I've seen in several places lately that some feel that Mike Huckabee is not homeschool-friendly.  I find it interesting that many homeschoolers in Arkansas DO like Huckabee.  I was one of them (when I lived there).  Recently on a message board I'm on, a current Arkansas homeschooler posted this:

BUT...I do have to say this about the homeschooling legislation referenced.  The legislation that Huckabee signed that further regulated homeschoolers in Arkansas was actually legislation *supported* by most Arkansas homeschoolers.  It was in response to a full-fledged attack by some very, very influential anti-homeschool people in the state who were trying to pass some very, very dangerous legislation for homeschoolers.  They were very close to passing that legislation.  What actually passed was a compromise bill that caused homeschoolers to have to jump through a few more hoops, but basically gave the state *no* ability to interfere with us.  Our current laws are also still MUCH, MUCH better than the original homeschool laws in Arkansas, enacted in 1985.   So...even though it is much touted as the legislation that made Arkansas "the first state to enact more restrictive homeschool laws,"  it was still seen as a good thing by most Arkansas homeschoolers.

We are still *very* unregulated...the state does not have to approve of or see *anything* we do, other than our Notice of Intent that we file once a year telling them that we are going to homeschool and giving a very basic plan.  They have *no* approval or oversight power of what we do, and we don't have to turn in any individual test scores or work to them.  We have to test grades 3-9 every year, but that  testing is done at state expense, and NO ONE other than the parent ever sees an individual child's scores.  The state gets a composite of all the homeschoolers' scores in the state.   This is all still *much* better than the original homeschool law in Arkansas, and *much, much* better than what the opposition was very close to passing in 1999.

Just wanted to give another perspective on the homeschool legislation that seems to be causing such a stir.

I got permission from Jen to post this, and she said that she hopes to blog about it sometime soon. :)

I don't have a whole lot of time to blog or research extensively, so on THIS post I will be turning off comments simply because I'm moving this weekend and won't have time to spend on this.  But I just wanted to set the record semi-straight while I have a minute.