Agreed, Bookworm!

Well, I have no idea about MN but ANY state that has the upper required age as 16 and has any state supervision of homeschool students will suddenly find themselves having to be subjected to state guidelines for two additional years.  This affects more than one of us here, I'm willing to bet.  It affects me!  My son is 18 now, so for the last 2 years I have not had to pay an extra $50 and take extra time from my schedule for him to take an approved standardized test, and could instead put that time and money into having him take the SAT.  If the President gets his way, next year when my second son is 16, I'll have to pay for BOTH his SAT AND his "official" standardized test--which means less money and less time to do what is more important to me.  If you don't oppose this on behalf of YOUR state, I beg you to oppose it in behalf of mine!!!!!

I will agree with those who said that the federal government should stay out of the state's right to determine the laws about education. But about it affecting the PSEO program in MN I don't see how it would adversely affect that. When students are in the PSEO program they are officially high school students who are taking college classes instead of high school classes. It is only available to high school juniors and seniors who generally are 17 or 18 anyway. Requiring all students to attend somewhere until they are 18 or have graduated from high school has no effect on this. Why would it?

I just sent in my letter to the White House, let us hope this does not come to pass. My girls are now over age 18, but I would like to see homeschooling an option for generations to come...big government is beginning to encroach of many areas of our lives, we should make ourselves heard, if we don't we cannot complain when our freedoms disappear.

Here is an update from the HSLDA

http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2012/201201260.asp

On the bottom you can click on "email the White House" and add your own message or copy&paste the statement written by the HSLDA. Just takes a minute.

Christine, we may have a sensitivity to freedom, because of our experiences, because like you I have experience of the loss of freedom. My mother is German and when the Russians took over their sector a good portion of my mother's relatives were on the Russian side in the East trapped until the wall came down. I too have visited the relatives there before the wall came down, and I too know the horrors of the communist system....it is frightening. I spent many years in Germany and of course was born in England, so the things I see happening here set off huge alarm bells for me - I am willing to say that this country is heading in the wrong direction in the worst possible way and it worries me a lot - the freedoms are taken a little at a time so that people sleep through the changes and don't notice until it is too late. I too am on high alert......I am sorry to say.

@Rachel, don't worry, I didn't feel hijacked.I am really worried if he would have another 4 years, and not just in regard of our freedom to home school but our freedom as believers and citizens. 

Missingtheshire brought up a good point. We need to be very vigilant. Education is a key instrument in creating a certain desired citizen. I may be very sensitive to this because I come from Germany, our country was devided and as a 9th grader I got to do a week long trip to the socialist part of the country. If you have never seen it you just can't believe what it is like to have to live this way.Later on in high school I studied socialism and communism extensively and read all the major works of Marx, Engel and Lenin. Their plans to implement socialism/communism are brilliant in an evil way and so seducing, hardly detectable by the common men. Like I said, public education is a key role in the plan. 

I don''t want to say this is what is going to happen, but every tiny bit on "more government" in our lifes sets me in high alert.

I just wanted to add that at this point it is much less about political parties and much more a direct hit to the Consitution and the checks and balances system.  We have to be diligent and active about protecting both the Constitution and our rights.  Agree with all posts above.  ;)

Freedom is too easily lost, we must guard our freedoms always and be ever vigilent that they are not taken from us without us noticing....this goes for schooling and any other freedom we hold dear...

LOL, SARA!  I'm trying to keep my mouth

If he has his way (and if Congress doesn't give it to him, he'll just create a czar or an executive order for it), I will be scared.  MN has too many laws already (IMHO) - I don't need more.  Right now, they only have to be in school till their 16.  To make it 18, how will that affect teens who want to do college their last 2 years of "high school?"  Will they not be able to get those credits out of the way early?

And that's just my opinion on just the education statement.  I could go on and on like Rachel did. 

I know Christine and I don't want contention; I brought it up because I really do think that it's truly related. It puts his mindset about power into proper context.

He stated that about an education view that he has currently. What view will he have later?  Okay, what if the Congress rejects it? He's stated multiple times-including last night-that he will do what he thinks is right for this country "with or without Congress".

How many of his ideas about education will he go around Congress to implement if they don't give him what he thinks are reasonable requests?

Please contact your Reps and encourage them to stand firm no matter what and be obvious about it.

Rachel

ps. I"ll try to contain my being livid about the whole thing so as not to hijack your thread and the important topic you brought forth. I tried to post the HSLDA alert that I received and wasn't able.

LOL, I have to confess, whenever I hear any politician of any stripe say "We ought to do this" (by which they ALWAYS mean "You all ought to do this--and if you let me I'll make you") I always want to run in the other direction just as fast as I possibly can . . .

Rachel I share your feelings about the rest of the speech, particulary the part you quoted. I just kept it to the education part because I know how discussions can get heated over political views.

I have to say I got scared when he said "has to stay in school". I hope he ment to include home schools in it. 

On another side I agree with you bookworm. To control that really everyone under 19 who has not graduated is doing school work, all the states will have to come up with much stricter oversight of the home school families. Our State has absolutely no testing or record keeping requirements so far. If States would have to follow this regulation, they would start regulating home schoolers much stricter. For families in Arizona it would make a big difference.