The Homeschool Bill

The Family Institute of Connecticut has been mentioned in this space on a couple of occassions, once as opposition to Planned Parenthood's push for more sex education and later as opposition to a bill that would give more rights to transsexuals. The Institute doesn't just go around the capital lodging protests against other bills. No, they tend to push their own.

And their latest effort is the so-called "homeschool bill". Formerly called, "AN ACT CONCERNING THE WITHDRAWAL OF A CHILD FROM ENROLLMENT IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL," the bill would allow parents to simply send a certified letter to the principal or superintendent to let them know their child was being home-schooled. The Family Institute, in arguing for the bill, has said that state officials have been falsely advising public school districts that parents cannot withdraw their children as students. This has led, according to the Institute, to families that choose to homeschool their children being harassed.

In its effort to get the bill passed, the Family Institute has e-mailed its members and those on its mailing list to contact their legislators as soon as possible because the bill will die if it is not raised for consideration by the Education Committee by March 19. The lobbying efforts include getting members to call the education committee chairmen -- their numbers are listed -- as well as writing e-mails with "some basic points" included. Though the Institute is urging those wanting to help to cause to add their own personal message. We've seen in the past that mass mailings to legislators, with the same message over and over, tends not to work.

The bill had a public hearing on Feb. 19, and was reported out of the legislative commissioner's office on Monday. There was a favorable change of reference made Tuesday by the House and Senate to the education committee. Clearly, the Family Institute will ramp up its efforts in the next two weeks to get this bill raised, it'll be interesting to see if they'll be successful.

A little housekeeping: I realized there isn't an e-mail link on the blog so I'm going to include my email address in a link at the bottom of all posts. Feel free to drop a line about anything.

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