Legal and Political Homeschool Information -- Military Homeschool

Homeschooling: General Legal and Political information

On This Page
Legal resources concerning homeschooling
National homeschool politics
State Control of Education
Legislative activities concerning homeschooling (chronologically from the most recent)

Legal resources concerning homeschooling

Association of HomeSchool Attorneys (AHSA)
"This list is an opportunity for homeschoolers to contact homeschooling attorneys and experts about homeschooling legal and litigation issues. It is an informal network of attorneys and legal experts that are concerned with litigation pending and threatened against homeschoolers. Its primary purpose is to exchange legal information within the profession, and to educate and support attorneys and experts involved in homeschool litigation."
Association of Home School Attorneys-Custody Discussion Group
"This list is an opportunity for homeschoolers involved in custody issues to contact other homeschoolers for information about homeschooling attorneys and experts, as well as exchange ideas and information about handling custody disputes as a result of homeschooling."
National Home Education Legal Defense (NHELD)
    NHELD bulletins
   Do You Know What Law Enables You To Homeschool? by Deborah Stevenson,
    attorney, NHELD
A to Z Home's Cool Legal Page
Information on HSLDA, a membership organization that often concerns itself with issues other than homeschooling
    from A to Z Home's Cool:
    Home School Legal Defense Association and Foundation Consumer Information
   More Information About Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
   NHEN page on The HSLDA Question
Taking Charge Through Home Schooling: Personal and Political Empowerment
Table of contents

Pt I Beginning Home Schooling
Deciding to Home School
Goals and Curriculums
Special Circumstances

Pt. II Learning Every Day
Alternative Approaches to Learning
Evaluating Learning and Keeping Records
Strengthening Your Home School
Participating in a Support Group
High School and After

Pt. III The Role of Home Schooling in American Education
Political Reality and Political Action
Challenges Facing Home Schoolers

Pt. IV Winning Support for Home Schooling
Political Empowerment of Home Schoolers
Learning about the Politics of Education
Options for Changing Educational Policy
Grassroots Home Schooling Organizations
Common Questions about Home Schooling
Finding Allies
Working with the Media
Research on Home Schooling
Working on the National Level

Part V
Countering Restrictive Laws
Reading and Interpreting Laws Yourself
Working with the Legislature
Home Schooling without a Home Schooling Law
Arguments that Support Reasonable Home Schooling laws
Other Laws

Part VI Making the Best of Current Law
Responding to Public Officials
Working with Public Schools

Conclusion

Appendix A: Resources
B: Bibliography

National homeschool politics

National Outreach
   Checklist for Effective State Homeschooling Associations
    National Home Education Network Unity and Diversity Among Homeschoolers
    Puzzled About Politics
    What is the National Home Education Network?

State Control of Education

Executive Summary

America has two strong, yet conflicting, educational traditions. One is our tradition of educational freedom, and the other is a strong, though shorter, tradition of state-controlled schooling.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's historic decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris upholding school choice programs, more and more families are questioning whether state control over educational decisions is really best. Decades of public school failure in our inner cities have contributed to the recent increase in sentiment against standard state solutions to social problems, and the success of school choice programs in Milwaukee and elsewhere has challenged the conventional wisdom that families with low incomes cannot or will not make good choices for their own children.

In this paper we examine the American tradition of educational freedom, following its ebb and flow at various points in our history. America's ethos of educational freedom has always been strong, tied to our values of pluralism, tolerance, and free inquiry. But our legacy of freedom has suffered repeated assaults by individuals and groups who wish to use state control over schooling to homogenize American culture.

We then examine recent victories for educational freedom, such as the historic Supreme Court decision upholding school choice and the introduction of new school choice programs around the country. Finally, we outline the most critical additional freedoms that parents and families need in the areas of school choice, private school freedom, homeschooling, and religious neutrality.

Recent victories for educational freedom are encouraging but only a beginning. School choice is legal, but it is not widespread, and opponents of educational freedom are threatening to smother existing private schools in a morass of new regulations, which would dictate everything from curriculum to staffing.

Supporters of educational freedom must not win legal battles while losing the public policy war. An educational freedom agenda including choice for all families, religious neutrality, freedom for private schools, and protection for homeschooling families will ensure that educational freedom provides real benefits to families who are harmed by current policies.

Legislative activities concerning homeschooling

After I began blogging, legislative updating of this site decreased. For up-to-date legal reports, see the Home Education Magazine News and Commentary blog.

September 2004

Association of Home School Attorneys-Custody Discussion Group
"This list is an opportunity for homeschoolers involved in custody issues to contact other homeschoolers for information about homeschooling attorneys and experts, as well as exchange ideas and information about handling custody disputes as a result of homeschooling."
How much to comply? An archived discussion at the NHEN message boards
Subsidiarity: a concept taken from Roman Catholic social teaching that fits with the sovereign action of parents homeschooling their children
". . . government should undertake only those initiatives which exceed the capacities of individuals or private groups acting independently."
Ivan Illich's "radical monopoly"
"Beyond some point, compulsory schooling destroys the environment for learning, medical delivery systems dry up the nontherapeutic sources of health, and transportation smothers traffic."

August 2004

Alliance for Intellectual Freedom "is a network of individuals whose objective is to eliminate governmental interference in education, particularly home education, by raising awareness of the unalienable rights of conscience of all parents to raise and educate their children as they see fit."
Pennsylvania:
Families sue over home-school reports

Between February and August 2004 (too many pages, too little concentration)

12 - 16 April American Educational Research Association - 2004 Annual Meeting, San Diego, audio transcript:
Educational Choice versus Civic Responsibility: Are Home Schoolers Embracing Their Responsibilities or Fleeing from Them? (loads slowly; item # SKU 710 -- scroll down)
Through the Lens of Homeschooling: A Response to Michael Apple and Rob Reich is published by Nicky Hardenbergh of the Massachusetts Home Learning Association.
Links to information and discussion about a debate titled Educational Choice vs. Civic Responsibility: Are Home Schoolers Embracing Their Responsibilities or Fleeing from Them? between Dr. Michael Apple (University of Wisconsin) Rob Reich (Stanford University), Scott Somerville (HSLDA) and Brian Ray (NHERI) was published on this site in February.
ILLINOIS: Illinois State University, School Law Quarterly, Vol. 20, #1
Legal Implications of Home School Instruction in Illinois, article begins on page 3
Conclusion: Where Do We Go From Here?
The State of Illinois has the constitutional authority to enact statutory law regulating home school instruction. Illinois is one of the few that have absolutely no regulation of this growing, alternative form of education. Regulations in other states include standardized tests, in-home visits, parent (teacher) certification, notice of intent to home school, and daily record keeping. Nonetheless, until some clear guidelines are established, Illinois school districts will continue to struggle with legal issues posed by home school instruction.
LOUISIANA: House Bill NO. 1238 (PDF): Student/Home Study: Specifies classification to be used by the state Dept. of Education for students in certain home study programs.
"G. Notwithstanding any policy, rule, or regulation of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education or any practice of the state Department of Education to the contrary, any student who meets all applicable requirements of state law governing a student's school attendance from the student's seventh birthday until his eighteenth birthday and who is receiving educational services in a home study program other than as provided by this Section shall be classified by the state Department of Education as being in an "In Home Private School".
Commentary at the Louisiana Home Education Network (LAHEN) website.
"This proposed language has the potential for restricting the educational freedom of home educators because it opens the door to classifying private school homeschoolers as not simply a private school, but a category of home-study. It will be more difficult to retain our freedoms if we allow the DOE to categorize us as other than simply a private school."
National Home Education Legal Defense (NHELD) bulletin menu
MARYLAND: Senate Bill 345 Truancy Intervention discussion
MICHIGAN: 2 Mar 04: Concerning a suit alleging religious discrimination because homeschooled children were not allowed to participate on a school sport team, the Michigan Court of Appeals (Acrobat PDF) stated, "the statutes at issue do not require defendants to allow non-enrolled students to take part in the athletic programs and because we find no religious discrimination or equal protection violation, we affirm the trial court’s dismissal." Michigan comment is courtesy of the No Name Newsletter. Other discussion concerning the finding is at the NHEN message boards.
VIRGINIA: 8 Mar 04, The Virginia Pilot, Home-schooled children deserve high standards shows a backlash against the legislation originally known as HB 675
Countering the opinion in The Virginia Pilot that, "Simply giving birth isn’t qualification enough" is a study by Jay P. Greene of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research showing, though, that greater educational freedom (a comparison of South Carolina and Texas -- click link on page) does not result in lowered test scores for homeschoolers, "Many factors undoubtedly contribute to these differences in test scores, but Texas may have significantly higher test scores than South Carolina in large part because it offers greater education freedom." The Wall Street Journal observed in an article on the study, "After controlling for demographics, spending and other input variables, we find that a state's higher ranking on the index is associated with stronger performance on both the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the SAT."
TENNESSEE: HB2163 (Extends public school testing requirements to students in non-public schools) withdrawn. Discussion at NHEN message boards
KENTUCKY: HB 610 (An act relating to voluntary certification of home schools). Discussion at NHEN message boards.

February 2004

OHIO 26 Nov 03: PDF letter to HSLDA concerning health inspections of Ohio O8 schools. "This county will begin visiting non-chartered, non-tax supported schools as required by law. . . . establishing non-chartered, non-tax supported schools permits their school buildings, in many cases their homes, to a visit from the health department."
VIRGINIA Discussion of HB 675 at the NHEN message boards.
HSLDA stated that, "If passed, this bill [HB 675] will allow families to homeschool with just a high school diploma." Virginia law, as copied at the VHEA website, already provides a way for parents without college degrees to homeschool, "Any parent of any child who will have reached the fifth birthday on or before September 30 of any school year and who has not passed the eighteenth birthday may elect to provide home instruction in lieu of school attendance if he . . . (iii) has enrolled the child or children in a correspondence course approved by the Superintendent of Public Instruction; (iv) provides a program of study or curriculum which, in the judgment of the division superintendent, includes the standards of learning objectives adopted by the Board of Education for language arts and mathematics and provides evidence that the parent is able to provide an adequate education for the child." A Virginia parent explains her situation at the message boards.
NEW JERSEY: Discussion of A1918 at the NHEN Message Boards; information at Unschoolers Network
Dr. Michael Apple of the University of Wisconsin has written an article titled Away With All Teachers: The Cultural Politics of Home Schooling. Discussion concerning this paper is at the NHEN Message Boards. A debate, Educational Choice vs. Civic Responsibility: Are Home Schoolers Embracing Their Responsibilities or Fleeing from Them? is scheduled in April between Dr. Apple, Rob Reich of Stanford University (author of Testing the Boundaries of Parental Authority over Education: The Case of Homeschooling), Scott Somerville of HSLDA and Brian Ray of NHERI (Mr. Farris, the scheduled participant, is unable to attend).
ALASKA: House Bill No. 437: "An Act requiring the Department of Education and Early Development to gather and report information about the school attendance status of every child who is a resident of the state who has been admitted to kindergarten or is of school age."
Discussion is on AHA-Discussion beginning with message number 471
IDAHO: Senate Bill 1233 The Times-News "The legislation in question would change the Juvenile Corrections Act so that law enforcement could go after parents without charging children for truancy. Currently only children are charged with truancy under the act."
ILLINOIS: Peoria Journal Star Home-schoolers need some state oversight (comment from reader: "This is a custody dispute. Apparently that info. doesn't show up until the back page on the hard copy after the headline and the interview of the 11 and 8 year old children.") discussion at AHA-PoliticalAction beginning with message 7222.
MISSISSIPPI: Senate Bill 2056, Agape Press 'Dual Enrollment' Legislation Could Benefit Home-Schooling Families Discussion at AHA-PoliticalAction beginning with message number 7232.
OKLAHOMA: Senate Bill 895 Discussion is on AHA-PoliticalAction beginning with message number 7320 This bill amends current law regarding a driver license or permit
application for any person under the age of 18. Current law requires that the applicant successfully demonstrate a satisfactory reading ability at the eight-grade reading level. This bill amends the law to add "and a satisfactory mathematics ability at the eighth-grade level."
Students not in public school are required to pass an alternative mathematics proficiency test approved by the State Department of Education.
This bill is a concern because: There does not appear to be a logical connection between driving ability and mathematics proficiency.
GEORGIA Why are veteran homeschool “political scene watchers” in Georgia
concerned about goings on in the 2004 Legislative Session? (pdf)
An Open Letter to Federal and State Legislators: A petition to revisit No Child Left Behind
NEW YORK: Home Schoolers Fight N.Y. Bureaucracy
NEW JERSEY: Homeschool families fight N.J. test bill
Movement to Instruct Kids at Home Becoming More Diverse

January 2004

Association of HomeSchool Attorneys (AHSA)
National Home Education Legal Defense (NHELD)
Tidbits about Status of Forces Agreements (for those interested in military history)
In 2002 Professor Rob Reich's book Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education was published by the University of Chicago Press. Chapter six concerns homeschooling, specifically, Testing the Boundaries of Parental Authority over Education: The Case of Homeschooling (Google cache)
The Connecticut Homeschool Network recently hosted a debate between Professor Reich and W. David Zitzkat who "is a fairly well known (locally) conservative pundit and curmudgeon in New Hartford, Connecticut." As of 19 January 2004 the debate was four forum-pages long.
A previous discussion with Professor Reich in August of 2002 took place on the list then known as NHEN-Legislative. That discussion can be read in the Files section of the list renamed as NHEN-Legislative Clearinghouse The copied discussions are in the Files section and are stored in Microsoft Word documents titled "ReichPart1.doc" and "ReichPart2.doc."
Legal Discussion Forum from the NHEN

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