Tag: homeschooling

Homeschooling Hits Record Numbers

Whether called homeschooling or DIY education, family-directed learning has been growing in popularity for years in the U.S. alongside disappointment in the rigidity, politicization, and flat-out poor results of traditional public schools. That growth was supercharged during the COVID-19 pandemic when extended closures and bumbled remote learning drove many families to experiment with teaching their own kids. The big question was whether the end of public health controls would also curtail interest in homeschooling. We know now that it didn’t. Americans’ taste for DIY education is on the rise.

Homeschooling Grows at Triple the Pre-Pandemic Rate

“In the 2024-2025 school year, homeschooling continued to grow across the United States, increasing at an average rate of 5.4%,” Angela Watson of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Homeschool Hub wrote earlier this month. “This is nearly three times the pre-pandemic homeschooling growth rate of around 2%.” She added that more than a third of the states from which data is available report their highest homeschooling numbers ever, even exceeding the peaks reached when many public and private schools were closed during the pandemic.

After COVID-19 public health measures were suspended, there was a brief drop in homeschooling as parents and families returned to old habits. That didn’t last long. Homeschooling began surging again in the 2023-2024 school year, with that growth continuing last year. Based on numbers from 22 states (not all states have released data, and many don’t track homeschoolers), four report declines in the ranks of homeschooled children—Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Tennessee—while the others report growth from around 1 percent (Florida and Louisiana) to as high as 21.5 percent (South Carolina).

The latest figures likely underestimate growth in homeschooling since not all DIY families abide by registration requirements where they exist, and because families who use the portable funding available through increasingly popular Education Savings Accounts to pay for homeschooling costs are not counted as homeschoolers in several states, Florida included. As a result, adds Watson, “we consider these counts as the minimum number of homeschooled students in each state.”

Recent estimates put the total homeschooling population at about 6 percent of students across the United States, compared to about 3 percent pre-pandemic. Continued growth necessarily means the share of DIY-educated students is increasing. That’s quite a change for an education approach that was decidedly not mainstream just a generation ago.

“This isn’t a pandemic hangover; it’s a fundamental shift in how American families are thinking about education,” comments Watson.

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United Nations Finally Recognizes Homeschooling — By Demanding Government Ruin It

For decades, families around the world have fought for the freedom to homeschool their children, often against hostile laws, heavy-handed bureaucracies, and, in some cases, outright persecution. I’ve walked alongside many of these families as a global advocate for homeschooling rights, challenging oppressive regimes and urging governments and international institutions to recognize what should be obvious: Parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

That’s why UNESCO’s new report, “Homeschooling Through a Human Rights Lens,” is significant. For the first time, a major United Nations agency has taken homeschooling seriously — not merely as an educational alternative, but as a legitimate expression of the human right to direct the upbringing of one’s children. As a member of the report’s panel of experts, I can attest to the thoughtful and at times tense dialogue that shaped the final document.

While I commend UNESCO for the report, I reject its unwarranted recommendation that calls on governments to register homeschooling families and evaluate them according to state-imposed standards. This recommendation is antithetical to the principles of liberty upon which the United States, and even the United Nations itself, was founded. American homeschoolers are rightly skeptical of any report that calls for greater regulation, but because international policymakers are influenced by international human rights notions, this report has the potential to help families who live in countries where parental freedom in education is not favored.

Millions of families have demonstrated across every continent and culture that homeschooling works — and it works well. To its credit, the UNESCO report acknowledges the diversity of homeschooling approaches, the growing body of research supporting its efficacy, and the sincere motivations of parents who choose this path. It even cautions against assuming that homeschoolers are outliers or abusers. That acknowledgment matters. For decades, the homeschooling movement, even here in the United States, has fought against statist and misbegotten assumptions. At the international level, this report marks an important shift in that conversation.

For all its positive acknowledgments, its recommendation reveals a strong assumption of state supremacy. But families are not wards of the state; they are the primary and natural educators of their children. The oldest of the United Nations’ declarations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), itself acknowledges in Article 26.3 that parents have a “prior right” to decide how their children are educated, and Article 16.3 describes the family as “the natural and fundamental group unit of society.”

Far from being a threat to educational quality or child welfare, homeschooling is often a lifeline for families seeking safety, excellence, or authenticity in education. When parents take responsibility for their children’s education, they are exercising freedom in its purest form: the freedom to order their lives according to conscience and conviction. Homeschooling reflects the principle of self-governance at the heart of our American experiment, and these basic truths are articulated in the UDHR.

While refuting Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholet’s fringe view that homeschooling should be banned, I have explained that the U.N.’s “statist” worldview is rooted in a “positive rights” mindset, which sees government not merely as a protector of liberty but as the central actor in nearly every aspect of human life. Under this paradigm, rights are granted and fulfilled by government, and education becomes a public utility — monitored, managed, and molded by the state.

The dangerous assumptions here are that freedom requires supervision, parents can’t be trusted, and kids are just future workers, or worse, weapons in a war for cultural domination via compelled government indoctrination. However, our Constitution and Declaration of Independence reflect the opposite idea: that rights should limit government power. The First Amendment does not grant the right to speak; it prohibits the government from infringing on it. The Second Amendment doesn’t create a right to bear arms; it forbids the government from restricting it. Our concept of liberty assumes rights come from our Creator and governments are instituted to secure them, not to create them.

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UN Targets Homeschooling

The United Nations just put a giant target on the backs of homeschoolers worldwide.

Under the guise of “human rights,” the U.N.’s controversial “education” bureaucracy is officially demanding that all governments regulate and control home education—if they allow it at all.

The U.N.’s demands include “education standards” for homeschooling, as well as “accountability” to government.

The outfit is also demanding mandatory registration, forced “evaluations” of homeschoolers by authorities, compulsory “home visits,” and much more.

In fact, the agency is even calling for U.N.-approved values and attitudes to be imposed on children across a wide array of issues, with U.N. control of “education content.”

The new U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report on home education, titled “Homeschooling through a human rights lens,” lays out the most draconian global assault on home education in history.

The powerful global agency, long dominated by card-carrying communists, claims governments must bring homeschooling under their thumb—for the benefit of the children, of course.

Unsurprisingly, the top U.N. official involved in the push comes from the “Democratic People’s Republic” of Korea (DPRK), better known as North Korea.

According to the report’s acknowledgements, it was prepared under the “supervision” of Gwang-Chol Chang, chief of the UNESCO Section of Education Policy.

Before joining the U.N. to help transform education globally, Chang worked for the mass-murdering North Korean Communist regime’s “Education Ministry.” The agency operates among the most comprehensive communist brainwashing systems in human history.

And yet, with no sense of the irony, the government controls being demanded by Chang and his minions are said to be necessary to uphold what the global body describes as “international human rights.” Yes, seriously.

If the U.N. agenda is not stopped, parents and even private schools that refuse to comply with the U.N.’s outrageous demands will be accused of violating the “human rights” of children.

The calls for total control are clear—and portrayed as mandatory. “Governments must implement oversight mechanisms such as registration and evaluations,” the report declares (emphasis added), demanding more “regulatory capacity.”

“As homeschooling continues to evolve, adopting a rights-based approach becomes crucial,” the report continues, touting the “need for quality education” as defined by the U.N. through “established minimum education standards and accountability.”

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One American town takes war against homeschooling to enraging extremes

Homeschooling and homeschoolers have been under attack across America in a number of ways over recent years.

Despite those barrages, the industry is growing hugely.

But there have been special exams demanded, invasive interviews, physical exams, odd requirements for homeschool teachers and much more at times. In one case state officials rejected a college diploma submitted by a homeschool teacher because it was written in Latin.

Now one Maine town is going to an extreme – an attempt to bar those connected with homeschooling from serving on a local public board, the school board.

According to the Institute for Justice, “Town officials in Dexter, Maine are considering a proposal that bars homeschool co-op leaders and private-school employees from serving on the local school board.”

While supporters for the barrier claim it would prevent conflicts of interest, the IJ reported it actually is “retaliatory.”

The IJ noted that last summer, Dexter voters recalled school board member Alisha Ames, leader of the town’s only homeschool co-op, Power Source Ministries.

“The recall came after a campaign by the Facebook group ‘Stop the Power Trip,’ which accused her of putting the co-op ahead of public schools,” the IJ noted. “Even if the recall of Ames was warranted, the proposed ordinance goes much further. Instead of addressing one individual, it would bar homeschool co-op leaders and private-school employees from serving on the school board, shutting out many other residents from their right to serve their community.”

The backlash already has begun. State Rep. Heidi Sampson, of the Maine Education Initiative, warned town officials in a letter they are refusing to abide by First Amendment precedents, and that “exposes the town to significant liability.”

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New Jersey Democrats Want to Force DEI and Wellness Checks on Homeschooled Children

Democrats in New Jersey are being accused of trying to mandate DEI instruction for students who are homeschooled because parents want to escape the state’s mandated brainwashing.

In an article for The Daily Economy, Corey DeAngelis said that there is more than meets the eye to some proposed state legislation.

DeAngelis said Assembly Bill 5825, which purports to ensure “oversight of home education programs,” is actually “a power grab that threatens the very foundation of parental rights.”

“The parent or guardian shall submit a copy of the curriculum that will be utilized in the home education program, which shall be aligned with the New Jersey Student Learning Standards,” the bill reads.

The catch, he noted, was that diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum is as integral a part of state standards as reading, writing and arithmetic.

Assembly Bill 5796 calls for a child who is homeschooled to be inspected annually by an official of the school district in which that child’s family lives and undergo “a general health and wellness check.” The bill says the individual inspecting the child should be a counselor, social worker, or nurse.

DeAngelis said that putting parents under the thumb of the very educators they have sought to distance themselves from is an attempt to drag “homeschoolers into the same ideological quagmire they sought to avoid.”

“Parents who’ve chosen to educate children independently often do so to avoid the heavily political worldviews imposed in government classrooms. By effectively compelling homeschooling families to parrot political narratives on race, gender, and identity, such mandates confirm the odd ownership many Democrats feel over people’s kids,” he wrote.

Tethering homeschooling families to the schools they fled suggests New Jersey Democrats believe “government school administrators, not parents, hold ultimate authority over a child’s upbringing.”

“The Democrats are inserting the government as a wedge between children and their families,” DeAngelis wrote.

Will Estrada, senior counsel at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, said to Reason that no states force homeschoolers to align with public school curriculum.

He noted that the curriculum imposed by a state is often the reason parents opt for homeschooling.

Estrada also said that “public schools are there to educate children enrolled in the public school, not to do health and wellness checks on children in the community at large.”

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New Jersey Lawmakers Are Considering 2 Bills To Heavily Regulate Homeschooling

New Jersey has as many as 94,518 homeschooled students, according to 2022 data from the National Home Education Research Institute. A series of bills being considered by the New Jersey Legislature aim to heavily regulate homeschooling and restrict parents’ and students’ educational freedom in the state.

In June, Assemblyman Sterley S. Stanley (D–East Brunswick) introduced Assembly Bill 5825, which would require all homeschooling parents at the beginning of the school year to send a letter to the local school district’s superintendent that includes the name and age of the student and the name of the instructor administering the home education program. Parents will also be mandated to share a copy of the homeschooling curriculum, “which shall be aligned with the New Jersey Student Learning Standards.” In addition to setting requirements for mathematics and science, state learning standards require lesson plans to cover issues such as climate change and diversity, equity, and inclusion in K-12 classrooms.

The bill would also require supervisors of the homeschooling program to maintain a portfolio of student records, such as writing samples, worksheets, and reading lists. The portfolio, which is to be submitted to the district superintendent annually, must also include a written evaluation of the student’s educational progress by a qualified evaluator. That person can be a licensed psychologist or teacher but not the student’s parent or guardian.

New Jersey is one of 12 states that don’t require families to check in with, obtain approval from, or file with the government to legally homeschool. Will Estrada, senior counsel at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, tells Reason that no states currently require a homeschool curriculum to align with the public schools. Many parents, he adds, have pulled their children out of public school specifically because the public education system’s one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for their child’s individualized needs.

New Jersey is also considering A.B. 5796. Introduced by Assemblyman Cody D. Miller (D–Turnersville) in June, the bill requires homeschooling families to annually meet with a public school official for a basic child welfare check.

While preventing abuse is a noble goal, lawmakers’ concerns over the welfare of homeschoolers appear to be misguided. Estrada points to a 2022 peer-reviewed study that found homeschooled children do not face higher rates of abuse and neglect. The study incorporated nationally representative data from 1,253 “previously homeschooled and conventionally schooled (public and private schools) adults,” who were asked to anonymously report about school-age experiences of abuse and neglect. The survey found that the type of school students go to “is a non-issue” in determining the likelihood of abuse “after considering the role played by demographics” such as family structure, years in foster care, large family size, and household poverty. The report’s findings are supported by a 2017 study, which found that “legally homeschooled students are 40% less likely to die by child abuse or neglect than the average student nationally.”

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NJ to Consider Bill that Would Mandate Monitoring and Publishing Data of Homeschoolers

The New Jersey Senate is set to consider a bill on Thursday that would require families who homeschool their children to register with their local governments and the governments to publish their data.

Senate Bill 1796 (SB 1796), sponsored by New Jersey state Sen. Angela McKnight (D) would require a “parent or guardian to annually notify” their local school district, in written form, of their intention to homeschool their children.

“The letter shall include the name, date of birth, and grade level of the child, and the name of the person who will provide instruction to the child,” the latest version of the bill’s text reads.

Under SB 1796, the school district will be required to “annually compile and make available for public inspection on its website information concerning the number of children who reside in the district who are being home-schooled” and what grades they are in. It does not include any provisions to protect the privacy of the individual children or families in question and does not provide a legal definition for the term “homeschool,” which opponents have observed does not formally exist in New Jersey law.

The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which opposes the bill, alerted its members on Tuesday that on Thursday, June 5, a legislative hearing will be held regarding SB 1796. The bill appears on the docket for a New Jersey Senate Education Committee hearing scheduled for that day.

The HSLDA opposed the bill on the grounds that it would create “pointless and burdensome red tape”:

Senate Bill 1796 would require every homeschool family in New Jersey to file a letter with their public school superintendent expressing their intent to homeschool their children. The birth date and grade level of each child would be required as well, and the bill provides no privacy protection.

In a post on X, HSLDA encouraged homeschool families in the state to “call or email” their state senator and to ask them to oppose SB 1796.

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Homeschooling Is Our Best Defense Against the State

There’s a battle going on right now in our neighboring state of Illinois concerning the Illinois Homeschool Act. This Act takes the current minimal oversight of homeschoolers in Illinois and places families at risk of violation by state appointed truant officers right in their homes. The bill would require parents to file a homeschool declaration form as well as an education portfolio to their local school district effectively putting their children under the jurisdiction of the very system from which many of these parents are trying to get away. The form discloses personal information of the child and opens each family to the mercy of a truancy officer who might show up at the child’s home to demand evidence of the child’s education.

The American education system is a disaster on its way to self-destruction. It was always going to fail, but so committed are some Americans to the unrealistic ideal that education can be carried out by a centralized state, they cannot see its failure even when the quality of education has been in consistent decline for decades. This decline is evidenced by the ever-decreasing test performances, lowered quality of education, and the increasingly violent atmosphere of the schools. Homeschooling parents saw the red flags and slowly began to secede from the public schools back in the 1970’s. Since then, homeschooling has experienced a gradual increase, until the pandemic, when the number of homeschooling families doubled.

And something else happened during the pandemic. Parents began to realize with horror that their children couldn’t read, despite being reassured by various “assessments” given by the government schools that their children were on the appropriate level. The fraudulent teaching practices involved in the reading scandal currently rocking the education community were covered extensively by education reporter Emily Hanford in her docu-series Sold A Story. Those running the education system failed American children at a most basic skill: reading. Yet somehow, these same administrators believe they are qualified to offer proper evaluation of children who are being homeschooled.

The fact that education administrators want to do everything they can to keep control over homeschooling families is understandable. Homeschooled children are primarily cared for and educated by their parents. A parent’s first duty is to their children. Raising children is hard work. It is physically and emotionally taxing. The moment you bring your baby into the world there is a shift. Suddenly, each day’s rhythm revolves around your child. For some, this shift grounds them ever-more deeply to a sense of family and belonging. They surrender to the rhythm, welcoming the obligations of training and teaching their offspring, passing on their cultural and religious beliefs that define them as a family, or clan, or community. They lean into the demands and respond by stepping up and deepening their bond.

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Ready for Your Home to Become a Government School?

One hundred years ago, in the case of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Supreme Court struck down an Oregon law that required all children to attend public schools, affirming that parents had the right under the 14th Amendment to direct the upbringing and education of their children.  

The Supreme Court wrote, “The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

This court decision launched the parental rights movement that has become controversial since the pandemic school lockdown.

The longstanding trust in public schools was shattered when parents were given an unprecedented window into what was happening in the classrooms.  The most common response from parents was, “I had no idea!”  Parents who had never known much about what students did all day were suddenly alarmed by the prevalence of radical dogmas.

As a result, many turned to homeschooling, which now has become the fastest growing type of education in the nation, across all demographics.  In the black community, there has been a fivefold increase over a few short months of parents homeschooling their offspring.

As expected, the left is fighting back.  Leftists have no intention of allowing “domestic terrorist” parents to leave the public school system because it would mean loss of government control over what students are taught and over shaping their worldview.

Hillary Clinton popularized the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child,” which signals that children are considered wards of the state, to be reared and educated as the state sees fit.

In Illinois, Democrats have filed a bill that, if passed, will expand vastly the control of government over the education of children.  House Bill 2827, dubbed the Homeschool Bill, would bring government control of home schools as well as private and religious schools.  Home schools and private schools would become de facto government schools. 

Homeschool parents would be required to provide local and state education authorities annual reports with their children’s personal information, including gender identity, without any restrictions on what data would be mandated.  If parents fail to file this home school paperwork properly or in a timely fashion, they could be charged with a Class C misdemeanor and spend up to 30 days in jail. 

The question is, why do public school educators and politicians believe they need personal information on students and families not enrolled in public schools?  The Supreme Court has already ruled that parents have the sole right to direct the education and upbringing of their children. 

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There’s Been a Major Change in Attitude at the Department of Education

Each day, it seems like we learn a little more about the new Donald Trump administration. On Friday, Trump’s Department of Education made it appear as if it might embrace homeschooling. If so, this is a huge change from the Joe Biden administration, which was downright hostile toward any type of education that didn’t involve placing children in public school classrooms and indoctrinating them. 

Trump’s Education Department has a new blog on its website, and the very first post, which was published on Friday, is called “Homeschooling: The Lifeline We Didn’t Know We Needed.” It’s written by Stephanie D. Birch, a mother of two and homeschool advocate.  

It starts by recognizing that every child is unique and learns in different ways at different speeds, a concept that’s seemingly been lost in this country for a while: 

I remember how shocked I was when my three-year-old began reading. I quickly realized the educational pathway we planned would not meet her needs. I saw in her eyes that she had unlocked the magic of reading, and I knew the prescribed educational path would stifle her, leaving her mind yearning for more.  

We set out on an empowering journey that led us to homeschooling – the lifeline we didn’t know we needed. It gave us the space and flexibility to craft an education as unique as our children, nurturing their hearts and minds, and giving them the chance to grow into their best selves.   

Birch goes on to explain that she once fell for the stereotypes about homeschooling herself but that, upon embracing it, it her family saw changes she couldn’t imagine: 

I once believed in stereotypical misconceptions about homeschooling: Children lacking socialization, overly sheltered, and stuck completing worksheets. The truth is, homeschooling allows my children to learn, grow and blossom at a pace tailored to their rhythm for each individual area of study. For the kids who are neurodivergent, creative, or otherwise don’t fit the “traditional” mold, homeschooling allows them to shine. We’ve witnessed our kids thrive in things like STEM, art, robotics, fencing, martial arts, dance, and traveling to new places where they can immerse themselves in different cultures and histories in ways textbooks alone could never teach.  

I will point out that the fine print on the Education Department’s blog says, “Blog articles provide insights on the activities of schools, programs, grantees, and other education stakeholders to promote continuing discussion of educational innovation and reform. Articles do not endorse any educational product, service, curriculum or pedagogy.”  But if the first post is about homeschooling, I’m going to go out on a limb and say we’re heading in the right direction. 

Of course, this comes just a few days after Trump signed the “Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families” executive order, which promotes school choice and supports putting decisions about education back into the hands of a child’s family, regardless of their geographic location or socioeconomic status. And it’s a complete 180 from the last administration, which wanted to have total government control over, well, just about everything, but especially education. 

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