Homeschool Organizations
Graduate
from Howard Richman
In a new written policy that
is now in its next-to-final draft, the Ridge Administration has continued the Casey
Administration's recognition of diplomas awarded by homeschool
organizations. During the Casey
Administration, three homeschool organizations were recognized. Now the Ridge
Administration is poised to add several new organizations to the list (which is
published at the end of the support group listings in each issue of this
newsletter).
What This Policy Will Do:
·
It
will ditto the Casey Administration’s recognition of diplomas awarded by
homeschool organizations.
·
It
will result in the eventual addition of many new homeschool organizations,
including Mason Dixon Homeschoolers, to the list of those whose diplomas are
recognized.
·
It
will bind future administrations with a written policy that recognizes the
diplomas awarded by homeschool organizations.
How the Policy Was Written
Mary Hudzinski gets the credit for really getting things
going.. Her organization, Mason Dixon Homeschoolers, had decided to start a
diploma program and had submitted their standards and procedures to the
Department of Education (as required during the Casey Administration) but had
heard nothing in reply.. So Mary
contacted me and her Congressman, Rep. Pat Fleagle. I agreed to help as did her state representative
Rep. Fleagle arranged a quick meeting between us and
Secretary of Education Eugene Hickok when Sec. Hickok came to testify before
Fleagle's committee. There Sec. Hickok
told us that he would instruct Greg White (his policy director) to work something
out. Mary and I soon met with Greg
White and a succession of draft proposals went back and forth between us and
Greg White through the mail.. We involved Terry Johns of Buxmont Christian
Educational Institute. and Edi Thomas of Erie County Homeschoolers with
reviewing each of our responses before we mailed them.
One of the sticking points was a request by the
Department of Education that we require a school official's signature that the
home education program of a candidate for graduation was in compliance (and not
in due process procedures) with the PA Home Education law. The Department seemed insistent on this
point, so I decided to see how it would work in practice with our 1998
graduates. It didn't. I began to hear complaints directly from parents
and indirectly from parents through Karen Boyd, a member of our Board of
Directors. So I called and wrote Greg
White to tell him about the problems.
Specfically, in a July 6 letter to him I wrote:
The problem our parents faced when we tried to implement this provision this spring was with obtaining a school district signature on a written verification in time for graduation. While many had no trouble getting a school district official's signature, others were unable. For example, the Pittsburgh School District simply refused to sign the form saying that it is not in the law that they have to do so. Many of the school officials who normally would sign such forms were on vacation. The State College Area School District wouldn't sign the form until the portfolio had been reviewed, which would not occur until after our graduation ceremony. Moreover, when I did receive a signed form, I had no way of verifying the signature of the school official.
Next year, we would like to just have the
written verification signed by the supervisor of the home education program and
have it name the school district of residence of the home education
program. This revised verification form
would enable us to investigate, if we had reason to doubt, by simply calling
the school district.
Fortunately, Greg acceded to my request. The current copy of the draft only requires the signature of the
parent, not the signature of the school official, that the home education
program is in compliance with Pennsylvania law.
Highlights of the Policy
Historical Background
Pennsylvania's home education law, enacted in December
1988, specified requirements for high school graduation from a home education
program, but did not specify who should give the diplomas. Over the next two years the Department of Education issued a series of negative
answers about who should give the diplomas:
On October 2, 1990, Dr. Phillip Mulvihill, Chief of the Division of Advisory Services at the Pennsylvania Department of Education, turned down my request that the Department of Education issue the diplomas. He wrote, "It is not clear to me how the government could issue a credential for an educational program that was intentionally removed from government control." Instead, he recommended that the diplomas be issued by homeschoolers' organizations. He concluded:
It seems more appropriate to me to have the credential for home schoolers issued by a home schoolers organization. The monitoring and evaluation could then be done by individuals familiar with these programs and the quality control could be enforced by those individuals who have a vested interest in maintaining that quality.
Based upon Mulvihill's
letter, Pennsylvania Homeschoolers put together a diploma program, Pennsylvania
Homeschoolers Accreditation Agency (PHAA).
We set up standards for awarding high school credits, published a guide
to our diplomas, and enrolled evaluators and home education programs as
members. We graduated 5 home educated
seniors in 1991.
Over the next three years the Department of Education,
under the Casey Administration, recognized our diplomas, and those of two other
homschool organzations, in letters written to the Pennsylvania Higher Education
Assistance Agency (PHEAA) and Penn State University. Both PHEAA and Penn State then dropped their requests that our
graduates take the GED.
Our students and graduates have been excelling
academically as measured by test scores reported by the College Board and the
National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
Those who have attended college have been doing very well as measured by
first semester GPA's reported by their parents. Among those who have not attended college, some have already
begun expanding family businesses or founding their own businesses.
Colleges have been very receptive to homeschool
graduates. Fifteen different colleges
set up tables and made presentations at this year’s PHAA “High School at Home”
conference. At last year’s conference,
Ann Rohrbach, Assistant Director of the Undergraduate Admissions Office at Penn
State University, reported that all 33 homeschooled applicants were accepted in
1997.
In the meantime the continued recognition of
homeschoolers' diplomas in Pennsylvania continues to make Pennsylvania one of
the most vibrant states for high school education at home. Homeschoolers from
neighboring states come to Pennsylvania for our sports tournaments, on-line AP
courses, and high school at home conferences.
A Look at the Future
By fall, the Department will begin adding new homeschool
organizations to its list of those whose diplomas are recognized. As a result, the number of diploma
alternatives for homeschoolers in PA will expand.
The next hurdle will occur when one of our
graduates files an affidavit to teach his or her own children and the
Department of Education is asked to write a letter to a school district holding
that the home education diploma is valid.
In my opinion, this new policy assures that such a letter would be
forthcoming.˜