Record-Setting Rally Against Bad Illinois Bill Captures Media Attention

The thousands of families who flocked to the Illinois Capitol last week failed to stop a bill that seeks to impose severe restrictions on homeschooling. But they certainly made their voices heard.

In one of the biggest displays of grassroots advocacy in recent memory—a movement aimed at derailing legislation that threatens homeschooling parents with jail time—parents and students filled the statehouse and captured the focus of media outlets around the globe.

The Times of India, with a coverage area some 8,000 miles distant from Springfield, Illinois, nevertheless considered the saga of House Bill 2827 pertinent to its readers. A recent article about the measure ran under the telling headline: “Parents and lawmakers slam homeschooling bill, calling it an assault on family autonomy.”

Breaking records

HSLDA Senior Counsel Will Estrada said he’s not surprised by all the media attention opposition to the bill is generating. He traveled to Illinois last week to testify against it.

“Of all the legislative battles now in progress, the Illinois Homeschool Act is the story,” he said. “And it’s all because homeschooling families showed up in record numbers.”

In response to a March 19 hearing on the bill in the House Education Policy Committee, an estimated 8,000 homeschool advocates stuffed the Capitol to capacity. For safety reasons, officials finally had to close the building to further entry. At least 500 additional homeschooling parents and children were forced to wait outside the doors, unable to enter the Capitol, but unwilling to leave while the hearing continued.

Homeschool families and advocates set another record by posting more than 50,000 witness slips on the legislature’s website in opposition to the bill. “This kind of response is unprecedented,” Estrada said.

Despite the outcry, the committee voted 8–4, with one member voting present, to advance H.B. 2827. The bill could be voted on by the full House of Representatives at any time. If it were to pass the House, it would then need to go through the entire process all over again in the Illinois Senate. If it passed there, it would go to the Illinois governor for consideration.

Critics for freedom

The bill’s progress defies the criticism of major journalistic entities.

The Chicago Tribune published an editorial denouncing H.B. 2827, particularly for the punishment it would impose on homeschooling parents who fall short of the measure’s ill-defined rules for reporting to the government. The editorial pointed out that “failing to fill out homeschool paperwork properly and on time would be considered a misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail,” and called the bill’s plan to collect data on homeschooling overreach.

“The bill outlines a minimum set of information requirements, but there are no restrictions on what additional data could be mandated, meaning its scope could easily expand,” the editorial board wrote. “We dislike the open-ended nature of this information-collection regimen.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board also criticized H.B. 2827. “Child abuse is horrific wherever it happens, and public schools aren’t immune,” the editorial board wrote. “But there is no evidence of a connection between homeschooling and abuse or neglect, and it’s unclear what purpose the new law advances other than piling on onerous and costly regulation that will result in less homeschooling.”

“That may be the point, as unions that run the public schools back the Homeschool Act,” the board continued. As for the bill’s proposal to collect data on homeschooling, the board simply observed: “Privacy concerns abound.”

Parents echoed these concerns in coverage by other news outlets.

“We want to choose what we teach our kids, how we raise our kids, how we instruct them, so we’re concerned that this is cracking that door open and then the next thing is going to be more requirements,” a rally attendee told Fox News. “This would circumvent those efforts and bring them back under the authority of the public school system.”

The New York Post headlined its coverage by noting that some parents considered the bill a “direct assault on families.”

Aziza Butler, who homeschools in Chicago, told WIFR-TV news regarding the bill: “It’s based on the underlying assumption that education cannot work without legislators and district bureaucrats and school administrators. But the reality is the education cannot work without parents.”

Even church-related outlets reported on the bill to inform parishioners of how the bill could affect families who homeschool for religious reasons. A Catholic website reported that church leaders in Illinois opposed the bill, stating that it “codifies an overreaching state policy that creates an intrusive relationship.”

And a publication for the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church quoted the Rev. Michael Mohr warning about the philosophy behind H.B. 2827. “The underlying presupposition of this bill is that children are wards of the state that are granted to their parents and the various private schools by leave of the state to raise them as the state sees fit, rather than the rearing and educating of children being the responsibility of the parents God gave them,” he said.

Stay the course

Estrada praised the efforts of parents and urged them to remember that the battle to defeat H.B. 2827 is by no means over.

“This is just the beginning of the process,” he said, pointing out that the bill has many hurdles to overcome. If approved by the House, it must still be considered favorably by a Senate committee before it can be brought up for a full vote. 

And there is much that homeschool advocates can do to sway legislators in the meantime.

“Continue to call your own representative and senator,” Estrada said. He also encouraged families to schedule meetings with their elected officials during the first week of April, when lawmakers return to their districts.