Pg 040: Testing for homeschoolers

 

In 1984, the Maine Commissioner of the Department of Education appointed me to a committee to rewrite the regulations that govern homeschooling in the state.

 

The 12 members of the group:  four homeschool advocates, four Superintendents of Schools; and four bureaucrats from the Department of Education.

 

These meetings were not always pleasant, and at one meeting it was suggested by the Superintendents that all homeschoolers should be tested each year with the same tests used for public schools.

 

We wrestled with this a bit, and I finally offered a solution.  I called their bluff and said that I would agree to all homeschoolers being tested each year on one condition -- that the test results of homeschoolers be listed in the newspaper right along with the public schools’ results.

 

The issue was dropped and never brought up again.