For years, most of the legislation HSLDA battled was anti-homeschooling in nature. On today's Home School Heartbeat, Mike Smith talks about how that trend is changing.
Mike Smith:
As I mentioned yesterday, the history of homeschoolers' involvement in the legislative process is dominated by our defense against negative legislation. At HSLDA, we hope this trend is going to change. More and more, HSLDA is working with homeschoolers in all 50 states to pro-actively advocate positive changes to homeschool laws.
Most of the homeschooling laws families now follow were passed in the 1980s and early 90s. Since that time, homeschoolers have, by and large, been fighting attempts to make the laws more restrictive. This, however, is changing.
Last year, homeschoolers in New York and Pennsylvania went on the offensive. Both states impose some of the country's most restrictive requirements on homeschoolers.
Legislative strategists in both Pennsylvania and New York anticipated that it would take time to pass a new homeschool law. Therefore, neither state was surprised when their bills did not pass last year. But the work they did during last year's legislative season has set the stage for more positive laws in the future. In addition, through their grassroots lobbying efforts, home educators made themselves known to legislators as constituents whose opinions are worthy of consideration.
Research demonstrates that there is no positive correlation between state regulation of homeschools and the performance of homeschool students. It's time for states to recognize this success and to amend the laws accordingly. And until next time, I'm Mike Smith.
