KENTUCKY
Home Schooling Under Senate Scrutiny
Reports from Frankfort indicate some legislators are worried that home-schooled children are not getting an adequate education. These legislators have asked the Office of Education Accountability to take a closer look at home education.
After a meeting of the legislature's special Subcommittee on Education Accountability, Senator Nick Kavoglas (D-Bowling Green) said, "It seems like we should have some kind of handle on the kind of education home schoolers are getting." However, Senator David Karem (D-Louisville), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Education Accountability, said that investigating and interfering in home schooling would only generate needless controversy.
The Subcommittee was not specific about what kind of investigation or overview they wanted of home schoolers, but they did agree they would like statistics comparing Kentucky home schoolers with home schoolers in other states. Penny Sanders, Director of the Office of Education Accountability, told the legislature's special Subcommittee on Education Accountability that she will prepare a report on home schooling to try to address the concerns they have.
Woody Cheek, the Director of Pupil Personnel for Spencer County and a long-time enemy of home education in Kentucky, stated in an interview that parents with only a grade school education can teach their children at home in Kentucky. Mr. Cheek offered samples of questionable grammar allegedly submitted to him by home schoolers to support his position that Kentucky home schoolers should be heavily monitored and controlled. Cheek estimates that only 25% of the home schools in Kentucky give their children a good and adequate education, saying, "The rest of them, as far as I am concerned, are a joke."
Home School Legal Defense Association attorney Michael Smith received a call from the legislative aid to U.S. Senator McConnell, who said that several constituents had contacted the senator and expressed concern over the reports being made about home education. Several newspapers also called to get the home schoolers' side of the story. In response to these inquiries, Attorney Smith pointed out that in a recent compilation of test scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, the average Kentucky home schooler tested at the 82nd percentile on the basic battery of tests. The subject areas were reading, language arts, and math. This is not a bad showing in comparison to the average public school student, who tested at the 50th percentile on the basic battery.
HSLDA has never known of a situation in Kentucky where a family used home schooling as a cover for educational neglect, and the results clearly back us up. The information being provided to state legislators regarding home education in Kentucky is simply not accurate.
A more appropriate concern for the Education Accountability Subcommittee would be to determine how the success of home schooling might be used to improve the standard of education in public schools. Certainly, those responsible for seeing that children in public schools receive adequate education should attempt to solve their own problems before they attempt to impose more regulations on successful home schoolers. This is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse.
