Pendulum Swings as Opponents of Homeschooling Escalate Attacks

What’s happening in Illinois may be the harbinger of a threat that could come to your state soon. Legislators in Springfield are moving toward enacting major restrictions on homeschooling, and they are motivated by a worldview that competes with the ideals championed by HSLDA—trusting parents and promoting freedom.

This just might be the most important battle for homeschooling we’ve fought in a generation. It’s so momentous that we’re sending this special update to explain, not just what is happening, but why.

I also hope to make it clear why we so need your help advocating for homeschool freedom in this critical moment. You can partner with us by becoming an HSLDA member, or by donating to our freedom fund.

Changing times

Homeschooling today is freer in America than it has ever been. But after public schools reopened in 2022, following the Covid-19 times, I have been writing and speaking about how pendulums swing.

If you’re new to homeschooling, you may not be aware of how it was in the bad old days, when homeschooling was illegal in some states, wrongly treated as illegal in many others, and strongly disfavored everywhere else.

Whether veteran or newcomer, I encourage you today to become an activist for homeschool freedom—because the pendulum may be starting to swing in the wrong direction. Only by standing together, with the Lord’s guidance and help, can we resist the loss of the freedom we’ve worked so hard to win over the last three generations.

Illinois committee passes bad bill

Consider, for example, the altered political climate in Illinois.

Thousands of homeschoolers arrived at the capitol in Springfield, Illinois, on the last day of winter, March 19, 2025, to voice opposition to a bill that would make it a crime to turn in homeschool paperwork late. The bill would also permit unelected bureaucrats to promulgate freedom-restricting regulations that would affect homeschoolers and private schools alike.

Officials had to close the capitol after an estimated 8,000 people had been admitted, while hundreds more rallied outside. On the legislature’s website, almost 50,000 people filed witness slips in opposition, while around 400 filed in favor of the bill.

After hearing hours of testimony, including from HSLDA Senior Counsel Will Estrada, the House Education Policy Committee voted 8-4, with one member voting present, to advance the bill.

Estrada told the Chicago Tribune the bill is premised on the false assumption that homeschooled kids “are at greater risk of abuse and neglect.” Also from the same article:

Aziza Butler, a homeschool parent from Chicago’s South Side who used to work in the city’s public school system, argued the bill is based on ‘the underlying assumption’ that education cannot work ‘without legislators and district bureaucrats and school administrators.’

‘This is not just a homeschool issue. This is an issue with our broader education system,’ Butler said. ‘Too often we do not trust parents to take the lead in their children’s education, especially when those parents are Black and brown, and especially when those parents are poor. This bill targets homeschool parents and treats us as criminals, guilty until proven innocent.’

Chris and Aziza Butler

Aziza and her husband Chris are dear friends of mine. We met when I interviewed Chris for HSLDA’s podcast after his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for Congress on the south side of Chicago. His experiences as a pastor and homeschooling dad intrigued me. During the interview, I learned how much he and Aziza are doing to help their community experience the liberating joy of homeschooling.

The battle in Illinois continues. We’ll keep you posted. And if you live in Illinois, please consider joining with Illinois Christian Home Educators in the next phase of our mutual efforts to persuade lawmakers that this bill is a bad idea.

Illinois today is one of the 13 freest states in which to homeschool. The bill’s proponents acknowledge that this opening salvo is merely a camel’s nose under the tent—they hope to add more restrictions in the future.

Illinois is one of the 13 No notice, Low regulation states

Worldviews collide

As I mentioned, the Illinois legislation represents a clash of worldviews. For a prosier explanation, I encourage you to read our most recent issue of the HSLDA Court Report, where you can find an edited version of my speech at our National Leaders’ Conference last fall, called “The Road to Homeschool Freedom is Getting Hairy.”

Meanwhile, here’s the Reader’s Digest version.

HSLDA is a Christian organization, founded by two Christian homeschooling dads, Mike Farris and Mike Smith. HSLDA has always stood on the belief that the Bible gives parents the primary jurisdiction to raise, educate, and nurture children, and that government restrictions that stand in the way of parents carrying out that high duty and obligation must give way to them. While HSLDA is motivated by our biblical worldview, we believe that all parents, whether they share our worldview or not, should enjoy the same liberty we wish to have for ourselves and our children.

On the other hand, here is a thumbnail version of the worldview of our ideological adversaries, including proponents of the bad bill in Illinois. This is my timeline based on what they’ve revealed over the last five years:

2020

In April 2020, Harvard Magazine profiled professor Elizabeth Bartholet’s law review article, “Homeschooling: Parental Rights Absolutism vs. Child Rights to Education and Protection,” in which she calls for a “presumptive ban on homeschooling.”
The online version of the magazine article went viral—ironically just as public schools shut down due to Covid-19.
The law-review article was roundly criticized. As one group of social scientists who study education and homeschooling wrote:
We expected it to be rigorous and fact-based but were sadly disappointed. . . . Upon reviewing Professor Bartholet’s article, we conclude that it suffers from contradictions, factual errors, statements of stereotyping, and a failure seriously to consider that the alternative to homeschooling—public schooling—shares the problems that she attributes to home education.
The world shut down due to Covid-19 almost immediately on publication—and suddenly the whole world was homeschooling—after a fashion.
Two names in the acknowledgment section of professor Bartholet’s law review article stand out—Rachel Coleman and James Dwyer. Remember those names.
- Dwyer is a law professor at William and Mary law school. He is also the co-author, with James Peters, of Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice.
- Coleman is a co-founder of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE).

2022/2023

After public schools reopened in the fall of 2022, the mainstream media began publishing negative articles about homeschooling. As Matthew Hennesey wrote in the Wall Street Journal in December 2023, “the knives are out for homeschooling . . . Somebody somewhere has decided this experiment in liberty has gone on long enough.”

2024

Summer of 2024, CRHE published a model bill called the Make Homeschool Safe Act, which if fully enacted would severely restrict homeschool freedom.

2025

Earlier this year, CRHE pushed a bill in Virginia that would have repealed the religious exemption statute under which thousands homeschool, including all seven of my children.
Also this year: The Homeschool Act was introduced in Illinois.
From CRHE’s “Parental-rights extremism messaging guide”:
For decades, Christian fundamentalists in the United States have worked to enact their regressive ideas about race and gender by using homeschooling to isolate and abuse their own children. Now having honed their tactics, they are moving to enact those ideas on society as a whole.
In February 2025, CRHE briefed Illinois legislators on the Homeschool Act. From the invitation:
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE) will be hosting a presentation for us on Friday, Feb. 21, to discuss the history of the homeschool movement and the aggressive tactics these anti-public school advocates use. CRHE will present on the Parental-Rights Extremism movement, explain its historical roots as a response to school desegregation, and describe the movement’s current goals. Those goals include total deregulation of homeschooling, book bans in public libraries, anti-CRT bills, and other measures against our public schools.

The proponents of the Illinois bad bill are shoots off the Bartholet tree. They see you and me as bad people with bad views who need to be brought to heel.

They conveniently omit that the religious exemption bill they attempted to repeal in Virginia was championed by then-state Senator Douglas Wilder, who went on to become the Commonwealth’s first Black governor. The bill codified the holding of the Supreme Court case Wisconsin v Yoder, which held that Amish parents could opt out of compulsory school attendance.

Professor Bartholet would ban us outright, while her disciples would merely regulate us severely.

Remember James Dwyer? Here’s what he has said about parents: “The only reason the parent child relationship exists is because the state confers legal parenthood . . . It is the state that is empowering parents to do anything with children.”
And earlier this month, the Federalist published an article about his co-author, James Peter, headlined “Liberal Judge Susan Crawford’s Husband Promotes Lawfare Against Homeschool Families”:
But the most egregious part of the book focuses on the authors’ legal recommendations, including ‘using litigation to force legislative action.’ Suing homeschool parents to force a desired outcome represents lawfare at its worst. They argue ‘the state’s empowerment of parents to keep their children out of school, with no meaningful effort to ensure that the children still receive an adequate education and are not subject to maltreatment, effectively denies some children important state benefits that other children receive.’

A season of hope

Watershed moments rarely manifest themselves with such clarity at the time they happen. The danger at this present moment is very clear. Consequently, as advocates for homeschooling, we must defend our belief that homeschooling is good for children, families and society.

As our founder, Mike Farris, recently wrote, “No system of education is perfect, but judging homeschooling’s comprehensive results against any other educational system’s comprehensive results makes it very clear that home education deserves full recognition of its associated rights and constitutional guarantees.”

Our ideological opponents view parents with suspicion and would use the heavy hand of state criminal laws to restrict homeschooling, and as Aziza noted, these restrictions would be added just as Black families and others are moving to homeschooling in meaningful numbers.

Today as I write is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. For the next six months, the hours of daylight will be longer than the night. In my neighborhood, the snowdrops, crocuses, and daffodils are in bloom, and the tulips are not far behind.

It is the season of rebirth and hope. While we may face challenges, David urges us in Psalm 27 to, “Trust in the Lord. Have faith, do not despair. Trust in the Lord.”

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