{"id":1787,"date":"2002-04-30T08:01:45","date_gmt":"2002-04-30T13:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=1787"},"modified":"2002-04-30T08:01:45","modified_gmt":"2002-04-30T13:01:45","slug":"resisting_any_n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/04\/30\/resisting_any_n.html","title":{"rendered":"Resisting any number of obvious puns"},"content":{"rendered":"

A local family has a six-year-old who’s doing quite nicely in the third grade, as far as the State of Colorado knows. The only problem is, she’s a dog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The home-brewed scam arises from the home schooling movement in Colorado. According to the way the law reads (and Colorado’s laws are considered middle-of-the-road in laxity\/stringency), kids who are registered as home schoolers must be either tested or “evaluated” annually. The evaluation must be done by a teacher, psychologist, or someone with an education degree, but there’s nothing that specifies how it needs to be done. As a result, a little cottage industry has sprung up in such evaluations, done by mail for $25. Which is what happened in this case.<\/p>\n

As a result, the Colorado legislature is looking at requiring at least some personal contact in evaluations. Lobbyists are up in arms.<\/p>\n

But Goossen said what the Campbells did in signing the evaluation form as parents amounts to a setup of Van Acker. “She did absolutely nothing wrong,” Goossen said. “When you’re in that position, there’s an element of trust you’re putting in people.”
\nGoossen also compared the evaluations by mail to distance learning. “If you wanted to,” Goossen said, “you could falsify information and get a degree for your dog.” <\/p>\n

That’s true, which is why a lot of “distance learning” programs have a bad rep as “diploma mills.”<\/p>\n

The state has an obligation to both the citizenry that kids are being taught appropriately, and to the kids themselves. Under the present system, that obligation is not being met.<\/p>\n

The public — most vociferously the home-schoolers — criticize the job the state does at teaching kids in public schools, but simply shifting the teaching over to parents doesn’t mean the state loses the responsibility to make sure that education takes place. If it cannot confirm to some level of confidence that kids are getting an appropriate education, then it is not doing its job.<\/p>\n

This is not about home schooling as a concept (that’s a subject for another post). It’s about the state’s obligations — for state, read society — to provide education.<\/p>\n

In the old adage of arms control, “Trust, but verify.” The proposed legislation, at a minimum, should be passed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A local family has a six-year-old who’s doing quite nicely in the third grade, as far as the State of Colorado knows. The only problem is, she’s a dog. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16862,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/08\/amazon-states-sales-tax-and-playing-hardball.html","url_meta":{"origin":1787,"position":0},"title":"Amazon, states, sales tax, and playing hardball","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 8-Mar-10 12:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Just received an email from Amazon.com: Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate: We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44291,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/09\/its-all-about-the-fracking.html","url_meta":{"origin":1787,"position":1},"title":"It's all about the fracking","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 9-Aug-14 1:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Colorado communities are getting uppity, deciding that they don't want (or want only with significant restrictions) fracking in their back yards. There's been contention in the courts, and it looked like there'd be some dueling ballot propositions on the matter before a kick-the-can-down-the-road compromise came along this past week.So it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32845,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/21\/colorado-finally-gets-civil-unions.html","url_meta":{"origin":1787,"position":2},"title":"Colorado (finally) gets civil unions","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 21-Mar-13 11:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A major step -- but, honestly, still a \"separate but equal\" kind of arrangement.Reshared post from +The Denver PostColorado civil unions bill signed into law by Gov. John HickenlooperColorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has signed a civil unions bill into law, which will allow same-sex couples to form civil unions beginning\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25372,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/another-incremental-bit-of-federal-crackdown-on-pot-dispensaries-in-colorado.html","url_meta":{"origin":1787,"position":3},"title":"Another incremental bit of federal crackdown on pot dispensaries in Colorado","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Jan-12 6:54am","format":false,"excerpt":"Another incremental bit of federal crackdown on pot dispensaries in ColoradoThis is a weird one. The Feds should be seeking to get rid of medical marijuana shops, under existing drug laws. Instead, they're targeting ones they deem to be too close to schools.Which sounds like a zoning issue -- and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137293,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/09\/a-few-signs-of-hope-for-the-colorado-river.html","url_meta":{"origin":1787,"position":4},"title":"A few signs of hope for the Colorado River","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 9-Oct-18 9:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The states downstream that draw water from the Colorado River -- California being the 800 lb. gorilla, but Arizona and Nevada doing their share -- pull more water from the river than is actually put into it by upstream states (Colorado in particular). The result has been decades of agreements,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129501,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/16\/amazon-will-collect-colorado-sales-tax-as-of-february.html","url_meta":{"origin":1787,"position":5},"title":"Amazon will collect Colorado sales tax as of February","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 16-Jan-16 1:02am","format":false,"excerpt":"Starting next month, Amazon will start collecting state sales taxes (2.9%) on purchases made by Colorado residents; this is the 28th state Amazon will be doing that for.Technically, of course, all Colorado residents under state law are already supposed to keep track of what sales tax they owe on Internet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}