo, with
a full tuition, board, and room scholarship (the MAPS program). I am a double
major in Political Science and History with double minors in Communication
Studies and Pre-Law studies, planning to attend law school when I graduate in spring
of 2015. I cannot over emphasize the importance of education in my life and I owe
my successful education to my mother. I was privately tutored by her from
kindergarten until I graduated with a 4.0 GPA in 2011. I regularly attended
courses offered by local church schools, even gaining several hours of AP
credit throughout high school. My mother has five years public school teaching
experience and has continually taught my siblings and me since 1994. She earned
her Bachelor of Science and Master’s degrees in Early Childhood Education from
the University of Montevallo. She later earned an Educational Specialist degree
from UAB and is currently an Alabama state certified Reading Specialist (N-12)
qualified to teach Early Childhood (P-3) and Elementary (1-6) Education. I list
her many qualifications because the Alabama State Department of Education
(ALSDE) is currently attempting to restrict teachers like her from privately
tutoring students and their own children. In fact, the ALSDE is trying to
institute several new measures to regulate home schooling by targeting church
schools, private schools, and private tutors with restrictions and fees. This
attempt at regulation will probably appear in the next session of the
legislature and I ask you to consider the consequences if these regulatory
measures pass. I would like to offer you some background on the current legal
environment of homeschooling and the specific goals of the ALSDE.
In the state of Alabama, parents
are given three alternatives to public education for their children. The first
option is to enroll their children in a private school. The second option is to
enroll in a church school, which is “operated as a ministry of a local church,
group of churches, denomination, and/or association of
churches on a nonprofit basis which do not receive any state or federal
funding” (Ala. Code §16-28-1[2]). Church schools are required to keep records
of those students’ attendance and sends public school withdrawal forms to the local
public school superintendent. Beyond these regulations, “according
to an Alabama Attorney General’s opinion dated January 3, 1997, ‘[o]ther than
the state laws requiring parents to report attendance and for church schools to
report if a student is no longer in attendance at such a church school, there
is no provision of Alabama law that permits or requires any state or local
authority to regulate a church school’” (Homeschooling in the United States,
HSLDA). The third option is for a publically certified Alabama teacher to privately
tutor students. They are required to report a record of attendance and subject
material directly to the county superintendent. They are required to tutor for
a minimum of three hours within the hours of 8 AM to 4 PM for any 140 days of
the year.
According to a report
compiled by Top Masters in Education, gathered from research collected from 18
reliable sources, 87% of public school students scored lower than their
homeschooled peers in academic achievement tests. Of the students sampled, only
49 % of publicly schooled students attended college, while 74% of home-schooled
students continued to higher education. In a Likert scale, ranging from 1 for
strong disagreement to 5 for strong agreement, 66% of formerly home-schooled
students strongly agreed that homeschooling gave them an advantage as an adult.
Homeschooling is not only good for students, it is good for our tax dollars.
Whereas, on average, the government spends $9,963 on the education of a single
child, a homeschool family spends, on average, $500 for an equivalent or better
education. For further information and an excellent info-graphic demonstrating
numerous statistics that highlight the positive qualities of home-schooling, I
encourage you to visit http://www.topmastersineducation.com/homeschooled/.*
At the beginning of
August 2013, State Superintendent Thomas Bice and the ALSDE attempted to bypass
the legislature by using an emergency provision to impress regulations upon
students who are not publically schooled. According to the PowerPoint (the
original minutes of the meeting are no longer available) of the meeting ALSDE
held July 25, 2013, the ALSDE intends to implement measures to require church
schools to purchase a $500 exemption of certification, which is detailed on
pages 5-11 of the slideshow. This exemption is required not only for private
schools and church schools, but also for private tutors. Private tutors would
be required to enroll in a church school and pay the exemption, despite the
fact that if a person is tutoring students, that person is legally required to
already be a publically certified school teacher in the state of Alabama,
thereby making the additional “exemption” unnecessary. Effectively, ALSDE’s
regulations would nullify private tutoring as an option in the state of
Alabama.
Without the
interference from multiple concerned homeschool groups, Governor Bentley’s
hesitance to back ALSDE’s actions, and support from the Home School Legal
Defense Association, the emergency implementation which would have bypassed
legislative action, was delayed. The ALSDE still plans to implement these
action steps as soon as they can, and their most likely course of action is to
turn to the legislature. I ask that you vote against any and all measures to
limit freedom of educational choice. If the legislature passes these
regulations, my two younger sisters will not enjoy the same benefits of the
education I received.
Thank you for your time,
Laura Beth Askelson
Works Cited
The
Code of Alabama 1975, Education. http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/acas/codeofalabama/1975/coatoc.htm.
Home
School Legal Defense Association. http://www.hslda.org/about/default.asp.
“Homeschooling
in the United States: A Legal Analysis, Alabama.” Home School Legal Defense
Association. 2012.
http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/Alabama.pdf.
http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/Alabama.pdf.
“Home
Schooled: How American Homeschoolers Measure Up.” Top Masters in Education. http://www.topmastersineducation.com/homeschooled/.
http://the36review.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/nps-july-meeting-powerpoint-7-25-13.pptx
*
