House Rep Wants To Force Homeschool Parents to Report Attendance to The State

With no evidence of a problem, Rep. Woodrow Stanley, D-Flint, wants to track homeschooled students for truancy

By Tom Gantert | February 19, 2013

A Flint State Representative whose district has conventional public schools that have among the highest absentee rates in the state has introduced legislation that would mandate parents who homeschool their children be required to report attendance to the state.

Rep. Woodrow Stanley, D-Flint, said in a press release that “there are a growing number of kids becoming truant” in homeschools.

“Kids must be in school in order to learn,” Rep. Stanley said in a press release. “This bill requires parents to report their child’s attendance records, giving homeschools the same standards as public schools. Passing this bill is a no-brainer, it’s necessary for Michigan students.”

Michael Van Beek, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, questioned how Rep. Stanley could know truancy is growing in homeschools since the state doesn’t require registration of homeschool students or that such records be kept.

“There’s more evidence that truancy is a problem in the public school system than there is among homeschoolers,” Van Beek said. “There is evidence to suggest this is a problem for public schools in Flint.”

The City of Flint Public School’s attendance rate was 91.8 percent in 2009-10, which ranks 529th out of 550 districts. Flint Beecher district’s attendance rate was 91 percent in 2009-10, which was 535th out of 550 districts.

Rep. Stanley’s office didn’t respond to questions sent in an email.

There is an estimated 45,000 children being homeschooled in Michigan if the state has the same percentage of homeschooled children as the 3 percent national average.

“Public education is a service that the state offers to people, just like bus transportation,” said Karen Braun, a Canton woman who has homeschooled her six children. “I am not required to report my daily driving attendance to the MDOT. I should not be required to report my school attendance to the state schools. The state and those in the schools work for the parents, not the other way around. The state schools are accountable to the taxpayers but taxpayers (including homeschool taxpayers) are not accountable to the state schools. The taxpayer is the boss and the state is the employee. Understand that and Rep. Stanley will understand why this legislation is absurd.”

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

Follow us on social media!

Push back on big government “solutions” by becoming a fan of us on Facebook and X. Plus you can share free-market news to your network!

Facebook

I already follow CapCon!

Questions About Obamacare Medicaid Expansion

By Jack McHugh | February 18, 2013

Beware Obamacare bearing budget gifts: There is good evidence supporting a belief that any short-term fiscal gains for the state may be dwarfed by long-term liabilities we will regret for decades to come.

Cost-Shifting: Medicaid pays just 47 percent of what Michigan primary care physicians get from private insurers; reports suggests that Medicaid patients are the largest source of “uncompensated care” at health care facilities. Who do you think pays the difference? What effect will an additional 470,000 individuals on the Medicaid rolls have on that cost-shifting?

Unfair to Families: Unreformed Medicaid is a broken program that serves its beneficiaries poorly, and it’s getting progressively worse. Families in the 100-138 percent of Federal Poverty Level range will be much better served if the state does not expand Medicaid, because they will get a “real” (government-approved and taxpayer-subsidized) private insurance policy through the federal “exchange” that will be set up here.

Better Alternatives Available for Indigent: This still leaves a “donut hole” of uninsured childless adults below 100 percent of FPL who don’t qualify for Medicaid now but would under the expansion. This population is the largest source of an estimated $175 million in state-funded mental health services that the expansion would shift to the federal budget (in the short term). They also generate uncompensated physical health care expenses. But there are better ideas being discussed for how to meet those needs without expanding Medicaid.

No need for haste: If Michigan doesn’t expand Medicaid this year it can do so next year, or at any other time in the future. On the other hand, once the new entitlement is created for hundreds of thousands of people there is no going back. Prudence therefore dictates that our lawmakers wait to see what happens as Obamacare’s massive disruption of the entire health care delivery and finance system unfolds over the next year and beyond.

Preserve and Protect the Constitution: State officials have a duty to push back against Obamacare’s massive usurpation of the principles of federalism embodied in the U.S. Constitution. Resisting the law’s heavy-handed schemes to commandeer state governments into becoming mere executors of federal policy — including the Medicaid expansion — is part of that duty.

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

Love CapCon?

The best way you can help support our work is to become a donor. Give monthly or one-time. What do you say — buy our reporters a cup of coffee?

Have a coffee on me! Already a supporter