On February 15th, I wrote an article about a proposed bill in the Maryland House of Delegates that would create an “advisory council” to watch over and gather data on homeschool families. I don’t think homeschool families want data gathered on them any more than public school families want date gathered on them. On March 18th, WMAL reported that Democrat Delegate Sheila Ruth (Baltimore) has announced that she will not longer push the bill she initially sponsored.

The article reports:

• Why the bill is dead: Ruth’s office has been inundated for weeks by irate parent’s calling and emailing to voice their opposition to the proposed legislation.

• What she’s saying: “There’s no technical reason that I can’t withdraw the bill, but right now, given the toxic environment around this situation, the best possible outcome for everyone is for this bill to die a quiet death … Introducing the bill may have been a mistake but I was genuinely doing something I thought would be helpful, and everything I’ve done since then has been trying to do the right thing as best I can,” wrote Ruth in a letter.

Obviously homeschool parents do not believe the bill would be helpful. The one (possible) benefit of the Covid pandemic is that it woke parents up to what their children were learning in school. That has been responsible for a surge in the number of children who are being homeschooled. Now that homeschooling is catching on, the government wants to get in the middle of it. Hopefully homeschool parents are smart enough not to let that happen.