Below is yet another email sent to our lawmakers by an assistant school superintendent. Emails like this one are circulating at the Capitol Building, and must be addressed by ordinary citizens if we are to defeat this bill. To read counter-arguments to what the superintendents are saying, click here.
—–Original Email—–
Dear Legislators:
I am in support of HB 2144 and urge you to support it as well. I am an Assistant Superintendent at Mena and before that I was a Middle School Principal for 11 years. As an administrator my experience with home schools has been both good and bad. Those parents that have an educational plan and submit the application early in the semester usually do an adequate job of educating their children. However, those that get angry at the school for whatever reason and suddenly pull their child from school as the current law allows, almost never have a plan. As a result these students: 1. get behind in their grade level turn
2. never participate in a standardized test
3 never graduate.
All too often this type of home school student in essence becomes a drop-out.
I support those parents that do home schooling the right way. But in our part of the state that is a vast minority. Please vote for HB 2144 to make the problem manageable.
Sincerely,
Ken Marshall
Assistant Superintendent
—–End Original Email—–
Note: The Education Alliance has assembled a list of counter-arguments that address the broad statements this email and others like it make about Arkansas’ home school families. Please click here to read it.