Thursday, December 16, 2010

NDHSA 2011 Home School Bill Testing Exemption Added

NDHSA 2011 Home School Bill Testing Exemption AddedNDHSA News Release 12/15/2010

The NDHSA Board (December 13th 2010) and the NDHSA Legislative Team (December 14th 2010) unanimously approved the addition of a testing exemption to the 2011 NDHSA home school bill. This exemption, if passed into the statute, will allow parents who are licensed to teach, hold a baccalaureate degree or did pass the teacher exam to file a declaration of philosophical, moral or religious objection with their statement of intent.

Here is the exact language submitted to Representative Chuck Damschen for carrying to the Legislative Council for inclusion in the home school bill.


Add the following to 15.1-23-09 regarding testing:
“Parents who possess philosophical, moral, or religious objections to the practice of standardized achievement testing are exempted from the requirements of this section. Parents may elect this exemption if the parent (a) Is licensed to teach by the education standards and practices board or approved to teach by the education standards and practices board; (b) Holds a baccalaureate degree; or (c) Has met or exceeded the cutoff score of a national teacher examination given in this state or in any other state if this state does not offer such a test.”

Add the following to 15.1-23-02 regarding the statement of intent:

“(3) If applicable in the years that standardized achievement tests would be administered by law, the statement must be accompanied by a declaration of the parent’s intention to take the exemption provided for in section 15.1-23-09.”
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Reader Comments welcome.  Posted By: Andrew Bartlett, Webmaster

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've not researched this, but likely you have: In other homeschool "friendly" states, what do they have as far as required achievement testing? Are there such exemptions in these other states for licensed teachers or holders of baccalaureate degrees? Kind of wondering, is this just someplace to start? We'd rather see the testing requirement completely removed from law, for all home ed., but is this a case of "one bite at a time"?
Thanks for the timely updates,
W. O'Neill

North Dakota Home School Association said...

The green states (http://hslda.org/laws/, ID, TX, OK, MI, MO, IL, IN, AK, NJ, CT) do not require any testing for any home educating student. Yes, this is a place to start with one step.

Here is a glimpse of the logic:
"Some parents have philosophical, moral, or religious objections to the practice of standardized achievement testing. Adding an exemption to NDCC 15.1-23-09, with a declaration of this fact from parents with a teacher license, baccalaureate degree, or who passed the national teacher exam leaves testing in place for those without those qualifications. Since the State desires assurance of minimum educational achievement based on parental qualifications or testing, then only one or the other is necessary. This better accommodates the many home education convictions and methods." Jim Bartlett

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