I got a lot of questions about the Trump administration directives on education and their impact on homeschooling families as I spoke at homeschool capitol days across the country this year.
As you might expect, there is significant debate over what these directives will mean, and in full disclosure, I’m not sure anyone has a comprehensive understanding of the entire picture. The interconnectedness of federal and state governments makes measuring the impact difficult even in the most careful analysis.
In spite of that fog, the history of the relationship between the Department of Education and homeschooling is clear: They don’t directly interact with one another. Let me start with the history of the department—as a homeschooling father, I find it instructive to know what the department does and why it was made. Then I’ll unpack what the recent changes may mean.
Congress created the department in 1979 with a number of priorities that included supporting state and local education offerings and achieving better coordination within federal agencies. Another priority, at least on paper, was to make the process more efficient. Now, I’m left scratching my head trying to figure out how the solution to government efficiency at the federal level was to create an entirely new department, but that was the plan.