Uproar over homeschooling bill

Week three is in the books. Week four we go Monday through Friday, which is a long week to be in session.
This past week I pulled two bills. The first bill I withdrew was a bill requiring home schoolers to test. My intent here was to identify home schoolers who are left behind.
Once identified, my intent was to see if we could have a remedial program to bring these lost home schoolers up to speed and hopefully be able to score high enough on ACT/SAT to get into higher education. Also, to be able to pass the armed forces exam needed to get into the military. That’s it! No coercion or any disrespect for homeschooling.
So what happened? I received hundreds of emails from home schools. I was humbled by how courteous and kind virtually all of the emails were. I also had about as many calls and/or text messages. Of all who contacted me, I have no doubt that they do a bang up job teaching their homeschoolers. It actually was refreshing listening to and reading their testimonials about how they were teaching at home.
I still don’t understand why taking a test would create such an uproar, but it did. The part that hit me the hardest was that they thought I was taking their freedom away, not letting them choose how to educate their children. That’s when I knew I couldn’t go forward with the proposed legislation.
I served 24 years on active duty in the Army so all American citizens could enjoy the freedoms this great country offers. Consequently I withdrew the bill. I apologize for the angst and stress I caused.
The other bill I pulled was capping dairy herds at 7,500 cows. Once this bill hit, everyone was asking me what I had against dairies. I responded, “Nothing, 7,500 milk cows is a huge dairy herd.” These large dairies milk every eight hours, so three times a day. What’s happening is that dairies as big as 25,000 cows are being built, land bought, barns constructed, cows purchased.
The magnitude of 25,000 dairy cows puts a great strain on the counties. Logistics are astronomical. What we should be concerned about is they are going to eliminate the single family farmer, if they haven’t already.
I didn’t realize how much pushback there would be from the mega dairies. I withdrew the bill and will fight this fight another year.
We had crackerbarrels Saturday, one at the vocational college in Rapid City and another at the Super 8 meeting room in Hill City. Both were fun and educational. Basically the feedback I heard was on 5 major concerns. No. 1: Property tax reform. No. 2: Medicaid expansion, No. 3: Missouri River water to the West River communities and the Black Hills. No. 4: Funding infrastructure needs for Ellsworth Air Force Base’s continual expansion. no. 5: Funding for pay raises for the big three—teachers, state employees and health care providers.
I don’t have space to elaborate, but we (Trish, Amber and myself) should drop a property tax bill this week.