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’48 of 123′ Stat is Chilling; Action is Prudent · Commentary - TJ Meadows

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: A legislative interim meeting this week dropped a bombshell statistic.
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  Speaker 1: In Kanawha County, 48 of 123 recent homeschool notices involved
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  Speaker 1: students with histories of chronic absenteeism. That should stop a
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  Speaker 1: train of oxen in its tracks. What happens to chronically
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  Speaker 1: absent students when you remove even the basic accountability of
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  Speaker 1: taking a daily roll? Will some thrive in homeschool? Absolutely not.
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  Speaker 1: Homeschooling can provide tremendous opportunities. I know homeschool parents personally
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: who give their children educational experiences a public school could
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  Speaker 1: never match. But are we supposed to believe all 48
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: chronically absent students will suddenly become the antithesis of chronically absent?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: That seems naive. And absenteeism matters. One study found students
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: who missed 10 or more days graduated early. at a
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  Speaker 1: rate of just 64% compared with 86% overall. Their dropout
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: rate was more than twice as high. So asking questions
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  Speaker 1: here isn't an attack on homeschooling. It's recognizing a warning sign.
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  Speaker 1: We should protect the educational freedom of responsible parents. We
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  Speaker 1: shouldn't presume homeschooling is inferior. And we shouldn't create unnecessary
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  Speaker 1: government barriers for families responsibly educating their children at home.
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  Speaker 1: But neither should homeschooling become a safety valve, allowing a
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  Speaker 1: bad parent to escape the public school system's most basic expectation,
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  Speaker 1: that a child actually attends school. Because freedoms can be abused.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Some people will use the legal status of homeschooling as
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  Speaker 1: cover for intentions having little to do with education, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: even concealing neglect or abuse. That's undoubtedly a tiny minority
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of homeschool families. But those children matter too. We live
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in a broken world. Children fall through the cracks every day,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes perpetuating generations of poverty and failure. Protecting those children
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  Speaker 1: isn't an attack on educational freedom. It's common sense. And
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  Speaker 1: maybe that's where we find common ground on issues like
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  Speaker 1: Raley's Law. Protect the freedoms of responsible parents while refusing
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  Speaker 1: to turn a blind eye when the warning signs tell
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  Speaker 1: us a vulnerable child may be in trouble.