May 9, 2008

Attack of Bredesen's Educrats on Home-Schooling and Church Schools Continues

Rob Shearer, who has been following the progress of legislation to force the Tennessee Department of Education to recognize as valid diplomas from home schools and church-related schools, says the victory hasn't been won yet. In a comment to this post, he writes:

Not so fast... The Department of Education has so far succeeded in declaring all homeschoolers' high school diplomas to be invalid. Rep. Bell's bill escaped the House Ed Committee without being hijacked, but it is now sitting in the Calendar & Rules Committee where it may be quietly allowed to die. If that happens, the Department will have succeeded in disenfranchising thousands of high school graduates by bureaucratic fiat.

It is an outrage. We have a shortage of good police officers. We have a shortage of good daycare workers - but the department can't stand it that someone out there might be getting an education outside their control.

Cindy Benefield, the Tennesseee Department of Education Executive Director of Field Services, who oversees the state's homeschooling office, recently declared that a diploma from a church-related school is "not worth the paper it is written on." That is not just the idle opinion of one uninformed bureaucrat, but has become Department policy. Bredesen's education commissioner, Tim Webb, told four legislators in April that until the legislature passes a law stating that the diplomas given by church-related schools are acceptable, they aren't acceptable for certain kinds of employment.

And the state is now now preventing people who hold diplomas from church-related schools or home schools from holding certain jobs. For example: a police officer in Roane County, who holds a diploma from a church-related school, then graduated the police academy with perfect grades, has been demoted and prohibited from continuing to serve as a police officer - even though he also graduated from the local community college. The Rockwood police officer has been forced to take a desk job until he takes and passes the GED because the Department of Education says his 2001 diploma from a church-related school is invalid.

The fallout goes beyond that one officer. Suspect he has arrested may be set free because he can not appear as a witness in the case because the state, which regulates the profession, says his diploma is invalid.

All professions which are regulated by the state and which require a high school diploma are at risk of this kind of intrusion by the state.

In 2004, the Tennessee Department of Human Services forced a Jackson day care center to fire an employee - on the job since 2000 - because her diploma came from a church-related school. The day care center owner was told she had to be fired because "her diploma is not from a school approved by the DOE."

The aforementioned Cindy Benefield is currently working with all 9 regional offices of the Department of Education training their employees that high school diplomas from church related schools are not accepted by the state.

Why is the Bredesen administration attacking church-related schools in this manner?

The first purpose of a liberal bureaucracy is self-preservation. Church-related schools and home-schooling represent unwanted competition for the state-controlled public education system and the power and money that it sends to the public education bureaucracy and the teachers' union.

Kay Brooks is following the progress of Rep. Mike Bell's legislation, House Bill 1652, and its Senate counterpart, SB 1827, sponsored by Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland, at the website TNHomeEd.com. You can track the legislation's progress on the legislature's website here.