AUGUSTA — About 500 home-schooling parents and children apparently convinced key state lawmakers Wednesday they don't need more state oversight.
The overwhelming turnout before the Legislature's Education and Cultural Affairs Committee spelled certain defeat for a bill that would require home-schooled students to take the Maine Educational Assessment test, the committee's House chairwoman said.
Maine state law requires that home-schoolers undergo an annual assessment, with the results filed both with the Department of Education and the local school superintendent.
Home-schoolers can choose one of five ways to have their academic progress assessed: Take a standardized achievement test; take a test developed by the local school; have their work reviewed and accepted by a certified Maine teacher; have their work reviewed and accepted by a committee of home-schoolers that includes at least one certified Maine educator; or have their work reviewed by a local advisory board chosen by the superintendent.
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The home-schoolers told the committee that home-schooling in Maine – which in the past 20 years has grown from six students to 4,100 – is working well with existing state regulations and producing high-achieving, successful students.
"Let us agree not to spend our effort fixing things that are not broken," said Lindsay Soule-Hinds, 20, of North Berwick, who was home-schooled from the early elementary grades through high school.
She said her home-schooling experience prepared her so well she graduated summa cum laude from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana last spring with a degree in math and computer information systems. She'll attend graduate school in the fall.
The home-schoolers came to protest a proposed bill calling for home-schooled students to take a standardized state test called the Maine Educational Assessment, which is aligned with state standards called the Learning Results.
Home-schoolers say the test is geared to a public school curriculum and not appropriate for home-schooled students, who follow a variety of individualized learning plans. The state already requires assessment of home-schoolers' progress in a variety of ways – such as a review of a child's work portfolio – that are much more suitable than the MEA, home-schoolers said.
They also protested a provision in the bill that would have given local school districts state funding for each home-schooler. Few home-schooled students use school services, so the home-schoolers said it would be a waste of the $2 million per year that the plan would cost the state.
So many home-schoolers showed up for the hearing that most could not fit in the room in the State Office Building where it was being held. The crowd, wearing tags that said "No on L.D. 405" and "Home Schooling Works!", spilled over into three other meeting rooms nearby, where the proceedings could be seen live on a television monitor.
Sen. Peter Mills, R-Skowhegan, had proposed the bill. But Rep. Shirley Richard, D-Madison, the House chairwoman of the education committee, said outside the hearing room it didn't have the support of the committee.
"I don't have any doubt that the MEA is out and the funding issue is out. They are both out," Richard said.
She said that the only thing the education committee is likely to consider at a work session on the bill set for 9 a.m. Tuesday is whether to recommend a state study on home-schooling.
That is exactly the alternative Mills suggested on Wednesday when he presented a softened version of his original proposal to the committee.
He said, "I still believe it's a good idea to have home-schoolers subject to the MEA" but added that "I'm not hung up on that specifically."
Mills, who favors more control over what is taught, said a study is necessary because some home-schooled children are "being left behind" even though most are getting a very good education.
Edwin "Buzz" Kastuck, who is the home-schooling consultant for the state Department of Education, said he sometimes gets complaints from relatives, school officials and the Department of Human Services that home-schooled children are not being taught adequately. He did not have specific numbers available Wednesday.
The Department of Education took a neutral position on the bill, but noted the fiscal impact it would have.
It would cost the state about $56,000 per year to give home-schoolers the MEA test in fourth, eighth and 11th grades, which is when public school students take it.
In almost three hours of testimony, only two people spoke in favor of Mills' bill. About 40 parents, students and other home-schooling advocates spoke against it. They also opposed a study.
"If Sen. Mills wants to study home-schooling, all he has to do is go to the library and start reading. It's been done before," said Scott Woodruff, an attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association in Washington, D.C. He was asked to speak at the hearing by a Homeschoolers of Maine, a home-schooling support group based in Hope.
Woodruff cited studies showing that home-schoolers in Maine and nationwide scored higher on national achievement tests than public school students.
Ed Green, president of Homeschoolers of Maine, said there are more than 100 home-schooling support groups in Maine. He challenged Mills to let members of those groups know about any students who aren't learning and said the groups would help them.
Woodruff said that Maine's 1984 home-schooling laws "are very strict as they are" and better than those in many other states.
Staff Writer Tess Nacelewicz can be contacted at 791-6367or at: tnacelewicz@pressherald.com