Aberdeen Central School Board member Duane Alm came to Saturday’s crackerbarrel to ask legislators why the Governor Kristi Noem wants to drop the testing requirements for homeschool students (House Bill 1065). No one at the podium appeared to know why:
Representative Drew Dennert (R-3/Aberdeen), a product of homeschooling, expressed no opinion on this exemption. Senator Brock Greenfield (R-2/Clark) sounded dubious: “There has to be a good reason for taking this off the books, and I don’t know if we’ll necessarily be convinced.”
Boy, ask Republicans to explain a clearly hypocritical bill from their Republican Governor, and watch them run.
Governor Noem proposes to exempt students receiving alternative instruction from the standardized tests in fourth, eighth, and eleventh grade that are the state’s only formal assessment of whether students are getting the basic instruction that serves as their excuse from public school. So at a time when Governor Noem saying all students need to take a civics test not just to measure progress but to graduate from high school, she is saying that kids skipping public school shouldn’t have to take any math or English tests to verify that Mom and Dad aren’t just keeping kids home because they hate books or vaccines or pluralistic democracy.
With no proposal for alternative assessment, HB 1065 sounds like a thoughtless sop to Noem’s homeschool fundagelical base. I’m all for reducing state mandated testing, but if we’re going to exempt one group of kids from the testing circus, we’d better exempt them all.
House Education hears HB 1065 this morning at 7:45 a.m.
This Just IN … WHAT’S ON THE PRESIDENT’S MIND — @realDonaldTrump at 8:21 a.m.: “Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible. Starting to make a turn back? Great!”
How ’bout it Governor Noem? Maybe Religious Civics?
What, were too many of them flunking?
Porter, I do like the part of the Bible that says Trump can be stoned for committing adultery.
Today’s Tweet from Sarah Silverman to Trump concerning his support for teaching the Bible in public school. “What’s the Bible say about f***ing porn stars right after your 3rd wife just had a baby?”
I’m sure the homeschoolers will tell us they outscore public school kids. But hey: if they get out of the tests, so should everyone else.