Frankly speaking for ESA homeschoolers

(Chuck Muth, Citizen Outreach) – 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 homeschoolers 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 homeschooler 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 homeschooling freedom by excluding homeschooling from the ESA program.”

Well, thanks for nothing, guys.

Except, Frank and Hammond did NOT exclude homeschooling 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 homeschooler 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 homeschooler. 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 homeschooler.

If you and some other homeschoolers 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 homeschooler, too.

Live and let live.

But worse than Mr. Schnorbus’ accusation in his treatise that I’m hostile to homeschoolers 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 homeschoolers 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 homeschoolers 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 homeschool education as any other taxpayer who chooses to send their kids to a government-owned/union-managed/bureaucrat-run school.

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 homeschooler. 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 homeschooler 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 homeschoolers 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 homeschoolers, 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 homeschooler. And he sure as shootin’ doesn’t speak for me

I am a homeschooler. Frank is a homeschooler.

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 homeschool my kids with it.

Live and let live, Frank. Live and let live.

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and the publisher of www.NevadaNewsandViews.com. He personally blogs at www.MuthsTruths.com.