But private and homes schools have flourished without government intervention and so we will oppose this kind of government regulation. Smith said home school students already take standardized tests yearly, such as the Stanford Achievement Test and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Each year, if minimal requirements are not met on the exams or in the evaluation, students are placed on a year- long probation. According to Smith, if the child fails to meet the requirements for a second year, he or she must go back to public school. In Smith's opinion, taking the SOLs would not only be excessive, but also intrusive.
SOLs are superfluous.
We don't want to go down the curriculum route and a lot of the home school parents would object, especially the religiously motivated ones. Pat Avery, Assistant Superintendent of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond, agreed that the SOLs would force private schools to change their curriculums. That's why we have our own schools. A spokeswoman for Katzen said it was unlikely the bill would be resuscitated during the current legislative session.