Cutting of HSAP funding comes back to hurt state

By Robert Heitman and Teresa Heitman

Bills in the Iowa Legislature appear concerned with how Home School Assistance Program (HSAP) funds are allocated. Funding cuts already have taken away our resource teacher with Cedar Rapids HSAP.

This will mean a significant adjustment for our children, one in particular who doesn't handle change well. We will also lose the advantages of a teacher geared to our values, which includes a focus on critical thinking skills.

We have a kindergartener and first-grader open-enrolled in the Cedar Rapids HSAP. We live in Coralville but happily make the trip to Cedar Rapids Wright School once a week to attend classes. We also participate in Cedar Rapids events organized by the HSAP and informally by other members.

Eroding our HSAP's ability to serve our children reduces its value. The requirements and effort may not make enrollment worth it. That will not direct us to put our children in a public school. It will mean abandoning the public system altogether. This would serve only to remove what funding and support our children's participation provides.

As homes chooling grows in this state and across the nation, public schools need to recognize the value of home schoolers in HSAPs: increased diversity of experience, more students and improved standardized outcomes.

We can home-school our children without membership in an HSAP, but the benefits of an HSAP for both our family and your district are significant. We receive the benefit of more resources. The district receives extra funds from the state, fees from us, and increased outcomes-based assessments from high-achieving students. Also:

l We receive the use of a library providing books and resources like microscopes, science kits and math games.

l We receive the expertise of a teacher who evaluates our children for age-appropriate knowledge.

l We receive access to a weekly half-day of classes at a public school, where our kids participate in group activities and an institutional experience they would not understand otherwise.

l Your district receives money from us, including yearly enrollment and curriculum fees and fees for events organized but not funded by the district.

l Your district, Wright School and its PTA receive money from us for our children's participation in book orders, art orders, candy sales, etc., that they would not receive if we were not enrolled in an HSAP.

l Your district receives state funding for our children at 30 percent of what it receives for children enrolled full-time in public K-12. This is a reduction from an original 60 percent. The argument against the 60 percent was that taxpayers pay “too much” for every HSAP child.

Missing from this argument:

1) An analysis of what is “too much,” considering that students enrolled full-time in public schools are not valued the same across the state in either revenue or expenditure per student.

2) Under Iowa law, HSAP-enrolled students are public school students and that gives the district authority to impose state assessments, approval of curriculum and supervision by a certified teacher. If our children must meet public school requirements to receive funding, then they should also receive funding equal to other public school children.

3) If our children were not enrolled in an HSAP, the district would receive nothing for them. My property taxes would go to the state General Fund and be used for other districts.

l Iowa student performance is falling. Homeschoolers can help improve outcomes, but only those enrolled in HSAPs are considered part of the public school system. “Homeschoolers are still achieving well beyond their public school counterparts - no matter what their family background, socioeconomic level, or style of homeschooling” (national Homeschool Progress Report, 2009, www.hslda.org/docs/study/ray2009/2009_Ray_StudyFINAL.pdf

Robert Heitman of Coralville is a systems analyst at University Hospitals in Iowa City. Teresa Heitman has graphic design and Web programming experience and works at West Music in Coralville. They home-school their children.