By Steven Yates
December 11, 2001

COLUMBIA, SC (AgapePress) - A bill currently before the South Carolina General Assembly poses a direct threat to diplomas earned by home-schooled graduates. A kind of sleeper, H.B. 3364 was passed by the South Carolina House of Representatives before anyone noticed, and is currently before the Senate Education Committee.

H.B. 3364, the sponsors of which include a number of leading conservatives in the General Assembly, was allegedly written to end fraudulent diplomas being obtainable over the Internet. The bill states that no “correspondence diploma or certificate” is acceptable for state licensing, office holding, or employment by state agencies unless “the correspondence program is approved by the state board or department of education in the state in which the school or entity issuing the diploma or certificate has its principle place of business ....”

H.B. 3364 jeopardizes the validity of diplomas issued by home-schooling organizations, private schools, and religious schools, according to the bill’s critics. It makes public schools the “gold standard” for what counts as a valid diploma, and places near-exclusive control over the issuing of valid diplomas in the hands of the S.C. Department of Education.

Accordingly, a mobilization aimed at scuttling H.B. 3364 is under way. Leading the fight is the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools, whose founder and former president is Zan Tyler.

“This bill at best complicates home schooling, and at worst would prevent home schooling graduates from running for state office, attending public universities or becoming employed by state agencies," she says.

She added that the bill “gives the S.C. Department of Education the ability to decide which diploma is valid and which is invalid, and which testing instruments are valid and which are invalid.” Tyler observes that because of the sweeping authority it gives state-sponsored education agencies, H.B. 3364 is as much a threat to private schools and religious schools as it is to parents who are home schooling their children.

According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, the country’s leading organization protecting the legal interests of home-schooling families, these fears are warranted. However benign its original intent, H.B. 3364 would discriminate against home-schooled graduates, because the bill can be interpreted as invalidating every diploma not issued by a public school unless the diploma met the state-imposed requirements outlined in the bill. In short, while H.B. 3364 would not eliminate home schooling, it would place home schooling -- and private and religious schools -- under the thumb of state government.

One of the complaints about H.B. 3364 is that neither SCAIHS nor any other organization of home schoolers was consulted about the bill. Tyler prefers a charitable interpretation of this, observing that it may simply never have occurred to the bill’s sponsors that it would negatively impact on home-schooling families.

Critics of H.B. 3346 concede that the bill’s original intent was sound. There is fraud on the Internet, and this includes fraudulent academic credentials. The government has a legitimate interest in protecting the public from fraud. But according to the critics, H.B. 3346 is not the appropriate measure.

“The bill was intended to outlaw fraudulent Internet diplomas,” Tyler says. “In that case, we need to write a bill that outlaws fraudulent Internet diplomas, not a bill so sweeping and broad that for the first time it would give the state Department of Education the capacity, in principle, to invalidate all diplomas other than those granted by public schools.”

H.B. 3364 will be considered by the State Senate in the session of the General Assembly to begin in January, with public hearings chaired by Republican Senator Mike Fair to be held. In the meantime, concerned citizens are being urged to contact their senators and make sure they are aware of the potential consequences of this bill.