Proposed Legislation

Some homeschoolers consider Pennsylvania to have too many regulations about the way they can teach their children at home. I can see that compared to some states, we do have a few more hoops to jump through, but overall I feel the state allows us to homeschool in a way that works for us. Up until now, I had never given much thought to what the federal government had to say about my homeschooling. But now new legislation has been proposed that brings it to my attention.

HB 610 was introduced on January 23 by three congressmen. This bill called The Choices in Education Act, presents a plan to offer vouchers to families who choose to send their children to private schools or to offset the cost of homeschooling. The bill also slips in the repeal of some of the school nutrition standards that were established during President Obama's time in office. While the idea of someone handing me money to pay the costs of homeschooling seems like a lovely gift, I am not so sure this will work out to be beneficial to the homeschooling community.

From what I understand reading the bill, if I wanted to accept a voucher, the amount of the voucher would not be allowed to be for more than the amount it cost me to homeschool. I'm assuming this means I would have to record and prove how much it cost me to teach my children. And who would decide what was an appropriate thing to buy? In the past, I counted one of our vacations to the ocean to be part of our marine biology unit. Will I get reimbursed for that? Call me paranoid, but I don't want the government nitpicking my homeschooling plans to tell me if what I'm doing counts as education. More oversight is not a good thing when things are already working just fine the way they are.

There are other things to be concerned about in this bill. The bill wipes out past legislation with no replacement for essential things. I see nothing covering identification of learning disabilities or giftedness, yet this bill proposes to repeal the legislation that established that practice. I don't like big government, but I also don't believe in trashing the system with no way to take care of issues that exist.

I don't usually use this blog as a place to rant about my political beliefs but I thought this was important to share with those who homeschool or are considering it as an option. You can read the text of the bill here. I am not a member of HSDLA, but an article their leadership shared was where I first became aware of this proposed legislation. You can read that article here. If you feel the way I do, contact the authors of the bill and your own member of congress to express your concerns.

Cruising Along

Last week our ISP was down for five days. Although I love living where we do, I get really tired of the service issues we have with our Internet access. I'm glad that so much of our schooling is outsourced now so the boys were not too affected by the outage.

JT has been dealing with cancellations of his classes due to winter weather. His speech class has been called off at least three times since it started in mid-January. Because of that, he still hasn't given his first speech. Hopefully Tuesday he will finally have the opportunity. He is enjoying his WWII and Music Appreciation classes. WWII is his favorite. He's read most of the text book already. If only he could make real money with a history degree; that would be the perfect fit for his interests.

With our snowy weather this week I've been dreaming of our spring vacation to the beach. We have already booked a beach house for the week after JT's finals wrap up. In addition, we are looking at leaving two days early and making a stop in the Shenandoah National Park so JT and I can work on our plan to hike 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail after his graduation next May. We are looking at the portion of the trail that runs parallel to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah NP. On the trip this May, we can hike a short portion of the trail and get some idea of how things will work next year when it's just the two of us.

EM is starting to do some computer programming as well as getting back to working on his electronics projects.He also started a pottery wheel class this week. He doesn't like doing much art work, but he does love the pottery. I'm sure I'll be adding to my collection of cool bowls when class ends this year.

Today I am going to pick up a copy of the PA driver's manual for JT to start studying for his driving permit test. He turned 16 last month, but wasn't in much of a hurry to start driving. We figure if he gets it by summer he can get in a lot of practice during the drives to his classes in the fall semester. I'm not sure I'm ready for this next step in his life. I don't mind teaching science, history, literature, but driving? That's something out of my league. Dad will be taking on that job.