Happy As Kings

Another hostage to the National Defense Authorization Act

The backing and forthing of the National Defense Authorization Act has landed the legislation in the Senate, again, with Section 522 still included.  I jockey back and forth between IRL (which is involving much more than tinsel and gingerbread this year), and keeping an eye on the legislation's progress.  As such, Holiday Preparation has been severly curtailed because empty nests mean Household Munchkins Who Usually Decorate the Tree, are miles away.  Will the tree be decorated by Christmas when said Munchkins come to visit?

Coincidence?

Gee whiz.  Yesterday I blogged:  Section 522 and a Memorandum from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense.

This morning, an HSLDA update referencing the memorandum is posted:  Homeschool Graduates Now Considered "Preferred Enlistees" in All Four Branches of the Armed Services

Funny how a search of the HSLDA web site doesn't bring up any other references to this memorandum, which was issued almost eleven months ago, but yet Mr. Somerville acknowledges HSLDA owernship of the sneak-section 522 buried in the 700+ page National Defense bill, legislation, something else not mentioned in any HSLDA Weekly Update.

Blog posts on federal legislation

After re-finding the Jan 2005 memorandum from the Under Secretary of Defense concerning enlistment of homeschoolers and ChalleNGe graduates into the military services, I am even more opposed to Section 522 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2006.

The pleas for 'fairness' concerning homeschool enlistees is a drum-beat that is easy to march to in light of the present-day emphasis on equal rights.  But this isn't about 'fairness,' rather it is about circumventing the findings of the CNA study of the Five-year Pilot Program, which included ChalleNGe graduates as well as homeschoolers.  It is a hard pill to swallow, then, that the homeschooling we all love has an Achilles heel for the specialized life of being a servicemember in the American military forces.  Despite this, can-do homeschoolers have a work-around (see: Cut to the Chase).

'Fair' means taking your lumps and getting on with things.  Suck it up and drive on, don't whine to sympathetic legislators that enlistment requirements that apply to every last recruit in the country, don't apply to homeschoolers.

If Section 522 was about 'fairness' because of some reduced losses, then the ChalleNGe graduates would have been included in the legislation. The Under Secretary of Defense spoke of both groups in the memorandum:  "Home school diploma graduates and National Guard Youth ChalleNGe GED holders manifest favorable attributes such as reduced frequency of moral disqualification ..." 

As it stands, only homeschooled graduates are mentioned in Section 522.  That is discrimination on the part of the writers of Section 522, but still doesn't justify the legislation.

The following are blog posts I've made on the subject:

• 24 Sep 2005:  HR 3753/S 1691at The Military Homeschooler
• 24 Sep 2005:  HR 3753/S 1691 Federalization of homeschooling page
• 7 Oct 2005:  Those picky military services
• 7 Oct 2005:  Federal legislation needed?
• 8 Oct 2005:  Give it back (on the repayment of enlistment bonuses if an enlistment is not completed)
• 19 Oct 2005:  Pushing homeschoolers towards the military
• 20 Oct 2005:  Increasingly bugged (goarmy.hslda page)
• 27 Oct 2005:  Tier I status explanation
• 27 Oct 2005:  I'm miffed
• 29 Nov 2005:  Homeschoolers in FY '06 Defense Authorization Bill
• 30 Nov 2005:  Citizens Against HR 1815 (Section #522)
• 1 Dec 2005:  HR 1815 Discussion
• 1 Dec 2005:  Discussing HR 3753
• 3 Dec 2005:  Blog entries concerning Section 522 of the National Defense Authorization Act
• 7 Dec 2005:  'Discrimination' by the military
• 7 Dec 2005:  First the Army, then the Navy
• 10 Dec 2005:  Military recruiting and cost effectiveness
• 10 Dec 2005:  Credit where credit's due
• 11 Dec 2005:  HSLDA and the Marines
• 12 Dec 2005:  HSLDA's lobbying expenses
• 12 Dec 2005:  Now the Marines
• 13 Dec 2005:  Section 522 and a Memorandum from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
• 14 Dec 2005:  Blindsiding
• 17 Dec 2005:  Sec. 522 blog activities
• 19 Dec 2005:  VA Homeschoolers position paper on HR 1815

HSLDA's lobbying expenses

One thing leads to another, especially with webcrumbs, and this site just floated across my screen:  HSLDA's U.S. Lobby Registration and Reporting Disclosure page.  Interesting figures on how much has been spent on lobbying activities over the years, and what those activities were.  Click on buttons at the tops of the pages listing more pages in the file.

• 1998 1 Jan - 30 Jun:  $100,000
• 1998 1 Jul - 31 Dec :    $40,000
• 1999 1 Jan - 30 Jun:  Sorry, forgot to file
• 1999 1 Jul - 31 Dec:     $40,000
• 2000 1 Jan - 30 Jun:    $40,000
• 2000 1 Jul - 31 Dec:     $60,000
• 2001 1 Jan - 30 Jun:    $80,000
• 2001 1 Jul - 31 Dec:     $60,000
• 2002 1 Jan - 30 Jun:    $60,000
• 2002 1 Jul - 31 Dec:     $80,000
• 2003 1 Jan - 30 Jun:    $80,000
• 2003 1 Jul - 31 Dec:     $80,000
• 2004 1 Jan - 30 Jun:    $30,000
• 2004 1 Jul - 31 Dec:     less than $10,000
• 2005 1 Jan - 30 Jun:    Sorry, forgot to file

For me this is eye-opening because HSLDA has always been on the periphery of my homeschooling activities.  I was never a member, I never needed legal assistance, and if they stayed out of the military-sphere, or didn't introduce legislation into Congress, I didn't pay much attention to what they were doing.  The bright spot, for me, is that I'm not just now finding out what any membership dues I would have sent them would have gone for.

Now the Marines

One of the files I was reading today was the Marine Corps Procurement Manual ( "Procurement" must be Marine-speak for recruiting & enlistment ) -- nice light, Sunday-in-December reading.  I was Ctrl+F searching through it because actual reading of regulations is seldom done for fun, and I came across something I wasn't expecting -- another mention of a private organization in a military regulation:  HSLDA and the Marines:

• The Home School Legal Defense Association has provided guidance to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, (OASD) that at a minimum the student should be home schooled for at least one (1) full school year.

Since when did private organizations start getting their names in regs?  I've never heard of such a thing before this week.  The only references provided in Army regulations that I read, were to other government publications.  I asked my husband if he'd ever seen such a thing in his 30 years with the Army, and he hadn't ever seen it either.

I can understand a service going to a source for information, but to put the source's name in the regulation?  So far we've got the Army using HSLDA's acronym in a URL, the Navy publishing the URL to HSLDA's web site in a regulation, and now the Marine Corps referencing guidance given by HSLDA to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense.  What happened to avoiding the appearance of endorsement by the services?

I'm also perplexed as to why simple Internet searches didn't seem to develop enough information so as to provide a balanced opinion from across the homeschooling spectrum.  It isn't as if searching for information on homeschooling doesn't get you any google hits:  Results 1 - 10 of about 4,790,000 for homeschooling.

I'm glad that the services are spelling out the requirements for homeschoolers to enlist, although as a sub-group those recruits represent only about 1/2% of all recruits.  You'd think from the noise and bluster being raised about the discrimination against homeschoolers by the services -- and the amount of ink in regulations --, that homeschooled grads were lining up in the streets trying to enlist, but the numbers say otherwise (scroll to the bottom of the page for the chart).  There must be a heck of a lobbying effort underway to get this much airplay.

Credit where credit's due

In the comments, my conclusions were doubted: 

• Reading the links to 'Home Education Magazine' on this page, the blogger, Valerie, points to another blog listing where someone is speculating that HSLDA is behind all of this. But, absent any evidence, I do not think we should rush to judgment.

I am vindicated:

• Caleb is our staffer here who is most responsible for getting 522 into its current form.
  
  I didn't really think we had a prayer of getting military language signed into law this year, but I've tried to be very forthright about HSLDA's ongoing committment to figure out some way to enable homeschool grads to enlist without having to take a GED or get 15 college credits.

Does this mean not having to have a high school diploma or get college credits like all the other enlistees in the country who don't have a high school diploma from a brick and mortar institution? 

The GED part is misinformation.  People with GEDs, or with diplomas from non-traditional schools, are in the same Tier as homeschoolers without 12-year graded instruction.

• Navy Recruiting Manual  (huge file warning)
  
  PDF page 82: 
  2 Programs operated for the military to circumvent the requirements of the traditional adult high school diploma are "not" acceptable for Tier I status.
  
  3 Non-public schools shall be judged by the same measures as public schools.
  .
• PDF page 83:
  g. Home School Diploma.  Conference Report (Section 571) of the FY 99 National Defense Authorization Act established a five-year pilot program to permit home school diploma recipients TIER 1 high school diploma graduate status.  A home school is a 12-year curriculum based, instruction oriented academic experience, in the home, involving regular parental or guardian instruction and education.  Attendance should be for at least an average of 4.5 hours daily and at least 170 days per academic/grade year.  For applicable state laws governing home school see http://www.hslda.org/central/states/xx/laws.html. The xx is the state abbreviation.

Gee, how'd a direct link to HSLDA get into a Navy manual?

First the Army, then the Navy

Well, given the date of the manual, 03/11/02, I guess it was first the Navy, then the Army.

Gotta love the last sentence from PDF page 83 of the Navy Recruiting Manual.

• g. Home School Diploma.  Conference Report (Section 571) of the FY 99 National Defense Authorization Act established a five-year pilot program to permit home school diploma recipients TIER 1 high school diploma graduate status.  A home school is a 12-year curriculum based, instruction oriented academic experience, in the home, involving regular parental or guardian instruction and education.  Attendance should be for at least an average of 4.5 hours daily and at least 170 days per academic/grade year.  For applicable state laws governing home school see http://www.hslda.org/central/states/xx/laws.html. The xx is the state abbreviation.

For those who are interested, links to the laws, and not just summations of the laws, can be found at Ann Zeise's site (click on the first letter of your state's name to find state-specific information), as well as information for you to learn what you need to know about standing up for yourself. Another site with links to state pages is the National Home Education Network.

HSLDA does not provide legal 'insurance,' (scroll down at the linked site, but read what Kay has written as well) only membership in a homeschooling advocacy organization.  HSLDA also involves itself in activities beyond the scope of homeschooling itself, such as trying to get national legislation affecting homeschoolers written into the National Defense Authorization Act.  This may, or may not, appeal to potential members.  More information is available at Homeschooing Is Legal.

A combination that might be useful for new homeschoolers is to join a state-specific online group and ask veteran homeschoolers about how best to get along in that particular state.  For specifically-legal concerns, an actual pre-paid legal insurance plan would probably work best (no, I haven't used this particular plan; my husband's company provides this kind of plan).  If a specifically-homeschooling plan is desired, try the National Home Education Legal Defense (NHELD).

Tier I status explanation

Over at the HR 3753/S 1691 blog, I gave an explanation of why it is important for the recruits the military accepts to 'fit the profile.'

Recruiting anyone for anything isn't one of my interests so I'm patching all this together on the fly.  It has only been since the introduction into Congress of the bills (above) that I've had to go out and find the additional information I've got on the enlistment page at The Military Homeschooler.

If homeschooled kids want to enlist, great.  Just be sure to get your ducks in a tidy row to give yourself the best chance of successfully completing that all-important first enlistment.

If homeschooled kids don't want to enlist, fine.  Please, go do something you really want to do, just as three of my little Army Brats did.  The fourth did a hitch, and then went on to other things.  Different strokes for different folks.

I'm miffed

Over at HE&OS, Daryl is parading the letter that the Army recruiting command sent him about the goarmy.com/hslda page. 

I'm being petulant because I, too, corresponded with the esteemed command, and have heard nothing.  Nada, zip, zilch.  In my bad moments I'm thinking they're all sexists.  In my saner moments, I wonder if I spelled my email addy correctly.  [going off to check what the site's info page stored from when I wrote]

Email addy's spelled just right.  Sexists it is.

If I'm later proven wrong, I'll share it here.  Otherwise, the pout continues.

Whistling teakettles

On an email list, a previous post here is being discussed.  It wasn't intended to be a discussion of the post on this blog, or, more to the point, a comment made here, but rather it's turning into a critique of a person who linked to this blog from another blog.  (Confused?  You won't be, after the next episode!)

Oh, the heated teapot of homeschool politics.