WASHINGTON — Home-schooling advocates have a new friend in Washington. Her name is Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican congresswoman from Colorado.

Musgrave was elected last November. Traditionally, congressmen wait a few years before authoring legislation — especially controversial legislation. But Musgrave is the main sponsor of a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, and she's also the principal author of the Home Schooling Nondis-crimination Act.

For Musgrave, supporting the home-schooling legislation flowed naturally from her role as a parent of four children.

“I'm extremely supportive of home schooling. Ultimately, the education of the child is the responsibility of parents,” Musgrave said.

Perhaps no other congressman has the credentials Musgrave has on this issue. A former public-school teacher, Musgrave said she has no malice for hardworking public-school teachers.

“I taught public school right out of college. I am very supportive of public-school teachers,” she said. “When it comes to the well-being of the child, I'm going for the parent.”

It was concern for her youngest child that led to Musgrave's decision to home school.

“There was lax discipline in the school and a lack of academic rigor,” she said. And, she said, the state teacher certification didn't satisfy her concerns.

“[The teachers unions] think a certificate is a guarantee that you can teach,” she said. To Musgrave, that's not always the case.

So Musgrave took her own experiences to the table and offered her bill to correct the imbalances in current law against home schoolers. Currently, she has 57 co-sponsors for the legislation. And Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has introduced the legislation in the Senate.

The act would change several existing laws. Its goals are to:

• clear up confusion over whether colleges can accept home-school graduates who are younger than the state-mandated compulsory attendance age;

• clarify that local school officials are not required to investigate home schoolers with special-needs children if those home schoolers are not receiving federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funds;

• repair the existing Education Savings Accounts, which now limit the participation of home schoolers to those few states where home schools are considered private schools by state law (currently, 18 states recognize home schools as private schools);

• give privacy protections to the records of home schoolers held by public schools;

• ease the restrictive labor laws for home schoolers between ages 14-16 by extending periods of permissible employment (currently, home-schooled students cannot work during normal school hours).

“I know how much of a commitment it takes to home school. I want these home-school kids afforded the same tools as other students,” Musgrave said.

As a state legislator, she had scores of home-school students visit her office. She said they were living proof that home-schooled students were comfortable talking to adults, even at legislative committee meetings.

“Invariably, home-schooling students would have a great deal of poise,” Musgrave said. “In fact, they were less nervous then most of the adults.”

Taking Notice

Musgrave's hard work has caught the attention of home-school advocates.

The Home School Legal Defense Association said Musgrave “should be commended” for offering up the home-schooling bill.

The organization's spokesman, Tom Washburne, said the Home Schooling Nondiscrimination Act would correct federal programs that fail to recognize the home-schooling option.

“Home schooling wasn't thought of when the original bills were written into law,” Washburne said. “This needs to be fixed up. It just needs to be done.”

Washburne said his organization has been working for years to correct all of these laws. The Home Schooling Nondiscrimination Act is an attempt to correct them all at once.

“We took several issues we've been fighting for the last five years. There's no reason that you couldn't make these amendments to separate bills,” Washburne said.

In fact, one piece of the legislation has already been introduced as a stand-alone bill by Minnesota Republican Mark Kennedy. It would amend the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 to protect the privacy of home-schooled students, too.

A problem with the law is its definition of “student,” Kennedy wrote in an op-ed piece for The Hill, a congressional newspaper.

“[The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974] states that such a definition does ‘not include a person who has not been in attendance at such agency or institution,’” Kennedy wrote. “Therefore, children who have not attended the school, such as home-schooled students, are not afforded the same … privacy rights but in many states are still required to provide personal information.”

Washburne said specific privacy problems involving the records of home-schooled students in Minnesota, Missouri and Florida warranted the legislation.

“Because the law does not protect the records, they can often be obtained through freedom-of-infor-mation laws even if the local school would not otherwise make them available. [Kennedy's bill] would afford home-school records the same protections as public-school records,” Washburne said. “This bill is the first step in assuring that home-school records held by the state remain private.”

So far, the National Education Association has not announced any opposition to the bill.

Washburne believes there's no reason for the association to actively oppose the bill, since it merely corrects current legislation so such legislation doesn't discriminate against home schoolers.

But he noted that the National Education Association has shown hostility toward home schoolers for many years.

At the 2002 convention in Dallas, the organization passed a resolution on home schooling. It read: “The National Education Association believes that home-schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience. When home schooling occurs, students enrolled must meet all state requirements. Instruction should be by persons who are licensed by the appropriate state education licensure agency, and a curriculum approved by the state department of education should be used. The association also believes that home-schooled students should not participate in any extracurricular activities in the public schools.”

Washburne again emphasized that the bill shouldn't inspire the National Education Association to actively oppose the bill.

“Most of these things,” he said, “are noncontroversial.”

Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.