Thursday January 7, 2010
New Hampshire Poised for Landmark Homeschool Vote
Proposed law would make New Hampshire’s homeschool law the most restrictive and burdensome in the nation
CONCORD, New Hampshire, January 7, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New Hampshire House of Representatives is scheduled to consider next week an amendment to House Bill 368, which critics say would make New Hampshire’s homeschool law the most restrictive and burdensome in the nation.
“Members of the Democratic leadership are taking advantage of the system and attempting to slip through the most anti-homeschool legislation ever conceived in New Hampshire,” said Mike Donnelly, staff attorney for HSLDA.
Despite the fact that a bi-partisan legislative study committee recently voted 14–6 to retain New Hampshire’s existing homeschool law, the Democratic leadership kept the bill alive and placed it among 30 other bills which were scheduled for separate votes on Wednesday, January 6. However, the amendment slipped from the agenda, making it likely to be brought up again next week.
The proposed amendment to H.B. 368 would require that every homeschooled student be tested every year, as well as undergo a yearly portfolio review. Home educated students’ test scores would also have to be sent to the New Hampshire Department of Education each year, and the DOE would be granted sweeping rule-making authority.
“This legislation is completely unnecessary. The existing New Hampshire law works well, and in an era when homeschoolers are significantly outperforming their public school counterparts the last thing homeschoolers and taxpayers need is another bureaucracy wasting their time and money,” said Donnelly.
“We hope that enough legislators will see through the maneuver which is being used and vote to retain the existing homeschool law,” he added.
In a memorandum, HSLDA says it believes the law is “the most significant threat” to homeschoolers since 1990, and that the additional requirements that would be imposed are superfluous. The group pointed out that the most restrictive current U.S. state law, in Pennsylvania, calls for a standardized test and portfolio, but only requires them three times in a student’s career.
“These bills impose a needless burden on homeschoolers and shift authority to determine whether a child should be homeschooled from parents to others,” writes the group. “Parents have a fundamental right under the United States Constitution to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and legislation like Representative Day’s undermines this right by going against the presumption that parents act in the best interest of their children.”