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Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Illinois families protest homeschool bill 'overreach' at Capitol, but legislation advances
A state bill protested by hundreds of homeschooling families at the Illinois state Capitol advanced out of committee on Wednesday and will head to the state House floor for a vote, likely sometime next week, Fox News has learned. House Bill 2827, known as the Homeschool Act, passed out of the Education Policy Committee by a vote of 8-4. If it passes a House floor vote, the bill will then go to the full House for a vote, followed by the Senate and then onto the desk of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Pritzker, a Democrat, has not publicly taken any position on the bill. Fox News reached out to his office multiple times asking if he supports the bill and if he plans to sign it if it reaches his desk but has not received a response so far. The bill would establish requirements for parents to meet to homeschool their children and if they do not comply, they could face up to a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail. Hundreds of homeschooling families gathered inside the state Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, earlier Wednesday, condemning the bill as an overreach by lawmakers. Will Estrada, senior counsel for the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, told Fox News that the bill's language was left "open-ended for unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats to be able to write different sections of regulations." "If this bill is passed into law, it's going to be expanded in future years to put even more restrictions on homeschool and private school families," Estrada said after testifying at Wednesday's hearing. "The record of homeschoolers shows that we do well academically, socially, emotionally and so why are we messing with them? That's the question. This bill is a solution in search of a problem." Read On The Fox News App Illinois Parents, Lawmakers Sound Alarm Over Proposed Homeschooling Bill: 'Direct Assault On Families' "We became homeschoolers in 2020 upon seeing all the government overreach, so the fact that they are now coming for us again with government overreach, I feel like it's an attack on parental rights," one homeschooling mother who showed up to the state Capitol protest, Michelle Langworthy, told Fox News. "There's a part of the bill that says the school will be the one that will get to determine where the child's records go that the parent no longer has that right." "That is a such a gross overreach of what the state should be allowed to do. And they also say that the student should be educated to serve the state. That's absurd," Langworthy said. "I don't align with the state. I don't want what the state prioritizes to be the priority of my family. We have a different value system. We are not ownership of the state." "We're fine. We're scoring high. We're doing great. We're involved in the community," she said, condemning sexual abuse and harassment allegations within the Chicago Public Schools system. "They have no right coming to our side of the lane." Another homeschooling parent, Luke Schurter, told Fox News at the state Capitol Wednesday that the bill is "taking a step back for homeschool freedom, not a step forward." Chicago Public Schools, Teachers Union Reaffirm Being A 'Sanctuary Space' Ahead Of Trump Administration "We want to choose what we teach our kids, how we raise our kids, how we instruct them, so we're concerned that this is cracking that door open and then the next thing is going to be more requirements on 'hey, we need to look and see, we need to dictate what the subjects you are teaching are, we need to dictate how much time you're spending,'" the father of three said. "This would circumvent those efforts and bring them back under the authority and the watchful eye of the public school system." The bill would require the State Board of Education to create a "Homeschool Declaration Form," which a homeschooling parent must submit to essentially register their child in the nearest public school. The children of parents who do not submit the form would be "considered truant, with penalties applying," according to a synopsis of the bill. A regional office of education or a school district could also request that homeschooling parents hand over an "education portfolio," or a set of their child's records, including writing samples, workbooks, worksheets or other logs of curricular materials. The portfolio would serve "as evidence that the homeschool administrator's homeschool program provides a course of instruction that is sufficient to satisfy the education requirements set forth in Sections 26-1 and Section 27-1 of the School Code that is at least commensurate with the standards prescribed for public schools," according to the bill text. Section 26-1 sets the compulsory school age at between 7 and 17 unless the child has already graduated from high school, while Section 27-1 is intended to ensure the areas of education taught in public schools do not discriminate on account of the sex of the student. Click To Get The Fox News App The bill would also require homeschooling parents of children who participate in public school activities on or off school grounds to "submit proof that the child has received all required immunizations and health examinations or a signed Certificate of Religious Exemption." Fox News' Patrick McGovern contributed to this article source: Illinois families protest homeschool bill 'overreach' at Capitol, but legislation advances
Fox News
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Illinois families protest homeschool bill 'overreach' at Capitol, but legislation advances
A state bill protested by hundreds of homeschooling families at the Illinois state Capitol advanced out of committee on Wednesday and will head to the state House floor for a vote, likely sometime next week, Fox News has learned. House Bill 2827, known as the Homeschool Act, passed out of the Education Policy Committee by a vote of 8-4. If it passes a House floor vote, the bill will then go to the full House for a vote, followed by the Senate and then onto the desk of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Pritzker, a Democrat, has not publicly taken any position on the bill. Fox News reached out to his office multiple times asking if he supports the bill and if he plans to sign it if it reaches his desk but has not received a response so far. The bill would establish requirements for parents to meet to homeschool their children and if they do not comply, they could face up to a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail. Hundreds of homeschooling families gathered inside the state Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, earlier Wednesday, condemning the bill as an overreach by lawmakers. Will Estrada, senior counsel for the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, told Fox News that the bill's language was left "open-ended for unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats to be able to write different sections of regulations." "If this bill is passed into law, it's going to be expanded in future years to put even more restrictions on homeschool and private school families," Estrada said after testifying at Wednesday's hearing. "The record of homeschoolers shows that we do well academically, socially, emotionally and so why are we messing with them? That's the question. This bill is a solution in search of a problem." "We became homeschoolers in 2020 upon seeing all the government overreach, so the fact that they are now coming for us again with government overreach, I feel like it's an attack on parental rights," one homeschooling mother who showed up to the state Capitol protest, Michelle Langworthy, told Fox News. "There's a part of the bill that says the school will be the one that will get to determine where the child's records go that the parent no longer has that right." "That is a such a gross overreach of what the state should be allowed to do. And they also say that the student should be educated to serve the state. That's absurd," Langworthy said. "I don't align with the state. I don't want what the state prioritizes to be the priority of my family. We have a different value system. We are not ownership of the state." "We're fine. We're scoring high. We're doing great. We're involved in the community," she said, condemning sexual abuse and harassment allegations within the Chicago Public Schools system. "They have no right coming to our side of the lane." Another homeschooling parent, Luke Schurter, told Fox News at the state Capitol Wednesday that the bill is "taking a step back for homeschool freedom, not a step forward." "We want to choose what we teach our kids, how we raise our kids, how we instruct them, so we're concerned that this is cracking that door open and then the next thing is going to be more requirements on 'hey, we need to look and see, we need to dictate what the subjects you are teaching are, we need to dictate how much time you're spending,'" the father of three said. "This would circumvent those efforts and bring them back under the authority and the watchful eye of the public school system." The bill would require the State Board of Education to create a "Homeschool Declaration Form," which a homeschooling parent must submit to essentially register their child in the nearest public school. The children of parents who do not submit the form would be "considered truant, with penalties applying," according to a synopsis of the bill. A regional office of education or a school district could also request that homeschooling parents hand over an "education portfolio," or a set of their child's records, including writing samples, workbooks, worksheets or other logs of curricular materials. The portfolio would serve "as evidence that the homeschool administrator's homeschool program provides a course of instruction that is sufficient to satisfy the education requirements set forth in Sections 26-1 and Section 27-1 of the School Code that is at least commensurate with the standards prescribed for public schools," according to the bill text. Section 26-1 sets the compulsory school age at between 7 and 17 unless the child has already graduated from high school, while Section 27-1 is intended to ensure the areas of education taught in public schools do not discriminate on account of the sex of the student. The bill would also require homeschooling parents of children who participate in public school activities on or off school grounds to "submit proof that the child has received all required immunizations and health examinations or a signed Certificate of Religious Exemption."
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
EDITORIAL: Send legislators back to school? Shouldn't be necessary
Mar. 1—Regular readers of the Post Bulletin's Opinions Page should have a pretty good notion of our views about teachers. We've long argued that they are overworked and underpaid, and that in the past 20 years the complexities of the job have grown in inverse proportion to the respect they receive. Simply put, teaching is an increasingly difficult, thankless job. Therefore, one might guess that we would support a recently introduced bill that would require Minnesota legislators who serve on the Education Policy Committee and the Education Finance Committee to get a firsthand look at what's happening in public schools. The bill calls for these legislators to spend at least 12 hours "shadowing" a K-12 teacher or administrator, and then write a publicly available report on what they observed. The bill's chief author is Rep. Andrew Myers, a Republican from Tonka Bay, and his proposal already has garnered some DFL support in both the House and Senate. Myers also has introduced similar bills that would require members of some other committees to do a ridealong with law enforcement or firefighters, or to observe the operations at a child care center. There is some logic in such proposals. When Minnesota legislators are assigned to committees, we assume that they have a certain level of experience/expertise in that area — or at least a strong interest and a desire to learn. It's possible that some committee members lack these qualities, but do we need a law that mandates 12 hours of homework and a term paper? No, we do not. We elect legislators to a job; namely, to represent the interests of their constituents, to introduce and/or support legislation that furthers those interests, and to be well-informed on all manner of issues that affect the people they represent. And Myers is correct about one thing: This job can't be accomplished merely by making phone calls and reading emails while sitting behind a desk in St. Paul. To serve their districts, legislators must be present and visible. They should attend meetings of school boards, county boards and townships. They should attend high school basketball games, middle school plays and PTA meetings. They should visit assisted-living facilities. They should know which ambulance services operate in their districts. That's the gig. It's not a punch-in, punch-out position. If there are gaps in a legislator's knowledge base, we expect them to do whatever is necessary to fill those gaps, so that they can make good arguments and cast informed votes. We should not and do not need laws to mandate a certain amount of participation and learning. We hold elections, and voters get regular opportunities to replace representatives who aren't getting the job done. That's the big-picture perspective, and things don't get better when we consider the practical ramifications of mandated "shadowing" of teachers, firefighters and child care workers. Several members of the Post Bulletin editorial board have experience in front of a classroom, and we can safely say that few teachers would be eager to host a legislator for a day. It's tough enough to teach when the principal is "observing" you, and it might be worse to have a legislator sitting at the back of the class, compiling notes for a report on what happened on your watch. We doubt that police officers and the owners of child care centers would be excited about this prospect, either. Also, who would enforce this law? Who would check to make sure that every committee member spent the mandated number of hours "in the field" every two years? Who would read the reports? What penalties, if any, would fall upon legislators who ignored such a mandate? Finally, what's the logic in limiting this new mandate to just a few committees? If the current proposal becomes law, one could reasonably argue that health policy committee members should spend 12 hours sitting in an emergency room or shadowing a nurse. Children and Families committee members should spend a day or two with a social worker. Agriculture committee members should put on boots and spend a day on a dairy farm, and the Environment and Natural Resources committee should have first-hand experience checking duck hunters in a swamp while the wind howls on a cold, rainy October morning. Granted, the written reports on such experiences might be entertaining reading, but after a year or two, this entire process would become just another piece of busy work — and our legislators aren't federal employees who need bullet points to include on their "What I did last week" lists.
Fox News
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Minnesota lawmakers advance trans athlete ban bill as state faces investigation for defying Trump order
Minnesota's House Education Policy Committee passed a bill on Thursday that would prevent trans athletes from playing in women's and girls sports in the state. The bill, HF12, also known as the "Preserving Girls' Sports Act," states "only female students may participate in an elementary or secondary school level athletic team or sport that an educational institution has restricted to women and girls." Many of the guest speakers in attendance shared the experiences of girls who have been physically and emotionally affected by trans athletes in sports. A woman named Leanna Chambers shared the story of her 11-year-old daughter suffering a broken wrist after she was knocked down by a male. "I hope there needs to be no more broken bones to show this is a broken system," said Leanna Chambers. A Minnesota girls' volleyball player cited her friends' experience on the U.S. national volleyball team. "My good friend was on the USA volleyball team last summer. She told me, quote, 'I sat behind the 6'4" man serving the volleyball and thought, "I could never receive that."' My friend is a 6'3" guard," she said. "What is the point of girls and boys teams if males can play on girls-only teams? Members, fellow Minnesotans, this isn't easy for me." However, Democrats in attendance argued the rule would promote transgender discrimination. Minnesota state Rep. Alex Falconer preached this sentiment. "Apparently, any parent, coach, person in the stands can call to question somebody's gender, somebody's sex, and remove them from the court," Falconer said. "This bill denies kids the opportunity to find their purpose, to find their place in schools, denies them to find the team they can identify with, causes significant mental damage when this group of people already face disproportionally higher mental health issues leading to societal ideation and suicidal attempts. This is a dangerous bill. … It's going to lead toward discrimination and harm." After passing through the Education Policy Committee, the bill will now go to Minnesota's House of Representatives for a floor vote. If it passes there, it will go to Gov. Tim Walz's desk. However, Walz, is a passionate advocate for trans rights. Walz's daughter Hope Walz recently went viral on social media for a series of TikTok videos of her slamming President Donald Trump's recent executive order that bans trans athletes from girls and women's sports. The Minnesota State High School League announced Feb. 7 that it would not be following Trump's "No Men in Women's Sports" executive order that bans trans inclusion from women's sports. Minnesota joined California, Maine and other Democrat-run states in defying Trump on the issue after the order was signed Feb. 5. The U.S. Department of Education recently launched Title IX investigations into the Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation for refusing to comply with Trump on the issue. "The Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation are free to engage in all the meaningless virtue-signaling that they want, but at the end of the day they must abide by federal law," said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights. "(The Office of Civil Rights') Chicago and San Francisco regional offices will conduct directed investigations into both organizations to ensure that female athletes in these states are treated with the dignity, respect and equality that the Trump administration demands. I would remind these organizations that history does not look kindly on entities and states that actively opposed the enforcement of federal civil rights laws that protect women and girls from discrimination and harassment." The DOE added that state laws do not override federal anti-discrimination laws, so the associations are subject to investigations. In California, state lawmakers have already introduced two bills to protect girls sports with similar purposes to the one that is being weighed in Minnesota. Meanwhile, Minnesota's blue state neighbor Wisconsin has complied with Trump's order. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) announced Wednesday an update to its policies that stated only athletes "designated as females at birth" would be allowed to compete in girls sports, despite previously allowing trans athletes in girls sports dating back to 2013. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
