House Education Committee
Hearing for HB 2560
June 13, 2002
[Chris Klicka's testimony. He did not read from a prepared text, but refers to his notes.]
Stairs: Our third presenter, a staff member from the Home School Legal Defense Association.
Klicka: Thank you kindly, my name is Chris Klicka, and I'm senior counsel at the Home School Legal Defense Association. I've been working there since 1985, and Pennsylvania's been one of my states that I've worked the *most* in, of any other state, with legal hassles and, and lots of, of problems with school officials applying the law in an improper way. I've handled well over six thousand five hundred conflicts over the years; our office handled over a *thousand* conflicts just in the state of Pennsylvania. I also was the attorney -- one of the attorneys involved in Jeffery v. O'Donnell, which was the federal case that ruled the *first* version of the law to be vague and unconstitutional which was replaced by the version of the law that we're faced with now.
The huge majority of families that are here today, and myself, are here for one reason and one reason only, and that is freedom. We -- [applause from the audience] The panelists before me, indicated that they were there to help the parents, and I appreciate their intent. But, our message to you is, we don't need their help. We believe that parents can be trusted, that parents have *proven* themselves, and have earned the right to have less restrictions on their freedoms, the very restrictions that get in the way of them educating their children, and waste much time and effort. HB2560 will eliminate these burdensome requirements that are imposed by the school districts on families, you know, through this law.
Over the past 14 years, as I said, we've been very active in Pennsylvania, it's been one of our worst states, the files are the largest in, in -- for the work that we've had to do in Pennsylvania just to protect innocent families from being able to teach their children at home, without, without all the hassle that they've been faced with. For example last year HSLDA assisted a mother who was being required by the Antietam School District to file a criminal history record before she could even teach her own children. William Penn School District disapproves all filings for home education programs after August 1st even though the statute permits a program to begin at any time during the school year. One of the worst policies comes out of Carbondale Area School District; they require all parents must meet with the superintendent and convince *him* that they are capable of teaching their children, and the school district says they reserve the right to have the child evaluated by psychologists; a public school official must be permitted to enter into each family's home, to monitor and access the instruction, and the home education program may be terminated by the district at any time for any reason. In Bethlehem Area School District a family submitted an affidavit, was attempting to withdraw their son from public school, but they were informed that the student would have to remain in public school until his home education was approved by *school* officials. The school district gave no indication of *when* that approval would, would take place. In Mechanicsburg Area School District a family filed a notified -- filed their affidavit prior to beginning home instruction; immediately upon receiving the affidavit the superintendent demanded the family submit a *portfolio* of the child's academic instruction in just 15 days. The law *has* no such requirement, unless there is a -- an appropriate education is not occurring, or you can do it at the end of the year; this family hadn't even started homeschooling yet, and they were already demanding a portfolio. School District of Philadelphia dictated to a family what grade level a child had to be taught in, which is not their prerogative.
I've attached a handout called "Examples of Arbitrary Enforcement of Current Pennsylvania Homeschool Law," and these are true stories, just to give you a sample, of the many, many problems we're faced with because of this law. And it documents problems in Punxsutawney, Littlestown, Fairview School District, Bangor, Wyalusing, Central York School District and many others. We just recently won a case for a single mom who was teaching her spec -- her special needs child with great success. And the reason we were in court, again reflects the arbitrary enforcement of this law, that I believe this law opens the door *for* these 501 school officials, in the, in the 501 school districts to abuse; and all she did was, according to the superintendent, omitted a paragraph in her, in her information that she submitted. And he asked her to submit an amended affidavit. He said he was going on vacation. She went ahead and filed it within a few days, and he came back from vacation, and said everything's in order. So the principal meanwhile, filed -- had charges filed against her, she ended up in criminal court, because of those five days in between her original one, where she had a missing paragraph, and her -- and when she filed her amended one. This, this is ridiculous. We had to got before the court, the court ended up ruling in *favor* of the school district, on this picayunish problem, and then when it went to trial de novo, at the next level, the prosecutor decided to drop the whole thing, because he, he realized, after much communication with him, that this was just a silly technicality.
Another point, I want to make sure that the *panel* understands, is that regulation and accountability to government does not make better homeschool students. Dr Brian Ray will be presenting some good information, from a nationwide perspective of how homeschoolers in states that are highly regulated, versus homeschoolers that are in states that aren't regulated *at all* equally do above average, on the average. And so more regulation as these panelists before me have indicated does *not,* in fact does not show that this at all makes better students. Here in -- with this new bill, HB2560, we get a breath of fresh air, because this protects parental rights, parental liberty. And as a constitutional law attorney, I understand and appreciate how important this is. We have a 14th Amendment, of our US Constitution, that guarantees liberty for all, this includes according to the US Supreme Court, the fundamental right of the parents to direct the education, upbringing of their children. This is backed up by Wisconsin versus Yoder, Pierce versus Society of Sisters, one case that kind of summarized the concerns I think that have been expressed by the panelists before me but yet understands we have to balance this with parental rights says that "some parents may at times be acting against the interests of their children" -- this is the US Supreme Court in the Parham case -- "some parents may at times be acting against the interests of their children. It creates a basis for caution, but it's hardly a reason to discard wholesale those pages of human experience that teach that parents generally *do* act in the child's best interests. The statist notion that the government power should supercede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is *repugnant* to the American tradition." And as early as -- as recent as the year 2000, the US Supreme Court ruled again in Troxel v. Granville, and said there's a legal presumption that parents act in the best interests of the children; this applies to all parents.
The fundamental right to direct the education of the children is *protected* in House Bill 2560. I don't believe it's very well protected in our current law. In light of a sampling of the abuses I've given you, and I could, you know, give you scores and scores of more abuses where parents' rights are being trampled, they're being ignored, the school officials are letting them know that *they're* in charge, the bureaucracy's in charge, and that *they* know what's best for the children. This is not the case. The *parents* know what's best, the US Supreme Court has understood that and I just applaud all the efforts to get this bill through because I think this bill will fit the historical foundations of Pennsylvania, its very beginning of protecting individual liberties. And there's two ways -- you can go the way of regulation or you can go the way of freedom. The present law goes the way of regulation. It takes away *everybody's* freedom so that, that they can -- they can get certain information. And maybe prevent someone from abusing the, their children in some way. But the framers have always stood for the other side, the way of freedom, and that is, you have laws that require kids to attend school, and get an education. And if they aren't fulfilling this, you gather evidence, and then you prosecute. And you're considered innocent 'til proven guilty; here, in Pennsylvania, basically guilty until you can prove yourself innocent, through all these -- many, many regulations and requirements.
So, I, I think it's so crucial that Pennsylvania get *in* step with the nationwide trend to *deregulate* home educators that we see all across the country. The only state that has, really, at the level of regulation as Pennsylvania, is the state of New York, and they're on the verge of changing their law; I've just -- I've been working up there, and with them, and homeschoolers are crying out for liberty there as well.
But the, I've given you a -- for the committee, a document called Home Schooling in the United States, and it might still be in the box over there, but this is a summary of the fifty state laws so you can see how Pennsylvania fits, or doesn't fit, in with the trend across the country. We've had just in the last few years, we've had Oregon, they dropped most of their requirements, including annual testing, the evidence introduced in support of the bill showed that homeschoolers were spending 250,000 dollars per year to purchase tests, and an average of only two children per year were falling below Oregon's cutoff score. Spending 125,000 dollars to find that one failing child is simply not acceptable, and they abandoned it. Arkansas abandoned it, Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, just in the last few years, they've all gone on the side of giving parents more control.
Okay. Yes, sir. [Responding to an inaudible comment/question from the committee, probably about time running short.]
And so, in conclusion, Pennsylvan -- and I've given you a lot of good information on how Pennsylvania has so many more requirements than most of the states across the country, yet homeschooling is thriving, homeschoolers are getting into Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, all the major universities, and they're coming from all fifty states, but Pennsylvania homeschoolers have no "edge," so the regulations here have not created better homeschool graduates.
The last part of my testimony I'm not going to go over, but simply for your review, I have -- the last three pages or so just deal with the *objections* to this bill; and I explain how these objections and concerns really are not valid. But I believe that this bill will protect parents' rights, maximize parents' rights, they'll stop the arbitrary enforcement and harassment that's taking place, that everybody in this room knows about, and I think that Pennsylvania has to join with the other states and move towards *trusting* the parents and deregulating this vital freedom. Thank you very much. [applause from the audience]
Stairs: Thank you, Mr Klicka, and I know you had more information to share with us but you can get that to us, and I remind the audience again that, today there's going to be testimony presented that you like, and some you don't like, and I would appreciate listening intently, and quietly, please, if you would honor that request, thank you.