Home-schooled students usually score at or above average on national standardized tests, and home-schooling parents are usually very proactive about their children’s education, according to Atheen Johnson, a member of the Minnesota Homeschoolers’ Alliance and mother of a 7-year-old home-schooled daughter and an older daughter who is in a public school.
A bill would recognize that level of engagement by reducing certain reporting and testing mandates.
Some provisions of HF1037, sponsored by Rep. Marsha Swails (DFL-Woodbury), would benefit home-school parents by decreasing their paperwork and school superintendents by decreasing the number of reports that now funnel through their offices.
The state could benefit from a provision that would exclude home schools from nonpublic school services, such as the loan of textbooks and availability of counseling and health services. While nursing and counseling services are rarely needed by home-school students, textbooks are typically purchased by school districts then loaned to nonpublic schools including home schools. The bill would specify the services apply to nonpublic schools with enrollment of more than 15 pupils.
That proposal is “huge sacrifice for our families,” said John Tuma, legislative liaison for the Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators. However, he said it would chop $1.1 million off the state’s education bill, although the credit cost might be felt elsewhere in the system. Home-school families could claim an income tax credit for those expenses under Minnesota’s education tax credit law, which Tuma said is widely admired in other states.
The bill was approved March 12 by the House K-12 Education Policy and Oversight Committee and sent to the House Finance Committee. Its companion, SF846, sponsored by Sen. Gen Olson (R-Minnetrista), awaits further action by the Senate E-12 Education Budget and Policy Division.
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