LEGAL/LEGISLATIVE UPDATES
ACROSS THE STATES

IDAHO

Homeschoolers under fire

Two years in a row, Idaho homeschoolers have weathered a media attack against homeschooling and calls for legislation to restrict homeschoolers. By responding to e-lerts, contacting their Education Committee members, and writing letters to the editors of local newspapers, homeschoolers prevented any harmful legislation from even being introduced.

This year's attack seemed to begin back in December, when the Lewiston Tribune ran a lengthy homeschooling article that mentioned the following incident:

Senator Gary Schroeder of Moscow remembers a couple of years ago when a young man who had recently enrolled at Lewis-Clark State College stopped by his Moscow office. He said, "Senator Schroeder, don't let other parents do to their kids what my parents did to me." The young man had been homeschooled most of his life and he realized when he got to college that he was not adequately prepared, recalls the Republican chairman of the Senate Education Committee. . . . Nearly every school superintendent in the region could relay a similar story.

On January 7, 2003, the same paper published an editorial entitled "How many uneducated Idaho kids--who knows?" Editorial author Jim Fisher alleged:

Some children who are supposedly being homeschooled are receiving inadequate or nonexistent schooling. Not only isn't Idaho doing anything about that, it doesn't even know who those children are.

On January 9, the Idaho Mountain Express reported that Representative Wendy Jaquet planned to "introduce bills to ensure testing and registration for children who are homeschooled."

After strategizing with Barry Peters of the Idaho Coalition of Home Educators (ICHE), Home School Legal Defense Association sent out an e-lert urging Idaho homeschoolers to oppose Representative Jaquet's bill, and the ICHE board formally advised Representative Jaquet of homeschoolers' opposition to increased requirements. In response, Jaquet told Peters she now has no plans to submit such bills this session, nor will she introduce any such bills without first discussing them with homeschool leaders. We salute all of the Idaho homeschoolers who called Representative Jaquet's office and we are thankful for her willingness to listen to our concerns.

For more information on this issue, watch for future e-lerts. Urge your friends to subscribe to the HSLDA E-lert Service (www.hslda.org) and ICHE's email service (www.iche-idaho.org).

Meanwhile, HSLDA and ICHE are drafting a bill to prevent state universities from discriminating against homeschoolers seeking college admission. Due to state policy, homeschoolers have been told they must obtain a GED to graduate from state universities. We believe the legislature is willing to remedy this situation and end the discrimination, and we are looking for a bill sponsor.

For more information on Idaho legislation and college issues, visit www.hslda.org.

— Christopher J. Klicka