Across the States
Testing Bill Defeated
After weeks of intense grassroots lobbying by energized homeschooling families, on March 19, 2008, the Special Initiatives Subcommittee of the Tennessee House Education Committee voted to kill a testing bill threatening home educators.
House Bill 2795 would have subjected nonpublic school students, including homeschooled students, to additional state testing. It would have required them to take subject-matter tests based upon state-approved textbooks. It would also have required them to pass the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) tests before receiving a high school diploma. These new testing requirements would also have applied to students being taught at home through extension or satellite programs of church-related schools.
In response to legislative alerts from the Tennessee Home Education Association (THEA) and Home School Legal Defense Association, families of homeschooled students placed an overwhelming number of phone calls and sent thousands of emails to key legislators voicing their opposition to the bill. At the hearing on the bill, the bill’s sponsor, Representative G. A. Hardaway, sought to amend the bill to delete the testing provisions and instead require the Tennessee Department of Education to annually assess nonpublic schools. But the subcommittee voted against permitting the proposed amendment and then voted to kill the bill. Because of homeschoolers’ vigilance and outspoken opposition to this bill, the freedom of parents to educate their own children is no longer threatened by this legislation.
Special thanks go to leaders in THEA for their untiring efforts on behalf of the homeschool community to defeat this dangerous legislation.
— by Dewitt T. Black
Memphis Official Resists Obeying Law
HSLDA assisted a member family in Memphis this spring when a public school official initially refused to comply with state law. Tennessee law clearly states that the teaching parent may be present when a homeschooled student in the 5th grade is being administered a standardized test at the public school. However, an elementary school principal in Memphis refused to permit a mother to be present while her daughter was being administered such a test.
When the mother contacted HSLDA for assistance, Senior Counsel Dewitt Black immediately faxed a letter to the principal and enclosed a copy of the statutory language giving the parent the right to be present during the testing. Not satisfied with this information, the principal contacted an employee of the evaluation and assessment division of the Tennessee Department of Education for further guidance. The department employee erroneously advised the principal that he could exclude the parent from being present during her daughter’s testing. After the anxious mother reported this development to HSLDA, Black placed a call to Christy Ballard, general counsel of the department of education, advising her that an employee of the department had given erroneous information to the public school principal about the parent’s right to be present during the testing. Ballard immediately contacted the misinformed employee who, in turn, contacted the school principal in Memphis and reversed the earlier advice. As a result, the HSLDA member was able to join her daughter in the testing session which had already begun.
All of this took place over the course of about two hours, showing that even the wheels of justice can move quickly at times. Our gratitude goes to the general counsel at the department of education for her courteous and prompt assistance in resolving this difficulty encountered by a homeschooling family.
— by Dewitt T. Black
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