Maloney on SB 136: "We're Not After Private Schools, We Want Home Schoolers"

You may think they're your own children. Illinois State Senator Ed Maloney (D-Chicago) knows better. Those aren't your children, they're the state's children.  You're expected to render them up to the state for education and indocrination, and if you prefer to educate them yourself at home, you're accountable to the state for how you do it:

Sen. Ed Maloney (D-Chicago)

"We're not going for the private school students, we're going to change that [in the proposal]. What we want to know is where the homeschoolers are. It's as simple as that," Maloney said from his Springfield office.

Maloney said the lack of accountability of homeschoolers came to his attention when a family member mentioned another was homeschooling. He asked about the procedure of homeschooling and was surprised to find out homeschoolers in Illinois had no accountability to local authorities for the students in their home schools.

"There is virtually no regulation, no curriculum requirements, no periodic checking on their progress," he said. "Regional superintendents are telling me that they have no way of determining whether the homeschooled students are truant."

So all the surmise that SB 136 to register homeschoolers was a first step towards the state taking control has been confirmed. That's the clear goal.

I've asked and asked what problem Maloney was trying to solve, and I now have my answer: the problem is that there are kids who are escaping the control of the state's education bureaucracy. That's the problem that Maloney is trying to solve.

The problem:  these children are not under state control

Well, that's his problem, not mine.

Senator Maloney, let's be clear here. The Extraordinary Wife and I educate our children. We don't have to list our qualifications to you, or our methods, or our curriculum. They are our children. The State of Illinois has done a poor enough job with the children entrusted to it for public education that it should be ashamed to try to extend its reach -- indeed, that the state would try suggests to me that the current poor state of education in Illinois is intentional, and that someone now thinks it's time to extend that poor quality to others who don't submit to the low expectations and social indoctrination of the teacher's unions.

I'm glad that my senator has already come out in opposition to this bill.

But this will not be a quiet little bill that you can pass under the radar. If it passes, it will be over the loud and energetic objections of a group whose size you can't even estimate. If you thought the Tea Party made trouble, you haven't seen anything yet.

Senator Maloney's phone number is: (217) 782-5145.

Senator Maloney's email address is: ed@edmaloney.com.