Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
In many ways, the members of NICHE would probably just want to be left alone. But they’ve discovered that closing themselves off from the world is not likely to have the effects they might hope for.
NICHE is the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators, which acts as a clearinghouse for all things Christian home-school-related. The members, if not the organization itself, also act as a force in monitoring and shaping state and federal legislation concerning home education and intend to influence the outcome of the Iowa caucuses through their staunch support of a socially conservative candidate.
NICHE is “the only statewide organization in Iowa” for Christian home educators, NICHE board member Justin LaVan told Iowa Independent recently. Its mission is “to provide Christ-centered events, communication, and resources to better equip, inform and encourage Iowa home educators to the glory of God!” according to its website.
LaVan said the organization’s several thousand members want to instill in their children a specific value system. “They’re teaching principles of Christian education as opposed to secular education or as opposed to any type of education,” he said. “Education is not neutral.”
In public schools, he said, “a humanism perspective” is taught where “truth is relative.” He said NICHE members took issue with the idea that “we were created from just by happen chance and nature, [that] the whole universe is created by some kind of big bang.” In Christian education, LaVan said, “there is a creator; he created the universe and man in God’s image. There is a purpose beyond ourselves that we’re here for.”
LaVan, an attorney in Des Moines, volunteers his time as the organization’s legislative liaison to ensure that Christian educators are able to continue their work. He said NICHE monitors legislation in Iowa and in Washington, D.C. “We work on different legislative initiatives to lift some of the barriers to home education,” LaVan said. “There’s a lot of paperwork in Iowa that needs to be done. We’ve been trying to work through that with the Iowa legislature and the Department of Education in Iowa, and we’ve been rather successful.” NICHE members can sign up to receive e-mail alerts when relevant legislation comes up for debate, and though the website says, NICHE is “not a lobbying group,” it also says “Homeschooling families must remain diligently involved in local, state, and national government.”
One of NICHE’s primary activities is to sponsor an annual conference that hosts legal and religious experts as keynote speakers, along with up to 50 different workshops on home school projects, according to LaVan. “The conference is educationally related based on biblical home education teaching,” he said, and estimated that 2,000 to 3,000 people showed up at the 2007 conference. Half a dozen of those individuals deserve special mention—that’s because they’re running for president.
Hoping to court these influential socially conservative voters, many of the Republican contenders attended, including Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was represented by his Iowa chairman, Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent evangelical Christian, and California Congressman Duncan Hunter also had a representative, according to LaVan. He said the organization sent invitations to all the candidates to attend, though letting them know they would not be given the floor to speak but could lobby voters at their individual booths.
LaVan said NICHE would not endorse a candidate in the 2008 presidential election, but he has personally declared himself a supporter of Huckabee’s candidacy. The Home School Legal Defense Fund Association (HSLDA) has also endorsed Huckabee and encouraged home educators to support him. Michael Farris, chairman of the board and general counsel for HSLDA, was a keynote speaker at NICHE’s 2007 conference, though HSLDA has no official ties to NICHE, LaVan said.
LaVan said home-schoolers would play an active role in next year’s Iowa caucuses. “What I’ve found in the home school community is that the parents and the teenagers of home school families … are far more active and involved in presidential elections than you would see anywhere else,” he said. “I’ve seen a number of home school parents standing behind one candidate or another, and they get their families involved. It’s highly effective.”
Like Farris, LaVan said home-schooled teens would do much of the groundwork for a candidate. He mentioned a program called Generation Joshua, or Gen J, sponsored by HSLDA. “You get your teens and college-age students involved in politics, and they can get behind a socially conservative candidate and do what they can to support them,” such as making phone calls, going door knocking, or walking in parades, LaVan said. “They’ve been extremely effective. I know they’re actively coordinating things in Iowa. … I think it’s going to have a huge impact on the vote and what’s going on in Iowa. They have a proven track record.”
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