FRANKLY SPEAKING FOR ESA HOME SCHOOLERS
By Chuck Muth
My Muth’s Truths column
Friday blasting Nevada legislative Republicans for blowing their opportunity to
pass a better ESA (Education Savings Account) bill brought a simmering disagreement
among home schoolers to the boiling point.
In a Yahoo group post on Saturday, Frank Schnorbus, a leader of the Nevada Homeschool Network, described
my column as “a full serving of scorn and ridicule if you happen to be a home schooler
who just plain wants to be LEFT ALONE by the government.”
Total BS, Frank. Total.
In the column, Schnorbus took pride in proclaiming that “During
the 2015 session Nevada Homeschool Network worked hard with Senator (Scott) Hammond to protect home schooling
freedom by excluding home schooling from the ESA program.”
Well, thanks for nothing, guys.
Except, Frank and Hammond did NOT exclude home schooling
from the ESA program. All they did was
play a silly political “what ‘is’ is” word game.
As such, legally you cannot be called a home schooler now if
you home school your children and accept ESA voucher money. Instead you now have to absurdly be called an
“opt-in schooler.”
Sorry, Frank…homey don’t play that.
I am a home schooler.
And if I qualify for and accept the $5,000+ per year per child ESA
voucher that my tax dollars are paying for, I’ll still be a home schooler.
If you and some other home schoolers choose to be “LEFT
ALONE” and not take the ESA money with whatever strings come attached, that’s
your decision…and you’ll still be a home schooler, too.
Live and let live.
But worse than Mr. Schnorbus’ accusation in his treatise
that I’m hostile to home schoolers was his unwarranted attack on Republican State
Treasurer Dan Schwartz for how his
office has handled the implementation of this new, ground-breaking ESA program.
Let’s start the rebuttal with this…
The darned-near criminally insane aspect of the new ESA
program is the metaphysically stupid and asinine requirement that home schoolers
and private schoolers be forced into a public government re-education camp for
100 days in order to qualify for the ESA money that they have paid for through
their taxes and are entitled to.
I mean, to forcibly uproot a child’s existing education
program, whether it be in a private school or home schooling, is nothing short
of major league Stuck on Stupid.
Schwartz knows this.
He understands it.
And he has actively and aggressively worked his keister off
to make this program a reality - despite the 100-day sentence with no time off
for good behavior - for as many Nevada children as humanly possible, as quickly
and painlessly as possible.
I mean, believe me, I’ve been talking with Treasurer
Schwartz about this since the program was signed into law. The man is a CHAMPION of ESA’s. He is a totally unheralded hero.
Indeed, Schwartz and his staff have taken the lemons in this
program that were handed to him by the dummkopfs in the Legislature and tried
to make lemonade out of them.
Yet Mr. Schnorbus slammed Schwartz for “seeking a way to circumvent
the 100 day requirement” and “make (ESA’s) available to as many children as possible.”
Are you kidding me?
We should be slaughtering a calf in honor of Schwartz’s
herculean efforts to make ESA’s available to as many children as possible!
Mr. Schnorbus concluded his dissertation with this:
“Calls for Nevada home schoolers to accept state funding through the ESA program are misguided, and dangerous.”
Bite me, Frank.
I pay my taxes. And
education is COMPULSORY by law.
As such, I am as much entitled to tax dollars to pay for my
children’s home school education as any other taxpayer who chooses to send
their kids to a government-owned/union-
Especially when I read my property tax bill and see that I’m
paying taxes for all kinds of other crap I don’t agree with.
Firefighters and cops, fine.
Court system, fine. But
“Assistance to Indigent Persons,” the “Indigent Accident Fund,” the “State
Cooperative Extension” and the “Las Vegas Artesian Basin” (whatever the heck
that is)?
No way, Jose.
In any event, I’m a home schooler. Proudly.
And if my kids do their time in a government “failure
factory” for 100 days and qualify for an ESA, I’ll still be a home schooler
once they are set free and return to normal.
And I will not call myself an “opt-in schooler” just because
some people decided to play silly semantic games in Carson City. Period.
My main problem with Mr. Schnorbus and other home schoolers
who are afraid to take the ESA money because it comes with strings isn’t so
much that they’re refusing the money because it comes with strings.
No.
My problem is that Mr. Schnorbus purports to speak for ALL
home schoolers, including the large number of us who disagree with him and
don’t share his paranoia.
On this issue, Frank simply doesn’t speak for every home
schooler. And he sure as shootin’
doesn’t speak for me
I am a home schooler.
Frank is a home schooler.
I’m going to take my ESA vouchers. Frank won’t.
I’ll leave Frank alone to home school his kids without the
money.
Frank should leave me alone to home school my kids with it.
Live and let live, Frank.
Live and let live.
HELP WANTED
Are you a home schooler who might be interested in joining a
new Home School Task Force as a project of Citizen Outreach that will be
dedicated not only to protecting the rights of home school parents to direct
the education of their children independent of government interference, but
work to make changes to the ESA program that will make ESAs more readily
available to home schoolers, as well as assure that ESA money can be used for
the widest possible variety of legitimate educational products and service?
Shoot an email expressing your interest to: chuck@citizenoutreach.com
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