House Education Committee
Hearing for HB 2560
House Education Committee, June 13, 2002
I represent CHAP the Christian Homeschooling Association of Pennsylvania. CHAP has been serving homeschoolers in Pennsylvania for sixteen years. CHAP's all-volunteer board has the privilege of sponsoring one of the largest homeschool conventions in the world. Our printed and electronic newsletters go to thousands of homes. CHAP would like to thank the Education Committee for inviting us to participate today.
Many[1] have rated PA as the 49th most difficult state in which to homeschool. It gives me great pleasure to announce that there is hope on the horizon. New York, currently rated 50th, is in the process of changing its law. Thus, by doing nothing at all we can capture 50th place.
On a serious note, when CHAP began to talk about a new law, I studied the Scriptures to try to see what they said about education. In the Bible the primary teachers are to be the Parents[2] and the church leaders. God clearly placed the responsibility for educating children in the hands of their parents.
How did we get to where we are now? In 1987 homeschool regulation was done case by case, and school district by school district. Every school district had its own homeschooling policy. Ours required a teaching certificate to homeschool. This resulted in a situation where there was no uniform requirement for homeschoolers in the commonwealth. As a result of a suit brought by Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the law ruling it was unconstitutionally vague. The current law was passed in the aftermath of this ruling. At the time homeschoolers had no record of success and there were few other states with laws to use as an example. Many involved in this process were concerned that homeschoolers would not be responsible. Consequently, many requirements were included.
Our current law is complex. Many homeschoolers end up buying a guide in order to follow the Pennsylvania law. Individual school districts still interpret the statutes in a wide variety of ways, often in conflict with the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the clear wording of the law. It seems likely that if a suit were brought now the current law could be overturned on the grounds that it is too vague and there are too many interpretations. The current law has not solved the problem of vagueness.
What is the situation nation wide? Thirty-seven states have a homeschool law. Twenty-two of these thirty-seven have amended their laws, to make the legal environment friendlier to homeschoolers. No state has changed its law to be more restrictive. An example of a dramatic homeschool friendly change is Michigan, a state similar to Pennsylvania in many ways. For years homeschoolers jestingly called the state "The Peoples' Republic of Michigan" because it was so difficult to homeschool there. When Michigan did enact a law it was a very homeschool friendly law, requiring only notification of beginning a homeschool program. Michigan is now considered a great place to homeschool.
It is instructive to listen to home educators who have moved to Pennsylvania from other states. These parents are always astounded by Pennsylvania's extensive requirements. At our convention this year, a family from New Jersey told me that they had resisted moving to Pennsylvania because of our homeschool law. This is not an isolated episode.
Several years ago I had a vision for what would be a good homeschool law. I thought it should be short, easily read, and quickly understood by anyone who is literate. The law would be clear enough that parents wouldn't need to buy a book to understand it.
If we had such a bill CHAP would no longer receive calls from parents who are puzzled by the lack of clarity in the law. A mother I talked to one week ago today said, "My child will be eight in November, but she went to kindergarten in the public school; do I need to file an affidavit?" The current law actually says two contradictory things about this.
National studies have shown that the degree of regulation doesn't correlate with academic success in any way. Thus, home educators in PA have the burden of increased paperwork, without any advantage from it. In fact, time and energy for homeschooling is diminished by the regulations.
Although homeschoolers pay the same school taxes that anyone else does, we use very few resources from the school districts. Thus homeschoolers pay twice to provide an important service to the commonwealth. The average homeschool family spends about $500 per student per year for materials. From age 8 to age 17 each family also spends about $800 per student to meet Pennsylvania legal requirements.[3] For our family the extra time required is more troubling than the extra expense. Mary Ann Eagleson, my wife, estimates[4] that our family has spent 1300 hours, or 32 workweeks, or almost one academic year complying with the current law.
Not only does the regulatory burden fall on home educating families, it also falls on the public schools. The requirement for the local school districts to supervise homeschooled children is in effect an unfunded state mandate. This takes administrative and clerical help away from more important tasks. A reasonable cost estimate is 5 million dollars each year[5] to supervise homeschool students.
Homeschool success stories have become commonplace. It bears repeating that the last two winners of the geography bee have been homeschooled. 40% of the finalists this year were homeschooled, while only one to two per cent of students in America are homeschooled. Last year and the year before that the National Spelling Bee was won by home-educated students.
Pennsylvania Department of Ed statistics show a 99.5 per cent success rate for homeschoolers. This level of achievement exceeds most public and private schools.
Homeschoolers are succeeding in college acceptance, with most colleges admitting homeschoolers and many are actively recruiting them. Homeschoolers score well on college entrance exams. As noted by Daniel Golden in The Wall Street Journal[6] "Nonetheless, self-identified home-schoolers have bettered the national averages on the ACT for the past three years running, scoring an average 22.7 last year, compared with 21 for their more traditional peers, on a scale of one to 36." One homeschooled family I know has five daughters, two wanted to go to graduate school and both were successful. One is attending medical school at Hershey, the other attending Harvard Law School.
In summary, I urge you to move HB2560 out of committee to the House floor. Give homeschoolers the credit they have earned. Recognize the parent's God-given right and responsibility to educate their children.
Respectfully submitted,
Bruce Eagleson, M.D.
Vice Chairman of Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania
[1] Personal Communication with Mike Farris, Mike Smith, Dewitt Black, Chris Klicka, and Scott Summerville, all HSLDA attorneys. Further based on study of summaries of state laws at HSLDA web site (HSLDA.org). While this ranking is somewhat subjective there is no debate that Pennsylvania is in the bottom five.
[2] See Exodus 24:12, Deuteronomy 6:7-8, Deuteronomy 4: 9-10.
[3] These numbers are based on the following assumptions: $400 for evaluations ($40 per evaluation for ten years), $50 for notarizing the affidavits, and $150 ($50 each test) for testing in third, fifth and eighth grades. These numbers assume a student is homeschooled through graduation.
[4] This estimate is based on filing affidavits and portfolios 28 times in the course of educating our four children. Mary Ann estimates that each portfolio she has filed has had an average of 20 hours of labor from family members. It also took about 4.5 hours per child to prepare objectives, get the affidavit notarized, and take the documents to the school district. It also took about 20 hours per child per year to keep the contemporaneous logs. Evaluations took 2.0 hours per student per year. This totals 46.5 hours per student per year times 28 student years, which equals 1302 hours for our family.
[5] Quality Control of Home Schooling in Pennsylvania, Sep 99, by Steven A Melnick, estimates the cost to the districts at about $200 per homeschool student. $200 times 24,000 students is 4.8 million.
[6] Daniel Golden, WSJ, February 11, 2002, page one.