Both interest in and concerns over homeschool regulations have peaked after a spike in parents pulling their children from classroom after the pandemic.
While homeschooling is nothing new, the numbers have been elevated since COVID-19 shut down schools five years ago, leading some lawmakers and activists to insist more regulation is needed to protect children.
But those guardrails are opposed by some in the homeschool community who say the purpose of the practice in the first place is to keep the government out of what they teach their children.
“The interesting and challenging thing about homeschooling is that it differs state to state to state. So it’s hard to look at the entire educational landscape of the U.S. and identify what someone’s homeschooling experience could be like,” said Tess Ulrey, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education.
“It also brings up the question of how we can look at the entire landscape and make sure that these kids that are being homeschooled are really safely protected from a policy lens,” she added.
Homeschooling surged after the coronavirus did as students were forced online, doubling during the height of the pandemic with 11.1 percent of households homeschooling in the fall of 2020, according to the Census Bureau.
While there were dips in home education attendance after that initial high, some states saw increases again with the John Hopkins Institute for Education Policy’s Homeschool Research Lab finding 90 percent of states that report homeschooling enrollment found increases for the 2023-24 academic year.
But the boom in enrollment has come with increased attention on oversight of the practice.
While dead in the chamber for now, Illinois attempted to pass regulations this spring that would have required homeschool parents to at least have a high school degree, submit a “Homeschool Declaration Form” to their local school district and allow state officials to request evidence of learning materials.
New Jersey is considering a law that would require homeschool parents to give to the state a copy of their curriculum, which would have to follow the New Jersey Student Learning Standards.
And in Minnesota, legislators considered a law that would have forbidden those with a criminal record to homeschool their children, although the language was taken out before final passage.
Proponents of the laws say they are necessary to ensure students reach the academic levels they need and ensure against abuse or other neglect.
“As soon as kids are withdrawn from the education system, there’s no oversight. There’s not really a way to monitor their academic performance, but also, frankly, their safety,” Ulrey said.
“None of the legislation that we are supporting is advocating for a strict and stringent ‘sit in your seat for eight hours a day; type of home education system,” she added. “What higher legislative oversight does do is it helps kids who fall through the educational cracks.”
But while stricter regulations are considered in blue states, red ones seem to be going the opposite way.
Wyoming passed a law this last session taking away the requirement for homeschool families to file every year with the state and instead just register once; states including South Dakota and Arizona also have laws requiring only a single filing.
Montana took away a law that previously required homeschool families to present immunization records of their children upon government request.
Proponents of deregulation say the purpose of homeschool is to let parents make choices and that the data does not bear out to have increased concerns of abuse or neglect around homeschool students compared to public school ones.
“I don’t know that looking at the educational setting of home school and saying, ‘Hey, we have to regulate parents simply because they’re homeschooling and there’s a higher likelihood of abuse or neglect,’ that simply is not reality, and it’s not based in any study that has ever been conducted,” said Kevin Boden, director of the Home School Legal Defense Association International.
“One of the primary reasons that any parent pulls their children from public school is for safety reasons. And so it’s interesting when you think about the abuse or neglect, when you just contrast that with the primary reason a lot of parents are pulling their kids to start with, out of the public education system. So it’s just kind of a non-issue in my perspective,” he added. “And of course, even the question, which a lot of people ask, and I think it’s valid to ask the question, but frankly, it ignores those cases of abuse and neglect that are in public schools themselves.”
Others point out homeschool has become more cooperative than what some might picture from the past.
Many homeschool students are involved in some sort of co-op where they see other students or go to a school certain days of the week, but are still considered homeschooling under many state laws.
“It’s not the case that most of them are entirely isolated, but they’re actually using resources in creative ways,” said Michael Hansen, a senior fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy for the Brookings Institute.
A lot of “homeschoolers do have some kinds of connections to public schools or some other kinds of public resources to help support their education,” he added, such as taking a public-school class or using a public library.
The fight for and against regulations in the homeschool world is far from over as numbers may continue to rise, especially as the school choice movement creates education savings accounts (ESAs) that some states allow homeschool families to participate in, making the practice more accessible.
“We will continue to push back against needless regulation that simply imposes bureaucratic hurdles on families and doesn’t actually meaningfully contribute to a better education for students,” Boden said.
