Arguments Supporting and Opposing H.B. 2629

Arguments in favor of H.B. 2629:

• Parents have the right and responsibility to guide their children's education. This is affirmed by repeated U.S. Supreme Court decisions and Oregon state law.
• Home education is private education, not public education. Home education should not be under the authority of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The "No Child Left Behind Act" exempts both private and home education from its provisions.
• Oregon does not regulate private schools, but it currently regulates homeschools. This is a violation of the principle of equal application of the law.
• Home education works, with few home educated students scoring low on standardized tests and many scoring high. At all levels, home educated students significant out-perform the national norm. This shows that home education works even for students who are struggling.
• Regulation does not help home educators. Home educated students' test scores are the same in states with no substantive oversight of home education as in states with high control.
• Mandatory testing is a misguided attempt to identify low-scoring students, which are assumed to be in danger of educational neglect. The benefits of home education occur no matter what the starting achievement level of the student. Mandatory testing demonstrably hurts many home educated students when parents are forced to misdirect their teaching energies into meeting state requirements rather than concentrating on what is best for the individual student's long-term educational good.

• Objection: State oversight keeps students from "falling through the cracks."
  Answer: Standardized tests are not designed to identify educational neglect. 83% of reports of child abuse and neglect come from sources outside of the education system. These sources are still available to identify and report suspected abuse or neglect.
• Objection: 27% of Oregon home educated students are below average academically.
  Answer: 50% are supposed to be below average. Home educated students are doing twice as well as expected.
• Objection: Testing each student four times is not unreasonable.
  Answer: It is if the testing is not accomplishing anything and is actually harming home educated students. There is no systematic evidence that mandatory testing helps home educated students.
• Objection: Eliminating regulations on home educators will destroy compulsory attendance, because truants will just claim to be homeschoolers.
  Answer: States without substantive oversight of home education have shown a higher growth in public school enrollment rates than states with substantive oversight.
• Objection: Many high school dropouts claim to be homeschooling but are really truants.
  Answer: Over 17% of the class of 2003 dropped out; less than 1% claimed to be homeschooling. Truancy is a failure to comply with compulsory attendance laws; home education is not truancy.