Legislation In Suspension in U.S. House
By Jim Brown
September 18, 2002
(AgapePress) - A home school advocacy group is calling on Congress to resurrect a bill that would end discrimination against home schoolers seeking financial aid and college admissions.
In July, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt led a successful effort to defeat H.R. 4866, the Higher Education Technical Amendments bill. The bill, which would make important corrections to the 1998 Higher Education Law, fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass.
Tom Washburn is with the Home School Legal Defense Association. Washburn says due to the Clinton Administration's faulty interpretation of the 1998 law, colleges were warned that offering admission to a home schooler under the age of 18 who did not have a state-certified diploma would invalidate that institution's federal financial aid program.
"This is a fix that really needs to be made in law, not just by the Department of Educatio," Washburn says. "So we've been working with Congress to see that they make this change in law, to clarify that students who are home-schooled do not jeopardize an institution's eligibility."
Sponsored by California Republican Buck McKeon, H.R. 4866 would ensure colleges would not lose their eligibility if they admitted young home schoolers. Washburn says the House leadership needs to bring the Higher Education Technical Amendments bill up for another vote this month.
"It needs to be done on the suspension calendar, and the way you get that done is by having the Democrats -- Mr. Gephardt, in particular, and the Democrats who voted against this -- stop objecting to the bill being on suspension, and have the vote again and pass it on suspension," he explains.
According to the HSLDA, McKeon's bill would define eligible students to include those who have completed a secondary school education "in a home school setting that is treated as a home school or private school under state law."
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