Sen. Ed Maloney discusses SB136 on WLS Radio

Earlier today, Senator Ed Maloney discussed SB 136, the proposed bill to regulate homeschoolers in the State of Illinois, with Cisco Cotto on WLS radio. There is a transcript of the discussion here: http://www.triviumpursuit.com/blog/2011/02/14/transcript-state-senator-edward-maloney-joins-cisco-cotto-on-wls-am-890/comment-page-1/#comment-265978

I have made several attempts to contact Senator Maloney, who actually represents my district. His office in Worth, as listed on his website, is closed, with a big “For Rent” sign in the window. The phone at his office in the Beverly community goes straight to voicemail. Curious? Or perhaps he does not want to hear what his own constituents have to say?

From the interview, it is pretty clear that Maloney wants some sort of regulations for homeschoolers in Illinois. His reasoning of “accountability” is fairly bogus, in my opinion, considering that the accountability in the Illinois public schools is rather suspect when so many students graduate below grade level.

Some of my favorite quotes from the interview:

“I think the state of Illinois is responsible for its citizens and if we have run into situations where … the parents are not being responsible in handling their child’s education, then we have to deal with it.” ~Senator Ed Maloney. –

Hey Sen. Maloney: why don’t you apply this to public school families and leave the homeschoolers alone!

“What I’m saying (is) the state ultimately is responsible for its citizens so if we have problems later on with these children who haven’t been educated in the proper manner then the state ends up dealing with them.” ~Sen. Ed Maloney.

Hey Sen. Maloney – this has been happening with the kids in public schools for decades. I’m thinking the state didn’t do a very good job with many of those kids!

I think Cisco Cotto was spot-on when he said:

“There’s a difference if someone comes to you and goes, ‘Lookit, we’ve got all these thousands of kids that can’t read and write and they’re in and out of jail and they’re having a horrible time and it’s because they were homeschooled.’ Instead, those are the kids who come out of the public schools! And there’s no one who’s sitting here saying we need to actually fix the public schools or at least doing something substantive to do it. If there was a problem that you could diagnose, then maybe the homeschool parents would go, ‘Oh well, we get it, we want to make sure that those things are taken care of.'”

Go read the transcript. You may listen to the podcast from the WLS website at this link: http://citadelcc.vo.llnwd.net/o29/stations/CHICAGO/WLS_AM/Cisco_Cotto/Feb14EdMaloney.mp3