AUGUSTA – Around 500 parents and children turned out Wednesday to protest a bill that would require home-schooled children to take the state’s standardized achievement test.

Filling four hearing rooms in the State Office Building during the legislative hearing, many of them listened to testimony over an intercom system.

They came to testify against legislation proposed by Sen. Peter Mills, R-Cornville, that would have required all home-schooled children to take the Maine Educational Assessment, the state’s standardized test given to all fourth-, eighth- and 11th-graders.

At the start of the hearing, Mills backed down and called for the creation of a study commission to look at state regulations governing the approval of home schooling. From just a half-dozen home-schooled children in 1981 in Maine, there are roughly 4,100 today, and the number is growing by 200 to 300 a year, according to the Maine Department of Education.

A lawyer who has handled divorce and custody cases, Mills said he has seen instances in which parents insisted on home schooling their children though the parents were incapable of adequately educating their offspring.

“There are children being left behind,” he told the Legislature’s Education Committee. “It won’t do for us to say that we can write those kids off. … Maybe it’s time to set up a new certification process for these groups.”

Ten years ago there were four education department officials reviewing home-schooling applications. After budget cuts during the early 1990s, there is now just one.

While he said he still thinks that it is a good idea to subject all home-schooled children to the MEAs, Mills said, “My major concern is finding the kids who are not thriving in home schools.”

Mills’ backtracking did not stave off critics.

Ed Green of Hope, president of Homeschoolers of Maine, said he opposed the original bill and any move to study home schooling in Maine, “because I believe that existing laws and guidelines provide an adequate amount of oversight and accountability.”

“If there are some children who are not doing well, then organizations like ours would be interested in hearing from state or local officials about them,” he added. “We are willing to be of assistance.”

In a well-orchestrated attack on Mill’s bill, home schooling supporters cited studies that show home-taught children do as well or better than other children on standardized tests. Because of this evidence, some said no further studies were needed.

Scott Woodruff, a lawyer with the Home School Legal Defense Association in Washington, D.C., said that on the ACT, a standardized college entrance exam, Maine’s overall average score was 22 points, while the average score of home-schooled Maine children was 22.9 in 1998-99.

Sen. Betty Lou Mitchell, R-Etna, co-chairwoman of the education committee, asked Woodruff whether there were no home-schooled children in Maine whose education was neglected.

He answered that he had heard anecdotes but that anecdotes are a poor basis for setting public policy.

Many at the hearing characterized Maine’s laws governing home schooling as strict, especially when compared to other states’ regulations.

Rep. Brian Duprey, R-Hampden, home schools his three daughters. He pointed out that the state already requires annual assessments of home-schooled children, either through a standardized test or by having a state-certified teacher evaluate a child’s “portfolio.”

Duprey also noted that parents have the opportunity to choose whether their children will participate in the MEAs.

Some home-schooling parents adamantly opposed the idea of their children being forced to take the MEAs. Instead of tailoring education to their children’s needs, the requirement might mean the parents would have to tailor their lessons to the test’s content, they said.

No other state requires home-schooled children to take statewide standardized achievement tests given to public school students.

Nigel Calder of Alna said, “The MEA won’t pick up kids falling through the cracks, but it will pick out those who are not teaching to the Learning Results.” He referred to the state’s new K-12 academic standards with which the MEA are being aligned.

Calder said that if “the agenda” is to force home schooling parents to teach to the Learning Results, then that is what ought to be on the table.

Requiring the MEA of home-schooled children “would clearly force us to start teaching toward that curriculum,” he added. And that would not fit his family’s lifestyle, which includes extended time at sea, Calder said, because he is a free-lance writer for boating magazines.

The Education Department neither supported nor opposed Mills’ proposals. Randy Walker, leader of the department’s learning systems team, testified that it would cost between $56,000 and $112,000 a year to test the roughly 1,124 children who would take the MEAs each year. The cost would depend on whether the children took the test in a school administering the MEA or in a separate location, Walker said.

Edwin “Buzz” Kastuck, the lone education department official reviewing home-schooling applications, told the Bangor Daily News that the state does not now have “standards for measuring achievement” among home-schooled children.