News and views from a strange, continuing journey
This one fall under the heading of “a lot of gall.” Minn. driver kills dog, then sues owners for damage – Yahoo! News. It also strikes me as legal stupidity. You’ll see in the story that his suit led to a countersuit. Did he not realize that this would happen? Who do you think is likeliest to win? I mean, geez.
The Knoxville News-Sentinel today published some details about the committee hearing in the Tennessee legislature on the bill to end discrimination against diplomas granted by church-related schools.
Since that article will only be available for a limited time (I think you have to pay for access after a few weeks for older stories), I wanted to report what they reported regarding how committee members voted.
Those voting for the bill were Reps. Harry Brooks, R-Knoxville; Jim Coley, R-Bartlett; Delores Gresham, R-Somerville; Beth Harwell, R-Nashville; Phillip Johnson, R-Pegram; Ron Lollar, R-Bartlett; Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga; Richard Montgomery, R-Sevierville; and John Mark Windle, D-Livingston.
Those voting no were Reps. Ulysses Jones, D-Memphis; Mark Maddox, D-Dresden; Tommie Brown, D-Chattanooga; Barbara Cooper, D-Memphis; Joe Towns, D-Chattanooga; Larry Turner, D-Chattanooga; and Les Winningham, D-Huntsville.
Do you notice a pattern? I really, really get sick of partisan politics.
The article also notes this:
Bruce Opie, legislative liaison for the Department of Education, told the committee that department officials “were a little overzealous” in deciding that homeschool certificates do not count as high school diplomas. [On the other hand,] “Do we get in the business of approving a diploma when we have absolutely nothing to do with oversight?” he said. “Under the law, we are told to stay completely out of (homeschooling).”
This is disingenuous at best, manipulative at worst. The actual text of the bill (technically an amendment) reads:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 49, Chapter 1, Part 1, is amended by adding a new section thereto, as follows:
Section 49-1-1__. Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, a student who has a diploma recognized under or awarded by § 49-50-801 or § 49-6-3050 shall be considered by all departments, agencies or entities of state government as possessing a valid high school diploma. This section shall not apply to state lottery proceeds as provided in title 49, chapter 4, part 9.
SECTION 2. This act shall take effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.
Do you see anything in there that would require the DoE to “approve” diplomas issued by school that are not state-run? On the contrary, the bill simply requires state agencies to recognize as valid diplomas from schools that other sections of state law recognize as legal. How ludicrous would it be otherwise?
In fact, § 49-50-801 and § 49-6-3050 explicitly prohibit the state from approving or disapproving the teachers or curriculum. This new bill simply puts into law the common sense effect of that. If you can’t approve or disapprove the teachers or curriculum, what possible cause could there be for approving or disapproving the diploma? By trying to cast it as if this bill requires the DoE to approve of such diplomas, they are positioning themselves to de facto approve or disapprove of teachers and curriculum.
If they manage to pull this off, they put themselves in the position of regulating church-related schools without having to spend any state money on them. Enviable maneuvering, yes?
Imagine the parallel: the state of Tennessee recognize driver’s licenses from the state of Virginia as being legal, but since the Tennessee Highway Patrol has no control over the testing for such licenses they refuse to recognize those legal licenses as being valid. Therefore, they may ticket Virginia drivers for not having a valid driver’s license–but, Virginia, we will recognize them as valid if you let us specify your tests and procedures.
How far do you think they would get with that?
Yesterday I told you about a Tennessee legislative committee that could affect thousands of people across the state regarding whether their high school diplomas would be considered “valid.” (More here and here.)
Short version update: the needed amendment passed; the Dept. of Education’s ill-advised version did not come up.
Long version update: read Rob Shearer’s summary of what went on.
Rob Shearer also addresses the current controversy in TN Department of Education declares church-related schools’ diplomas to be “worthless” « Contending with the Culture. His post carries some weight–he is the director of the Schaeffer Study Center, and Vice President of the Tennessee Association of Church Related Schools. As such, he is in a position to call a spade a spade rather than a unipersonal earth-moving implement.
Tags: homeschooling, education, bureaucracy
Kay Brooks has a good post entitled “Good enough for UT, Vandy, Harvard…” that starkly contrasts that fact with the reported pronouncement by Tennessee DOE Executive Director of Field Services Cindy Benefield that the diplomas of thousands of Tennessee graduates of church-related schools are “worthless” and “not worth the paper they’re written on.”
Tags: homeschooling, education, bureaucracy, legislature
The headline is an opinion, of course, but I can’t figure any other way to read this. On a page entitled HB1652-SB1827, TnHomeEd.com warns of upcoming action (3 p.m. today!) that could require teachers in church-related schools (and those homeschoolers covered by them as Category IV schools) to conform to Dept. of Education requirements.
This seems ludicrous. As someone who teaches college classes, I am quite aware that graduates of church-related schools and homeschools usually come to college much better prepared than graduates of state-run schools. There are plenty of exceptions, of course, but this is the trend. It’s impossible to make the case that bringing these schools under the oversight of the state more than they already are would somehow improve the education offered by these schools.
According to T.C.A. §49-50-801, schools in this category are exempt from regulation regarding faculty, textbooks, and curriculum. There is a good reason for that. Nevertheless, some rule (not a law, understand, but a bureaucratic rule) dating from 1992 is being interpreted by the Dept. of Education in such a way that it invalidates all the diplomas of graduates of church-related schools since then.
They seem to have set up this scenario so that they could “offer” an amendment to a bill to make diplomas from such schools valid. All they have to do is conform to Dept. of Ed. rules for credentials of state teachers, in effect. How self-serving.
As an example of the idiotic effect of this regulation: Rep. Mike Bell tells about a police officer in Rockwood who has now been removed from duty and his arrests in jeopardy because his 7 year old high school diploma from a Category IV school has now been characterized as ‘worthless’ despite the officer graduating from Walter State Community college and the Police Academy as well as having satisfactorily served as a police officer since January of 2008. One source I read indicated he carried a 4.0 through the Police Academy. Here is a man who has already completed a college education, who is in danger of having that real education invalidated because of a bogus bureaucratic disallowance of a piece of paper.
Rep. Bell has offered a competing (and much better) amendment that basically corrects the situation back to what was intended originally: the state should keeps its hands off church-related schools.
Action on this is slated for 3 p.m. Central time today. By the time most people read this, it will be too late. On the off chance that you see it in time, please follow the link above and contact committee members asking them to support Mike Bell’s amendment. This is about far more than homeschooling; it’s about more unnecessary government encroachment.
Those who follow this blog might like to know about a sister blog and related project that is just starting.
All posts having to do with Hannah have been copied over to Guiding Your Special Needs Child. It’s not that we want to segregate Hannah, but rather that she is the inspiration for the new site and the book it will lead to.
Sometimes we don’t recognize the things that matter until later, looking back on them. This could be just a blip, and frankly, I hope it is. We don’t need another mouth to feed.
Nevertheless: a feral cat had kittens recently underneath our house. One of the kittens, an extrovert, has taken over our front porch, and would love to join us inside. Everyone else is currently outside with the kitten, oohing and ahing, and Janet has her camera out there. I sense a hostile takeover in the offing.
Annie and Angel, meanwhile, are gathered around the open front door, viewing the whole scene with great suspicion.
We are very glad to have Caty with us now. It was hard on her and her mom, but the short version is that we all finally agreed for Caty to come live with us. This means a lot of changes for everyone. Without discounting the difficulties, we are still very glad to have her here.
Hannah came home on Monday. She wasn’t completely over the intestinal issues, but she was improving a great deal, gaining weight, and staying hydrated, so the doctors decided it was best for her to go on home so she wouldn’t be exposed to whatever might be floating around the hospital.
In the several days since, Hannah has continued to improve. In fact, we’ve started giving her Benefiber® to make sure she doesn’t get constipated.
Amanda and Barry moved into their own apartment on Thursday and Friday. This is the first time they’ve lived together in several years, since they were both teenagers. At that time, like most brothers and sisters, they were trying to kill each other. They’ve gotten old enough to actually enjoy each other’s company, so they’re hoping that sharing an apartment will be a good experience for them both. Of course, moving is an exhausting experience anytime, and I think they are both suffering from those effects.
Zachary helped them with their moving, too. He has developing into a strong, strapping young man, and his help is truly helpful. Today he did most of the yard, and probably in half the time it used to take him, even though he had to use a push mower since the riding mower is not functioning yet.
Meanwhile, Caty is staying with us again for we-don’t-know-how-long. We are glad to have her with us, but sorry for the circumstances. Her mom fell earlier this week, and hurt her arm badly enough that she thought she broke it. While it wasn’t fractured, it was painful enough that she couldn’t use the arm, and the pain medication made her dangerously unsteady on her feet. Yesterday she went back to the doctor, who sent her to the Blount Memorial ER, who not only admitted her to the hospital, but today transferred her to the University of Tennessee Medical Center. We’re not completely sure what is wrong, but we think it involves a staph infection. So Caty is with us until whenever.