According to the HSLDA it is. They are distributing a survey to homeschoolers through several homeschool-testing services in conjunction with the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI). If you order a standardized test (which is mandatory in most states) through BJU Press, Family Learning Organization, Piedmont Education Services, or Seton Testing Services, you can expect to receive a survey along with your test materials.
According to the HSLDSA website, the reason for this test is to provide updated information about homeschooling to the public. They say this is necessary because it has been nearly 10 years since the last survey was completed and therefore the public and the lawmakers have an outdated view of homeschooling and homeschoolers.
While the survey is voluntary, HSLDA is urging homeschoolers to participate “regardless of your children’s abilities.” They promise that testing will be kept confidential.
This request to stand up and be counted sounds quite reasonable, but from the response of homeschoolers on all of my email lists and many online blogs, many are balking at this request to be surveyed. According to the Progressive Homeschoolers of Florida blog, for example, the new survey lacks depths as it leaves out homeschoolers who do no test, or those who do not test through these Christian sources. This means non-Christian homeschoolers are also left out. Among the lack of many important questions, the survey does not even ask why people homeschool. It also assumes that popular purchased curriculums are being used.
For those that do not necessarily have problems with the survey, they have issues with how the surveys will be used and abused. One homeschooler pointed out that a recent columnist used a small-scale homeschooling survey from 2003 to drag homeschoolers through the mud. The first line of the article was “And for you homeschool types that aren’t religious nutcases”. For this reason, homeschoolers feel that any survey especially any survey that is not carefully crafted and without biases to begin with are dangerous to the homeschool community.
I have not seen the survey myself; I have just read reports of what it contains from other homeschoolers. I will probably get it this summer when we administer the CAT to my daughter (at the end of her 6th grade year), still, I feel quite uneasy about filling it out myself. I would prefer that all of the leading homeschool associations get together and figure out survey questions that will give a real and balanced impression of homeschooling. Then again, I still might not fill out such a survey because of the desire to autonomous.
HSLDA: The Bad
HSLDA: The Ugly