The current debate over Common Core State Standards is a continuation of many efforts by the federal and state governments since the 1980s to reform public schools by establishing standards and requiring public schools to comply with them. Initiatives such as Goals 2000, America 2000, No Child Left Behind, and Race to the Top all included standards. The version known as “Common Core State Standards” was announced in June 2009, and is sponsored by the National Governors’ Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and supported by most of the educational establishment. It also has widespread support from both political parties. Standards are one of the major reasons for the federal and state educational databases (discussed in the previous WPA Newsletter #114, page 13).

Opposition to Common Core State Standards is coming from some conservative organizations, some liberals, and teachers in New York state and Washington state who are boycotting them by refusing to administer tests associated with the standards.

Homeschoolers are not directly affected by these standards. Private schools, including homeschools, are not currently required to comply and are not likely to be in the foreseeable future, especially since these kinds of initiatives are ineffective, have not worked in the past, and are now being opposed by teachers.

WPA has opposed state and federal education standards for more than 20 years and continues to do so. Among the problems with standards are the facts that they take power away from families and local schools and give it to the government, emphasize one-size-fits-all education that does not work for many if not most children, and rely heavily on standardized testing that is unfair and inaccurate and interferes with learning.

Summary: Federal and state databases are gathering increasing amounts of personal data on public school students and undermine privacy. From the beginning, they have been supported by both Republicans and Democrats. Homeschoolers and other private school students are not supposed to be included, but parents need to take responsibility for understanding the issues involved, not being misled by inaccurate statements about the databases, and ensuring that their children are not included.

The extent to which we maintain our parental rights and responsibilities depends on how we think, act, and react, especially when dealing with the public officials, including school officials.
The question of whether our child is officially enrolled in a public or conventional private school provides a good example of how we can think, act, and react. To maintain our rights, we can and should understand and make clear to others that "officially enrolled" means we have formally registered our child for the coming school year and/or sent our child to school when it opens in the fall.

School districts increasingly seem to want to claim that a child is enrolled until the child is formally withdrawn which sometimes requires a parent or guardian signing an official withdrawal form. But such practices assume that the school rather than the parent has control over a child during the summer and, more importantly, that the public school is where the child should be during public school hours unless the child is formally withdrawn. The compulsory attendance law states that a parent or guardian shall cause a child to attend a school. It is up to the parent or guardian to decide which school and to ensure that the child attends. The legal requirements and penalties have to do with whether a child is attending a school, not whether a child has been formally withdrawn from a school. Homeschoolers sometimes begin homeschooling in the middle of the school year. Filing the PI-1206 form is all that is necessary for this to happen. This acknowledges that the parent is responsible for their child in accordance with the statutes and does not require that parents sign a withdrawal form.
Please inform WPA if your local school officials claim your child is officially enrolled simply because they attended a public school last year or if they insist that you sign an official withdrawal form before beginning homeschooling.   v

WPA Members and Other Homeschoolers:

Please share this information with other homeschoolers.

This email is a followup to two previous emails sent on 9/1/2011 and 9/9/2011; see below.

Summary (details below):
• WPA and HSLDA did not talk today because HSLDA refused to agree to have the conversation recorded.
• The information asked for on the online form PI-1206 is exactly the same as was on the former paper form from 1984 through 2009-2010.
• WPA continues to recommend that homeschoolers file their PI-1206 forms online to prevent court cases and legislation that would further regulate homeschooling.
• Thank you for your emails to WPA and your comments on Facebook.

WPA Members and Other Homeschoolers,

Please share this information with others. People need to know that following the Home School Legal Defense Association’s (HSLDA’s) counsel is dangerous to individuals and to all homeschoolers. You may understand the importance of filing the form correctly and maintaining our good homeschooling law, but not all homeschoolers do. Tell them and support WPA.

Despite the fact that the homeschooling form PI-1206 has worked well for 27 years, HSLDA is counseling Wisconsin homeschoolers to change their filing in ways that would undoubtedly result in individual families being charged with truancy and in court cases and/or legislation that could lead to greater regulation of homeschooling in Wisconsin.

From: WPA <wpa@homeschooling-wpa.org>

Subject: Form PI-1206: Don't follow national organization's bad advice
To: "WPA" <wpa@homeschooling-wpa.org>
Date: Thursday, September 1, 2011, 12:12 PM

Although the DPI plans to post the 2011-2012 PI-1206 form for homeschoolers on its Web site this coming Monday, August 15, please remember not to file your form until sometime between the third Friday in September (Sept. 16) and Oct. 15 UNLESS your children have been officially enrolled in a public school or a conventional private school for the 2011-2012 school year. If they have been officially enrolled, Wisconsin statutes require that you file the form before you begin homeschooling.

For more information, go to the WPA Web site at http://homeschooling-wpa.org and click on the yellow box that says "Filing the Electronic Form PI-1206."

Please share this information with other homeschoolers you know.

Please share this information with your support group and other homeschoolers you know.

Key Points

• The Wisconsin school census statute requires local public school districts to report each year to the DPI the number of public and private school students, including homeschoolers, in their district. (See Wisconsin statute 120.18 Annual School District Report at http://nxt.legis.state.wi.us/nxt/gateway.dll?f=templates&fn=default.htm&d=stats&jd=120.18)

• Homeschoolers refusing to provide information for the report could trigger legislation that would require more information from homeschoolers. Also, responding in the way WPA suggests below is easy and does not give the state any more information than it already has.

• We are writing this now because a national homeschool organization has misinformed homeschoolers about the school census law and advised Wisconsin homeschoolers that they can refuse to provide information for the census.

Understanding homeschooling laws in other states helps us understand why Wisconsin's good homeschooling law is so important and worth working hard to maintain. For example, Minnesota's homeschooling law requires the following:

• Homeschoolers are required to take norm-referenced standardized achievement tests every year. The local school superintendent must agree to the test the parents select.

• Every year all homeschoolers are required to submit a report to the local school district where their child resides. Parents must also submit quarterly reports unless they have a bachelor's degree, or a valid Minnesota teaching license in the field and for the grade level taught, or are being directly supervised by a person holding a valid Minnesota teaching license.

• Because the local superintendent or someone they designate may visit a homeschooling family once a year (or more frequently if there is any evidence that a family is not complying with the law), families need to have available documentation showing that they are complying with the compulsory school attendance law, including "class schedules, copies of materials used for instruction, and descriptions of methods used to assess student achievement."

These requirements are further complicated by the fact that the statutes are subject to interpretation by school districts and homeschoolers. This gives local school officials additional power. As a result, there is some variation in how the statutes are enforced in different parts of the state; requirements are more strict in some districts than in others. This makes interactions with public school officials both more personal and more complex than they are in Wisconsin where we are only required to submit one form, without children's names or birth dates or, for those who choose the "Ungraded" option, grade level. This information is sent to the DPI, so we do not have to be in direct contact with any local school officials, even though they receive a copy of our form from the DPI.

One of the major disadvantages to Minnesota's law (in addition to the required reports and tests) is that the law divides homeschoolers into several groups. Parents who have a bachelor's degree or a valid Minnesota teaching license in the field and for the grade level taught, or are being directly supervised by a person holding a valid Minnesota teaching license face different requirements that those who don't. This disrupts the unity among homeschoolers that is so important to developing and maintaining our strength within a state. (See page 5 of this newsletter.) Unity is weakened even more by the requirement that homeschoolers report to local school districts. Homeschoolers living in a state that has a law that divides them are less likely to see themselves as a united group working together to protect the right of every family to homeschool according to their principles and beliefs.

By contrast, homeschoolers in Wisconsin are not divided by provisions of the Wisconsin homeschooling law. This advantage is not the result of luck or an accident. During the meeting at which WPA was founded on January 6, 1984, homeschoolers carefully, forcefully, and deliberately decided that they would not accept provisions that applied to or were acceptable to some homeschoolers but not to all. As a result of this wise and courageous decision, homeschoolers in Wisconsin have been able to stand united and work together for homeschooling freedoms. This has meant, and continues to mean, that we are in a much stronger position because of our unity.

Who Decides chart #108.pdf