Home schools: Nobody's watching
 Parents like 'freedom'; critics want stronger oversight
 
By Pat Kossan
The Arizona Republic
Angela Jimenez/The Arizona Republic
Glenda Lovera does reading exercises with her son, Richie

Glenda Lovera does reading exercises with her son, Richie, 6, at their Phoenix home. Glenda home-schools her three children and isn't worried about her kids passing college entrance exams. She doesn't expect them to go.
 
Angela Jimenez/The Arizona Republic
Timothy Zowada, 7, reads in the living room of his family's Mesa home.

Timothy Zowada, 7, reads in the living room of his family's Mesa home. He and his two brothers are home-schooled by their mother, Patti. She said she wouldn't mind if Arizona tested parents for basic skills or required children to be tested yearly.

Arizona lawmakers have spent years demanding testing and accountability in the public schools.

But at the same time, and with much less fanfare, they've been killing laws requiring the same for kids taught at home.

The result: Arizona has no way to gauge the quality of home-schooling. Supporters, many backed by conservative religious organizations, call that freedom; critics call it irresponsibility.

Today, any parent who fills out a notarized one-page form is free to pull kids out of school and teach them at home. It's unlikely that anyone will notice what or whether these children are learning.

But many home-schoolers say that's exactly as it should be: Because it costs no tax money, it's no one's business. "The best laws are the ones that give parents the maximum freedom to choose the best education for their child," said attorney Darren Jones of the national Home School Legal Defense Association. Jones names Arizona one of the 10 least-restrictive states for home-schoolers.

But what Jones calls independence a critic calls "lax to the point of irresponsibility."

"That's just crazy," said Margaret Mangini, an Arizona State University research director. "We're suppose to be caring for the children of this state, and there's no accountability."

Many states require annual testing of home-schooled students, or test parents for basic skills. Some prescribe curriculum or link home-schoolers to public or private schools for guidance.

Since 1995, Arizona has required nothing beyond registration, while the number of Valley kids taught at home has nearly doubled. Advocates say there are about 1.2 million to 2 million home-schooled kids in the country, a number that rises about 20 percent each year.

Many parents choose home-schooling to provide daily religious instruction, they say, but others simply seek higher standards. Some fear drugs, violence and bullying. Some have children who are failing or misbehaving, or whom counselors have suggested putting on medication.

Lawmakers debate

State Sen. Mary Hartley, a West Valley Democrat, has tried unsuccessfully to tighten Arizona's law.

"It's pretty lame, isn't it?" Hartley asked, calling the state's lack of oversight "very hypocritical."

It's supported by the same legislators demanding more and more testing in public schools, Hartley said. But for home-schoolers, "there's nothing."

The main problem, she and other critics say, is that Arizona's hands-off approach provides cover for those parents who want older kids home to baby-sit, or work, or who just don't care.

Some parents facing a truancy citation, for example, simply register their children for home-schooling, blocking further legal action.

Critics also complain that weak laws allow parents to pull their kids in and out of school on a whim and cost public districts time and money to help some of these kids catch up to their peers.

"Then they reach adulthood," Hartley said of the underperforming kids, "and who knows what their prospects are for being a contributing member to society?"

However, other lawmakers say the vast majority of home-schooled children are doing well and are not cheated by incompetent or uncaring parents.

"I don't have any reason to believe that's happening, although we don't have a formal system to check on that," said Senate Education Chairman Ken Bennett, a Prescott Republican.

"I suspect there's a small percentage (of parents) doing it for the wrong reasons or (who are) in over their heads."

That percentage, Bennett added, is probably the same as the percentage of kids falling through the cracks in public schools.

Arizona parents must meet no special qualifications to teach their children. Until 1993, parents had to pass a test at an eighth-grade level. Lawmakers erased that rule and ended annual state testing of children.

This was replaced by a requirement that home-schooled children be tested every three years. By 1995, that law was gone, too.

It was replaced with one that exempts home-schooled kids from ever being tested, including by the Stanford 9 or the new AIMS test.

It is even difficult to know how many children are being taught at home. Advocates report that 16,534 home-schoolers were registered in Arizona in 1999. This year, 6,300 Maricopa County children ages 6 through 16 were registered.

But such numbers are of limited use. Maricopa County Schools Superintendent Sandra Dowling said she is not "so naive" as to imagine all are registered as the law requires.

"I'm not a police agency," Dowling said. "We've made a concerted effort to be user-friendly. They're not afraid to register, ask for help and work with us."

Ann Beadleston, who handles registration for Dowling, said her office stopped counting kids over age 16 last year. She estimates there are an additional 1,000 children who should be registered but aren't.

"They're out there," Beadleston said. "A lot of people are not aware they are required to register, while others don't care. Some people object to government interference of any kind."

Families differ

Most state and national home-school organizations are part of the "hugely political," far-right Christian movement, said Kariane Welner, a UCLA researcher.

Tom Lewis of Arizona Families for Home Schooling said there are few home-schooling support groups in the Valley that aren't Christian. Some even require members to sign a "statement of faith."

Lewis' organization doesn't, he said. But board members must have "a like mind-set and have a Christian viewpoint." Even the national Home School Legal Defense Association calls itself a "Christian organization."

"I think those kinds of things are just miserable," said Ahwatukee mom Mariana Leberknight, who dropped out of a home-school support group because she said members were more concerned with preaching than education.

Home-schooling began in the liberal political camps of the 1960s. By the mid 1970s, the Christian conservative movement took home-schoolers under its wing and defended parents from truancy and neglect charges as they lobbied for less-restrictive home-school laws.

But Welner said research shows that most home-schooling parents are neither anti-public school nor anti-government. And that's a point some Arizona home-school parents are eager to make.

Patti Zowada just wanted to spend more time with her kids.

Three years ago, Zowada decided to teach her three boys in their Mesa home. She is not unhappy with her local schools and expects the boys to return to public high school and go to college.

Arizona's lack of oversight surprised Zowada, who has a master's degree. She wouldn't mind if Arizona tested parents for basic skills or required children to be tested yearly.

"Everyone I know has their kids tested voluntarily. Some go beyond that," added Zowada, who said her children are staying a ahead of their peers. "I don't think most people would be concerned with legal annual testing."

But that's not so for five-year home-schooler Glenda Lovera, who never expects to have her three children tested.

She doesn't have the $30 it costs, Lovera said, and she knows her children have skills that tests can't measure. She's not worried about her kids' passing college entrance exams. She doesn't expect them to go.

"My husband and I aren't college-educated," she said. "I don't know if that's why we don't push it on purpose. It just never enters our vocabulary."

Lovera doesn't want "home-schooling to equal anti-government, militant wackos." But she added that most parents she knows distrust government and are dead set against stronger oversight. In fact, Lovera sees no reason for some government agencies, such as Child Protective Services, to exist.

"God gives you your parents," Lovera said. "If they're messing up big time, God will take care of it. You don't need the government."

Results unknown

So how are these parents turned teachers doing? It's a hard question for researchers to answer.

Advocates are quick to point to surveys indicating that home-schooled children routinely have higher achievement rates than public schoolkids. But research usually comes from college-bound kids, testing results or voluntary surveys.

"The question is: How are all of the home-schoolers doing?" said Mike Griffith of the Education Commission of the States, who calls it "a hole in our information."

Welner's research gives her no reason to believe home-schooled kids are doing any better or worse than kids in public schools.

Which leads Lewis to defend his organization's efforts to make Arizona one of the nation's least restrictive home-schooling states.

"Why would you want to start monkeying with something that works," he asked, "and doesn't cost you a penny?"
 
azcentral.com
Originally published July 1, 2001
 
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