Homeschooling: to regulate or not to regulate?

A response to the John Oliver segment, and why we should all care about what homeschool regulation might look like (even school-going fams!)

This is a free post. If you value my writing and have the capacity to, please consider becoming a paid member of a life unschooled. You can find out more here.

Some time ago, John Oliver had a segment on his show that was asking whether homeschoolers should be more regulated, and citing the abuse that sometimes happens within the homeschooling community.

Recently, there was an article on the Washington Post about the rise in homeschooling, and this has alarmed many because of how hard it is to actually get reliable statistics about homeschooling, and because 11 states in the US require no documentation if you’re hoping to homeschool, and several more collect statistics that are not reliable.

I have been mulling this over and chatting to others, and I have some thoughts to share.

This piece is not going to be a comprehensive treatment of this topic - it’s a big topic! But I will speak to some of the points raised on all sides, and share some thoughts.

Why we should care.

Homeschoolers are often quiet about the abuse that happens in the name of homeschooling, and I understand this is a hard topic.

Often, we like to dismiss it as being just a tiny minority of homeschoolers, or we like to say it’s not homeschool abuse, but domestic abuse which would be happening regardless of whether the family in question homeschooled or not. After all, many children aren’t obliged to be in any form of childcare until age 5, so abuse could be happening before children enter the school system and nobody would necessarily know.

I think that if there are families out there who are homeschooling, and using homeschool as either a way to hide the abuse, or calling themselves homeschoolers and using it as a justification for abuse, then as homeschoolers or unschoolers, WE SHOULD CARE.

Yes this might be a small percentage, but any amount of children being mistreated or abused or harmed, should be enough for us to care.

Not all homeschooling is the same

That said, I think we should question what the homeschooling community even is, given that homeschoolers can range from school-at-home-ers, to children enrolled in online programs, to radical unschoolers, to fundamentalist religious homeschoolers, to families where homeschooling or unschooling hides degrees of neglect, to secular unschoolers or intersectional home schoolers, to world schoolers, and on and on.

There really doesn’t seem to be one homogenous community, and that is part of the issue. Not only that, but it is notoriously difficult to get accurate numbers on homeschoolers because in many states there simply are none! Nobody is keeping track.

I probably represent a small minority of homeschoolers, and so that is the lens I come at this from: we are secular, inclusive unschoolers who see unschooling as a vehicle for respecting children and for the freedom and liberation of all people.

I believe it is accurate to say this is not what many people who homeschool stand for, at least not explicitly.

This is an important distinction, because we know that abuse is more common in some homeschooling communities than in others (again, this is hard to measure and we often go by the stories of grown homeschoolers than by actual solid statistics.)

Homeschooling is widely misunderstood

That said, I think people misunderstand what homeschooling actually is and why many of us choose it, and this leads to calls for more regulation, the equating of homeschooling by definition as abuse or control, and the general public’s misinformation and assumptions about homeschoolers.

Homeschoolers are so varied and I feel like lumping us all under one umbrella means that a minority who are either abusive, controlling or neglectful, end up tarnishing the rest of us. I understand our reluctance to call them out, if it means also losing our own freedoms, or somehow having our own experiences painted with the same brush.

Ontop of that, the view that the general public has of homeschoolers is, I venture to guess, not a positive one. People don’t get homeschooling. And this is part of why it’s so tough to talk of regulating something that is not widely understood by people who are not doing it!

Abuse, isolation and misinformation does happen in the name of homeschool and this matters.

In fact, The Coalition for Responsible Homeschooling, an organization that pushes for more regulation, is run by grown homeschoolers themselves, and reports on victims of homeschool abuse. As homeschoolers, we tend to ignore the abuse that can happen in our communities because we feel that we are a misunderstood minority, and that admitting to homeschooling not always being in a child’s best interests, can feel like admitting that homeschooling is inherently not okay.

But of course that’s not the case.

This is part of the reason why I am not a homeschooling advocate: I strongly believe in educational choice, in youth autonomy and liberation, and in a life unschooled, but I don’t think home education for all is the answer.

Yes, some homeschoolers are not respectful for children, and we should be speaking up about this. It is absolutely not okay.

I have not gone on a deep dive on all the studies (arguably not many, and not particularly recent) that look at abuse of all children and compare it to the rate of abuse of homeschooled children, but there seems to be no statistical evidence that the homeschool community has a higher rate of abuse than the school-going community.

This is partly, probably, because most states have no data at all on homeschooling.

Based on the accounts of children who were homeschooled and mistreated, there does seem to be a link between neglectful, authoritarian and religious fundamentalist households, and child abuse. We have quite a bit of evidence and accounts on this.

The Coalition for Responsible Homeschooling has facilitated studies that look deeper at the groups of people who are not necessarily homeschooling, but use the lax homeschool regulations to get around issues of truancy, mistreatment and child abuse that would otherwise be reported. Many of these families include adults with prior convictions for domestic abuse, who are allowed to homeschool their children regardless.

Importantly, Black and Latinx/Hispanic homeschoolers are the fastest growing groups, and we have no studies that link these groups of homeschoolers with abuse (as far as I can tell). This might be because many Black and Latino homeschoolers are keeping their children home because they see school, teachers and the curriculum as inherently biased and therefore harmful, and believe they can do a better job.

Abuse happens in school, and in spite of school

Some of the children who are abused in the name of homeschooling, are sadly children of abusers. It would be happening whether they homeschooled or not, which doesn't mean it’s not worrying that they are using homeschool as a shield.

Ontop of that, child abuse happens in schools too. This year (2023), a CBS investigation found that schools systematically covered up sexual abuse, and that 5 million children will be abused in school by the time they graduate.

Bullying and violence between students is clearly still an unresolved issue in schools. The existence of school does not necessarily mean a child won’t experience harm, whether that harm happens in school, among peers or at home. And it doesn’t guarantee that harm will be spotted by teachers, and when it is, that something will be done about it.

Sometimes homeschool abuse is not only individual, it’s systemic

I think it is crucial however to point fingers at where the abuse is systematically happening in homeschool circles, and how while there are isolated cases of people harming children and using lax regulation to not get caught, there is also a bigger systemic issue within some homeschool circles.

Many homeschoolers are raised as part of a wider system run by adults, that encourages and empowers parents to intentionally shield, isolate, emotionally and physically harm, and violate the rights of, their children in the name of a bigger cause: religious extremism, ‘anti-wokeness’ in all its many bizarre manifestations, and the furthering of religious conservative political goals.

The organized actions of these groups can range from infringement of children’s autonomy and rights, to neglect, to not providing them with real opportunities, to outright mistreatment and abuse.

There is quite a bit of documentation on this, not least the lived experiences of grown homeschoolers who are speaking out about their childhood. I highly recommend listening to these grown homeschoolers speak about their abusive childhood environment, and how they were absolutely not isolated cases but the norm for their community.

We saw a similar thing in the documentary Shiny Happy People, which I highly recommend. The abuse and the overriding of the rights of children to an education, to unconditional love and safety, to community, and so on - are embedded within some of the fundamentalist religious communities that exist around the US, and the parental rights that allow these violations are upheld by organizations that not only support and enable these abuses, but also lobby politically and manage to get any and all legislation that attempts to regulate homeschooling dropped.

The Homes School Legal Defense Organization (HSLDA) is a case in point. This organization claims to represent all homeschoolers and their right to homeschool without government interference, and in fact it does. Many of us probably owe our freedoms to their commitment and lobbying for the rights of parents to home educate.

And - they also represent so much that should be problematic for many of us. They routinely fight all manner of attempts at introducing even very bare-bones regulation. They have often sided with fundamentalist Christian organizations and families, and have been involved in things like blocking laws that prohibit corporal punishment, and instructing parents on ways to avoid being reported to CPS for hitting their children.

While we can understand how problematic these systems and influential groups are, and how some of the abusers are in fact being shielded by these organizations, and how regulation might in fact unearth and prevent some of the abuse that happens in fundamentalist religious homeschool communities, as homeschoolers we are almost cornered into supporting the HSLDA because it is in fact very effective at fighting for the rights of ALL homeschoolers, even non-religious ones.

I also think that regulation is unappealing for homeschoolers on many other fronts, and I’m going to say a bit about that below.

The worry is that state regulators wouldn’t get homeschooling or unschooling

I get why we are protective as homeschoolers. We want to be able to do what we think is best with our families, and the idea of government oversight sounds unappealing for several reasons.

Personally, it sounds unappealing because I don’t think they get homeschooling, especially unschooling.

In 2020, Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholet launched a conference calling for an overhaul of regulations on homeschooling. Here is what she says in an interview:

“I’d like to see a radical transformation of the homeschooling regime. I would not ban all homeschooling but would require that parents demonstrate that they have a legitimate reason to homeschool — maybe their child is a super athlete, maybe the schools in their area are terrible. They should also demonstrate that they’re qualified to provide an adequate education and that they would provide an education comparable in scope to what is required in public schools. And for parents granted permission to homeschool, I would still require that their kids participate in at least some school courses and extracurricular activities so they get exposure to a set of alternative values and experiences.”

There is a lot here, and I won’t pick it apart, but if you want to dig deeper on how this statement absolutely fails to understand home education and especially unschooling, I recommend Blake Boles’ conversation with Pat Farenga (this is part 1, I recommend both parts.) which details Elizabeth Bartholet’s arguments during the conference and offers counter-arguments.

It’s a human rights and youth autonomy issue

A basic tenet of democracy should be the ability for people to choose what education looks like for them. Schooling has become increasingly homogenous and regulated, and in service of a dominant paradigm that is essentially imposed on us all.

As humans, we should have the right to opt out. To say no. To do it our way, as long as we are not harming anyone.

I think the key point here is: School does not equal education. It is just ONE WAY to be educated.

And even then, school is often not doing its job. It is not the great equalizer some of us thought it would be (Listen to The Promise, and Nice White Parents) Many schools still aren’t actually teaching children to read (listen to Sold a Story, and look at the literacy statistics in the US here , and at how 54% of US adults have a literacy below 6th grade in 2022). The school to prison pipeline is still very much a thing for some of the most marginalized children.

Trained teachers are not always in the child’s best interest

Being trained to teach is not a guarantee that the children you teach, will actually learn. Nor that they will be safe at home, or at school.

One crucial piece for regulation is that it needs to understand that homeschooling can look many different ways, and that it very often looks nothing like schooling. That you don’t need to be a trained teacher to homeschool - and that often, trained teachers struggle the most as homeschoolers.

So any pieces of regulation would have to have their own ways to keep families accountable, that fully understand and incorporate the way home educated children learn. Rather than measuring homeschooled children up to schooled parameters, they would need to create a unique framework for education that was way more expansive and creative than a simple comparison to schooling.

There is a legitimate fear that children who are following a child-led path, or unschoolers perhaps, could appear to be behind their schooled peers when in fact they are following a different path to education.

BIPOC kids and children from marginalized groups may lose out

As a white, fairly privileged person, I have no issues with more regulation on the basis of protecting children’s basic human rights. My initial rationale is: I have nothing to hide. Even though we are unschoolers, anyone can see my children are thriving and learning.

And, they are non-disabled and have no learning challenges. We live in a state where there are regulations and because I am educated, resourced, culturally aware, and I have a support network, as well as the time and skills, I am able to abide by the regulations needed to show my state they are thriving, while also not compromising their rights (I also live in a state that does have some regulation, but not a while lot, of regulation.)

I understand how regulation to prevent outright neglect and abuse should matter - and I am highly in favor of the US signing the UNCRC and of any regulations that upholds children’s rights to protection, provision AND participation in equal measure, ACROSS THE BOARD. At school, and at home.

All of that said, I think there is a big issue to consider, which few are talking about:

Regulation might actually impact the most marginalized, and have no impact on those who are actually guilty of abuse.

This is a very real possibility. The most marginalized families won’t necessarily be protected by influential organizations like the HSLDA. Black, Indigenous, and other historically marginalized groups have and continue to have difficult histories of being targeted by CPS and might be subject to the biases held by individuals and government agencies.

I have spoken to a few Black and Indigenous parents, who have said that regulation would disproportionately target their families, and could potentially re-enact cycles of trauma and harm. Not only that, but the focus on academics might mean they lose the freedom to educate their children in ways that are culturally-relevant to them.

Meanwhile, actual abusive families may live in communities that protect them and their methods, or might simply fly under the radar because they are perhaps white, or don’t appear suspicious to government regulators, or are fulfilling academic criteria.

On the other hand, one grown homeschooler I spoke to who is also from a marginalized community, and now homeschools her own children, told me that she would happily trade their current freedoms if regulation actually promised to limit neglect, abuse and the actions of people who “have given homeschooling a bad name.” She believes there should be a baseline level of guaranteed learning, that is regulated by the state, especially if this also comes with additional funds and resources for homeschool families.

The problems with more regulation, and the Bill of Rights for Homeschooled Children.

Let me address the Bill of Rights drawn up by the Coalition of Responsible Homeschooling. I won’t speak to every issue I see, and I will say that I support the overwhelming majority of their clauses.

Children’s rights is literally why we homeschool! So my children can have love, safety, acceptance, access to diverse perspectives, access to their community and a range of peers and adults, be respected and heard, and be prepared for life in the world.

My main issue with this document is in the “Education and Future” part, and I think this part betrays a misunderstanding of some of what I said above with regards to schooling not being the same as education, with the way home education and specifically unschooling is for many a vehicle to respect children, centre consent and radically accept our children for who they are.

Section 3 is the one I have the biggest issues with, and it states that all children should have “the right to an education that is, at minimum, academically comparable to what would be available to the child in public school.”

Many of us are pushing back on the primacy of “academics.” We are seeing academic achievement and standards as the Euro-centric construct that it is (made up by the dominant culture to serve specific political and economic interests), and we are questioning whether a) the academic timeline of most schools is actually suitable to all children (I would say no) and b) whether any of the parameters of school should even apply universally to all children, and to our children in particular.

There is much more to say on this - but suffice it to say that I reject that my child has to be “on grade level” every year of their life. I reject that “on grade level” is the absolute best thing for every child, and tells us anything at all about whether they are thriving or not. I reject grades and levels! I reject it all. And as such, I will never be okay with this one point.

So how do we marry all of our concerns about isolated and systemic abuse, and also ensure the most marginalized and oppressed of us, the ones least likely to have the means to seek protection from biased government oversight, and least likely to benefit from regulation, are looked after?

I have some thoughts.

Bear in mind I am clearly not a legislator or an expert in creating regulation. But I can see the needs for *some* regulation, while also recognizing how it could be misused to target not those who are being abusive, but those who are historically marginalized and othered.

So, some points to consider if stricter regulation where to be introduced could be:

• Ensure that regulation focuses on children’s rights over parental rights, across the board. In other words, instead of targeting homeschoolers, let’s ratify the UNCRC on a federal and state level, and look at all the many ways we can center children’s rights - in schools, in society, and at home.

• Create regulations that make allowances for all the many ways children learn at home, ideally crafted by people who have a real understanding of homeschooling and unschooling.

• Hire regulators that truly understand that homeschooling is different to school at home (preferably homeschoolers themselves!), and that are not assessing homeschooled children by the same criteria as schooled children.

• Provide support to homeschoolers with no strings attached.

• Provide funding, resources and all manner of support in exchange for some of the regulation above.

• Educate parents about what homeschooling can look like, and how they can make it work.

Homeschooling can be absolutely life-giving for some children. It can be the difference between being bullied and forced, and feeling safe and free. It can be the difference between a disabled or neurodivergent child feeling excluded and misunderstood, and them feeling seen and respected. It can mean children and their families are able to follow the educational path best suited to them. School can also be all of those things, for children who feel unsafe at home.

I think we can maintain all of that, AND find ways to reduce the potential for abuse, if we focus more heavily on the rights of children and less so on the rights of parents or institutions, whoever they homeschool or go to school.

Thank you for reading!

I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on this.

Fran x