Good Guys and Bad Guys?
BevK June 26th, 2007
Well, not exactly good guys and bad guys, but this article from the Boise Weekly definitely shows us those who favor homeschooling and those who think it needs to be tightly regulated to avoid educational neglect and abusive situations.
Idaho
Good Guy
Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter
“But ultimately, only the family and the individual citizen can be responsible for their own education.”
Otter described homeschooling as a fair extension of what President George Washington meant when he discussed, in his first inaugural address, the “sacred fire of liberty” that was “staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”“Think about that,” Otter said. “It doesn’t say, ‘entrusted to the hands of the public schools.’ It says, ‘entrusted to the hands of the American people.’”
Further, he said, “there can be no firmer foundation for your future than the education you have received at home.”
Parents should have ultimate control over their children’s educations. We are not property of the state.
Good Guy
Bob Forrey has been around for most of the struggle. He was there in 1984, when members of the Shippy family of New Plymouth went to jail in order to defend their right to teach their children at home. He was there when Idaho lawmakers came to him with complaints of kids getting mistreated in homeschooling situations. And for three years, it was his job to hunt down those cases for the state department of education. He was given this job by Anne Fox, a predecessor to Luna in the early 1990s.
“I followed up on every one of those individually,” Forrey said. “Not one of them was a legitimate complaint.”
People that lock their children in closets for years are not homeschoolers and they are not homeschooling. Don’t let them define themselves as homeschoolers. Homeschoolers educate their children because they have their children’s best interests at heart.
Bad Guy
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna
He wants families to choose charter schools over homeschooling and worries that homeschool students aren’t individually tracked.
Bad Guy
Sherri Wood of the Idaho Education Association
She makes the standard teacher’s union statement that parent’s can’t teach and kids aren’t socialized properly if they homeschool.
