World News Group released a report looking at increased number of proposals for more government control over homeschooling.
It specifically looks at cases in the United States and in Great Britain.
Abroad, legislation is scheduled for a second reading in the House of Lords on May 1. Pending approval, it would, among a host of other stipulations, require homeschooling parents to provide extensive documentation of their curriculum plans and notify authorities of any changes within 15 days.
It’s very similar to the homeschool bill currently being debated in Illinois.
AFN spoke with Will Estrada, senior counsel at the Home School Legal Defense Association.
“It's been very interesting to see it first hand on the ground, and it's really good to kind of step back a little bit and look at the big picture. Homeschooling was primarily illegal in most of the states in the United States in the 70s. Then as the late 70s and early 80s came, families began to band together to defend this God-given, some would say 'fundamental' and 'inalienable right' for parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children.”
He said post-pandemic, you could say that homeschooling has become much more “mainstream.”
“And that's where it should be," he added.
It's been over the past couple of years, Estrada said, that we've seen increased efforts to roll back home-school freedom. He described it as a pendulum swinging. Is it swinging away from our unprecedented liberties with homeschooling, or are these efforts for more government control something we'll be able to "beat back" and continue the freedom?
Interestingly, the move against homeschooling is coming from states.
“It’s definitely a case of the government wanting to interfere with the parent-child relationship, but it's a little more nuanced than that. We're not really seeing these attacks at the federal level,” Estrada said.
Even in the Joe Biden Administration, he said, there were really no attacks on homeschooling.
Before Biden, the Barack Obama signed into a law a bill recognizing a homeschool diploma as sufficient for military enlistment.
"So at least at the national level in the United States, homeschooling has been a bipartisan proposition. It's more that we've seen at the state level, there are some legislators who just cannot trust parents and are reluctant to allow homeschooling to continue.”
What's in a name? A lot
Part of that comes from a nonprofit group with a tricky name: Coalition for Responsible Home Education, Estrada said.
“Notwithstanding their kind of friendly name, this is a, a pro-authoritarian, pro-government regulation organization that is really dedicated to, if not banning homeschooling, then making it significantly harder."
Estrada listed several states where his team has seen attempts to limit homeschool freedom: New Hampshire, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Indiana.
But the biggest battle is in Illinois where the Democrat-controlled legislature’s home school restriction-bill, HB 2827, has reached the House floor. The Senate has not passed a version of the bill.
“All of these are bills that have been advanced and promoted by the Coalition for Responsible Home Education and which have threatened to roll back, the hard-fought freedom of parents to be able to direct the education and upbringing of their children in a home school program,” Estrada said.
