January 14, 2009
Centralia Sentinel Refuses to Print HSLDA Rebuttal
The Centralia Sentinel recently published an article attributing to public school superintendent Keri Garrett the statement that she “would like to see more monitoring of homeschooled students.” Alert HSLDA member Jason Branch brought this article to our attention.
HSLDA Senior Counsel Scott Woodruff responded and faxed the following letter to Sentinel editor LuAnn Droege:
“Dear LuAnn,
Your recent article, ‘Fewer students registered as taught at home,’ said that school superintendent Keri Garrett ‘would like to see more monitoring of homeschooled students.’
Presumably Garrett envisions that homeschooled students would be monitored by public school teachers. According to large-scale scientific studies, students being monitored by public school teachers (i.e., public school students) score at the 50th percentile, on average, on standardized tests. But homeschooled students score at the 83rd percentile. The remarkable scores of homeschooled students would need to come down 33 percentile points to equal the scores of students already being monitored by public school teachers.
There is no justification for having public school teachers monitor homeschooled students.”
The Sentinel subsequently refused to print Woodruff’s letter.
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