There is a classic tale in which one man lends money to another. When the time comes to repay the loan, the debtor claims that no loan was ever made. They go to trial, and the lender says that the money was counted out on a large stone, which should be brought to court as a witness. The debtor says, ‘The stone will never be found, because I broke it into many pieces, which I dispersed to many places.’
Oops!
I was thinking about this tale the other day in Concord, where I gave testimony to the House Education Committee against HB1610, a bill whose title suggests that it is about accountability for recipients of Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) but whose text makes it clear that its primary aim is to extend state control over home educated children, even those without EFAs.
(The bill requires home-educated students to take the state assessments regardless of whether they have EFAs, while at the same time exempting students in public schools whose parents don’t want them to take the tests.
Which is why about 500 home-educating parents showed up to oppose it.)
As I read my statement, I said:
The bill appears to be a thinly-disguised attempt to subject home-educated students to the kind of micro- and mismanagement that prompted their parents to keep them out of schools in the first place.
This interpretation can’t be dismissed out of hand. My husband has personally witnessed members of an activist group (which includes one of the bill’s sponsors) formulating plans to collect copies of the birth certificates of all the children born in New Hampshire in order to keep tabs on children whose parents keep them ‘out of the system.’
I was trying to be decorous in leaving the sponsor unnamed, but before I could continue, my testimony was interrupted by Rep. Hope Damon, who happens to be my state rep. and one of the leaders of the activist group Stand Up for Croydon Students. She said that she knew what I was talking about and that she wasn’t there.
Oops!
And I just mention all this because in almost every case where home education is mentioned in a bill, it’s because representatives like this are trying to get away with things like this.
