Approximately 800 Maine home schoolers packed hearing rooms in the State Office Building on Feb. 21 to protest a bill that would require all home school students to take the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA). No other state requires home schoolers to take a state assessment - a test marking a student's progress.
Parents would be forced to use the same curriculum as the public schools, when it is known that customized curriculum is the key to effective home schooling, they explained. "Our children are already adequately tested."
At the hearing Sen. Pete Mills, a Republican and a sponsor of LD 405, announced that he was withdrawing his support for his own bill; however, he then proposed a legislative study on home schooling in Maine.
According to Scott Woodruff, an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), "Home schoolers have demonstrated academic achievement at the highest levels. There is nothing to be gained academically by requiring home school students to take the MEA," Woodruff said. "Another study is clearly not needed. We have provided the committee with more than 150 citations of previous studies on home schooling."