The Road to Homeschool Freedom is Getting Hairy

Once that sunk in, for the next few months Mark would say, “Same as always?”

After a few haircut cycles, I’d respond with something snippy like, “No, this month I’d like a mohawk.” Or, “I’m thinking about growing out a ponytail.” He eventually got the hint.

Now for the last 20 years, when I sit down in the barber chair, Mark says, “So, how’s the family?”

He cuts. We chat. I pay. We skip the look-in-three-mirrors rigmarole to see if I like the haircut. After dozens of haircut cycles, I don’t need to see how it looks, and I’m happy—as long as it’s off the ears and tapered in back. Sometimes, life’s rhythms and routines follow comforting patterns, soothing the soul.

I tell you this tale because—like in 1974—we live in hairy times. But in this season, I don’t mean in the immense-amount-of-hair sense. Rather, I refer to the informal sense of “alarming or difficult,” as in, “The drive on the homeschool-freedom mountain could be getting really hairy.”

The fourth wave continues

In an article I wrote for the third issue of the 2023 Court Report, I referenced an article written by our founder Mike Farris in 2010, titled, “The third wave of homeschool persecution.” He based that assertion that a crackdown was coming largely on hostile law review and academic journal articles, which have a way of eventually seeping out into the popular press.

I updated Mike’s thesis in my 2023 article with what I call the fourth wave of homeschool opposition, post-COVID. As I wrote then, “We are beginning to see more negative portrayals of homeschooling—especially Christian homeschooling—in well-written and highly produced popular publications.”^[1]

At the time, I knew about The Washington Post series called “Home-School Nation,” which began in May of 2023 and eventually grew into a six-part series of front page, above-the-fold articles. And in June, Amazon Prime had released the miniseries Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets.

It is said that one example is an anecdote, and two examples are interesting, but three examples are a trend. Since that 2023 article, the list of examples has grown and grown, and the trend can no longer be ignored.

This growing opposition began in 2020 with Elizabeth Bartholet’s “80-page screed” masquerading as a law review article, which proposed to ban homeschooling.^[2] Unfortunately for her, it came into the public eye only weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic closed the doors to our nation’s schools. For the next two years, homeschooling was an oasis for many children and parents and was often portrayed as such by the popular press.

Bartholet’s proposal to ban homeschooling took a COVID-season hiatus, but her concluding statement in Harvard Magazine lingered like the grin of the Cheshire Cat: “I think an overwhelming majority of legislators and American people, if they looked at the situation, would conclude that something ought to be done. ”^[3]

Then schools reopened in the fall of 2022. Many children remained home, no longer attending public schools. Numerous articles appeared around the country about how public-school attendance was down. They quoted school administrators worrying about lost funding and schools closing, and talked about ways to lure kids back. Then the anti-homeschooling drumbeat began in earnest in 2023.

The aforementioned Washington Post articles and Amazon miniseries were quickly followed on October 8 by a homeschool-centric episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on the cable channel HBO, which apparently still exists. It was a mixed bag. Sometimes sneering, sometimes complimentary. And Oliver predictably called for increased regulation of homeschooling.

The next article of The Washington Post series hit newsstands after the 2023 Court Report article was published on October 31. And it wasn’t too bad. It mostly talked about the rise of homeschooling, with lots of facts, charts, and data. Then The Washington Post went really dark with their next installment on December 2: “What home schooling hides: A boy tortured and starved by his stepmom.”^[4] The article would more appropriately have been headlined, “How CPS failed a Michigan boy.” But in so many of these articles, a story about a child who is already well known to authorities becomes about homeschooling rather than the failures of child protective services and how to improve the way they investigate and respond.

We grieve when any child is mistreated. But there is simply no evidence that homeschooled kids are at any greater risk of abuse than other children. Several recent studies have found no connection between homeschooling and increased risk of abuse.^[5]

But the desire to do something, anything, to prevent harm for even one child is understandably powerful. And that desire to do something, anything, leads to passing rushed laws against homeschooling that would not have prevented the high-profile case of the moment and won’t prevent future similar cases either. But when they wish to regulate millions in order to maybe, possibly save one, they run afoul of a bedrock principle etched in the Supreme Court opinion from 1979 in Parham v J.R., which relies on age-old legal precedent:

That some parents ‘may at times be acting against the interests of their children,’ creates a basis for caution, but is hardly a reason to discard wholesale those pages of human experience that teach that parents generally do act in the child’s best interests. The statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition.^[6]

Predictably, that December 2 article was followed up by another Washington Post article on December 6: “In Michigan, a new push for greater home-schooling rules, oversight.”^[7] The story referenced a push from HSLDA, Michigan Christian Homeschool Network, and attorney Dave Kallman to prevent a bad law from being introduced and passed.

Then, on December 11, The Washington Post published a mean-spirited hit piece on Brian Ray of National Home Education Research Institute: “How a true believer’s flawed research helped legitimize home schooling.”^[8] The story quoted law professor James Dwyer, a well-known homeschooling critic, as saying the research Ray relies on is “not scientifically valid.”

Back in 2020, I asked Brian to write a chapter for HSLDA’s response to professor Bartholet, which is titled, “A homeschool researcher responds to Harvard professor’s criticism.” In his article, Brian concedes right up front that there’s no such thing as a perfect social science study, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t beneficial. He writes:

Every researcher should clearly state the study’s purpose and objectives; lay out a review of related literature; present a theoretical framework and explain methods; and, finally, present the findings and analysis. A researcher should also note the limitations of his study and provide a discussion of conclusions and interpretations. The conclusions should follow from and be coherent with the study’s methods and limitations.

The study is sound research if the researcher takes all these steps. If things are clearly stated so that they are conceivably reproducible and the conclusions that the scholar states reasonably follow from the methods, findings, and limitations, then it is sound, beneficial, or ‘good’ research.^[9]

The Washington Post published the last article in its series on December 28, recounting the various opinions among homeschooling families and others about the role of government funding of private education, where I asserted that trading liberty for government largesse is a fool’s errand.^[10]

The fourth wave continued in June of 2024, when the editorial board of Scientific American published an article that was neither scientific nor American.^[11] They called for federal regulation of homeschooling. I responded in National Review Online:

There is no general federal power to regulate homeschooling. One might hope that even a journal devoted to science could get basic constitutional principles right, but then one is left to wonder why the editors of a scientific journal would bestir themselves at all to address a nonscientific issue, unless they’re motivated by an ideological agenda unrelated to science.^[12]

In June, ProPublica weighed in, claiming that too much homeschooling liberty is a bad thing.^[13] The article included another story about a child in Illinois, and within days an Illinois legislator said she’d be considering legislation to regulate homeschooling families. HSLDA is working with Illinois Christian Home Educators and others to prepare for any threat to homeschool freedom this legislative season.

The latest move in the fourth wave comes from the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE), which published a model bill, the Make Homeschool Safe Act, in July. CRHE is pushing the bill to state legislatures.

A model bill is sample legislation created to be given as an example for legislatures to enact. Read more about what CRHE’s bill proposes and its harmful effects on homeschool freedom here.

The folks at CRHE are given favorable press by the likes of ProPublica, and they are increasingly being called on and quoted as authorities and “experts” in the mainstream press. In light of this, HSLDA has been working with state organizations and homeschoolfriendly legislators to set the record straight. While we may not see the model bill introduced wholesale, we all need to be prepared for bits of it to find their way into proposed legislation in the coming years.

We will advocate for homeschooling

As we’ve seen, opponents of homeschool freedom are working in new and more coordinated ways to make the pendulum swing in the wrong direction. Which is why we all need to be prepared today for the new challenges that are coming our way. It is up to us to preserve the legacy we have been given so our children and grandchildren will have the liberty to raise, nurture, and educate their children through homeschooling.

Every day, I ask our team for ways to sharpen our work to match our mission focus. That’s because all of us—we at HSLDA and each of you as home educators—need to be sharp as iron to face the coming legislative and legal battles.

I’d like to borrow from the Gunny, who taught me more in a few days 50 years ago than The Washington Post has in a lifetime: When faced with new challenges, we can either choose to adapt, improve, and overcome, or risk losing to the false premises and portrayals of homeschooling that are being advanced with increasing frequency and sophistication in this fourth wave of homeschool opposition.

When this magazine hits your mailbox, a majority of states will be deep into their legislative season. Our team at HSLDA will be there on the front lines, standing beside state organizations, homeschool-friendly legislators, and other advocates to defend homeschool freedom.

We will advocate for homeschooling in the courtrooms. We will advocate for homeschooling in the state houses and in Congress. We will advocate for homeschooling in the media. We will advocate for homeschooling in the underserved and emerging communities. And we will advocate for homeschooling whenever there is a threat to the values that have led to homeschool freedom.

The challenges today are different than those we faced 40 years ago, but with the Lord’s guidance and help, working together in common cause and with the strength we have as an enduring institution, we can have confidence that He will give us all that we need to meet today’s challenges.