Statement Supporting North Dakota’s House Bill 1070

For Immediate Release: Access to Special Needs Services Benefits Homeschooled Students

Canton, Ma., 3/6/15—Recently introduced legislation would prevent school districts in North Dakota from denying special needs services to homeschooled students. “House Bill 1070 would ensure that homeschooled students with special needs have access to the services they need to grow and thrive,” said Rachel Coleman, Executive Director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. “Barring homeschooled students from special needs services offered through local public schools is detrimental to these children’s development and prevents them from accessing the same opportunities as their peers.”

North Dakota has one of the most supportive laws in the country for homeschooled children with special needs. Homeschooled children who score poorly on their semi-annual standardized tests are tested for special needs to ensure that learning disabilities are identified and appropriate intervention is provided. Parents homeschooling children with special needs develop annual services plans, either privately or through the school district, and submit regular progress reports.

HB 1070 would offer homeschooled students with special needs access to physical, occupational, and speech therapy programs offered by public schools. While federal law requires that some of these programs be open to private school students, there is no corresponding law granting access to homeschooled students. In some rural areas, special needs services may only be available through public schools, limiting homeschooled children’s access.

According to 2011 data from the National Center for Education Statistics, 15% of homeschool parents report homeschooling because of their child’s physical or mental health problems. Homeschooling a child with special needs is no small undertaking. These parents need support and resources, something public schools have the ability to offer. “Granting homeschooled students access to the vital services offered by their local public schools builds cooperation between schools and families, providing both parents and children with needed support,” said Coleman. “By passing House Bill 1070, North Dakota has an opportunity to become become a model for the rest of the country.”

The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices. 

Statement Opposing Arkansas’ House Bill 1381

For Immediate Release: Arkansas’ Homeschool Testing Requirement Benefits Homeschooled Children

Canton, Ma., 3/6/15—With House Bill 1381, Arkansas stands poised to remove its testing requirement for homeschooled students. “Arkansas’ state-mandated testing benefits homeschooled students by giving their parents an objective standard and helpful feedback,” stated Rachel Coleman, Executive Director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. “Removing this testing does Arkansas’ homeschooled students a disservice.”

Arkansas’ homeschool law has no subject requirements and does not require homeschooling parents to provide their children with instruction. Currently, the state’s only requirement is that homeschooled students be tested each year via a nationally recognized norm-referenced achievement test. “This assessment gives parents feedback on their students’ progress, enabling them to homeschool more effectively,” Coleman said. The required testing is organized by the Home School Testing Office and paid for by the Department of Education, thus ensuring that cost is not an issue for families.

In Murphy v. Arkansas (1988), the Eighth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals found that “the state has a compelling interest in ensuring that all its citizens are being adequately educated.” “If the legislature eliminates testing for Arkansas’ homeschooled students, they will have failed in their responsibility to ensure that all Arkansas students—including homeschooled students—are adequately educated,” said Coleman.

The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.

Statement Opposing West Virginia’s HB 2793 and SB 444

For Immediate Release: Removing Accountability is Detrimental to Homeschooled Children

Canton, Ma., 2/26/15—With House Bill 2793 and Senate Bill 444, West Virginia stands poised to remove legal provisions which have protected homeschooled children in the state from educational neglect for the past three decades. “The changes these bills propose are detrimental to the interests of West Virginia’s 9,000 homeschooled students,” stated Rachel Coleman, Executive Director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education.

Under HB 2793 and SB 444, homeschooling parents would no longer be required to submit their children’s annual academic assessments (either standardized tests or portfolio reviews) to the county superintendent. Superintendents would thus have no way to determine whether students are making academic progress, or to ensure that assessments are actually taking place. “Homeschooling parents need to be held accountable for educating their children,” Coleman stated. “Without accountability, homeschooled children can fall through the cracks.”

HB 2793 and SB 444 would also remove the requirement that homeschooling parents have a high school diploma or equivalent. A recent study of homeschool alumni found that respondents whose parents had graduated from high school reported far higher levels of preparedness than those whose parents had not. “Parents’ level of education is extremely important to homeschooled children’s academic success,” Coleman said. “These bills would allow parents to homeschool their children for grades they never completed themselves.”

HB 2793 and SB 444 also remove annual notification of homeschooling and allow homeschooling parents to administer their children’s standardized tests themselves, which can open the door for cheating. “Having standards is a sign of respect for the importance of the task homeschool parents are taking on,” added Coleman. “When these standards are removed, the negative impact on homeschooled students can be profound.”

The Coalition for Responsible Education is a national organization dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices. https://responsiblehomeschooling.org

CRHE Statement on Alecia Pennington and Identification Abuse among Homeschoolers

February 16, 2015

Last week, homeschool alum Alecia Pennington’s story took the social media world and online publications by storm. Alecia released a video on YouTube explaining that, as her parents had never obtained a birth certificate or social security number for her, she is unable to prove her identity as an American citizen, and is thus unable to drive, work, vote, or attend college. We support Alecia’s efforts to obtain the documentation she needs and thank her for calling attention to the documentation problems that homeschooled students can face.

While the vast majority of homeschooling parents obtain birth certificates and social security numbers for their children, a small percentage choose not to do so. Families that plan home births may knowingly fail to file a birth certificate, especially when births are unassisted or attended by unlicensed midwives. Parents are generally required to provide their children’s birth certificates when enrolling their children in school, but only homeschooling parents in five states (AZ, LA, ND, NE, SD) are bound by this requirement. As a result, it is possible for homeschooled children to reach adulthood without ever obtaining identifying documentation.

This problem is not limited to identification documents—homeschool alumni may also lack access to documentation of their academic accomplishments, which in most states is under the complete control of homeschooling parents. Diplomas and transcripts are created and issued by homeschooling parents, which can result in serious problems for homeschool alumni whose parents are abusive or controlling. In some cases, homeschooling parents withhold these documents in order to keep their children living at home long past the age of majority, or to dictate their children’s college or career choices. (Click here to read more.)

While responsible homeschooling parents obtain identification documentation for their children, keep good academic records, and make both available to the kids when they graduate, this is unfortunately not universal. A survey conducted by Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out in 2014 found that 3.65% of respondents had experienced some form of identification abuse. These are situations where parents withhold important identification documents from their adult children, often in an effort to sabotage or manipulate them. (You can read some of these stories here.)

We recommend that parents be required to submit a copy of each child’s birth certificate to the local school district or state board of education when they begin homeschooling. This would hold homeschooling parents to the same standard as public and private school parents and ensure that any missing documents are noticed and addressed. We also recommend implementing annual assessments for homeschooled students, the results to be kept on file at the local school district or by the state board of education, subject to the same standard privacy restrictions as public and private school students’ information. These documents would be made accessible to homeschooled students when they came of age, thus guaranteeing them access to their academic records. Implementing these policy recommendations would be a step toward protecting at-risk homeschooled children from identification abuse without unduly burdening responsible homeschooling parents.

While the vast majority of homeschooling parents obtain standard identification documents for their children and provide their children with the necessary documentation of their education, we should not ignore the homeschooled children in our communities who are the victims of identification abuse.

Signed,
The board of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education
Kathryn Brightbill
Rachel Coleman
Alisa Harris
Kierstyn King
Giselle Palmer
Ryan Stollar

The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a national organization founded by homeschool alumni and dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.

Statement Supporting Kentucky’s Decision to Track Homeschool Transfers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Homeschooling Should Not Be Used to Pad High School Graduation Rates

Canton, Ma.—Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday recently announced that his department will begin tracking the number of high school students who withdraw to be homeschooled. The state raised its compulsory attendance age to 18 beginning in fall 2013, and the Kentucky Department of Education has received complaints about school administrators encouraging parents of dropouts to list their children as homeschooled.

“We applaud Holliday’s decision to ensure that administrators are not using homeschooling to pad their graduation rates,” said Coalition for Responsible Home Education Executive Director Rachel Coleman. The department will be tracking dropout and homeschool transfer numbers in each school district, and will intervene when the numbers appear to be out of order. “This policy is in the best interests of both homeschooled and public schooled students across the state,” Coleman added.

Kentucky is not the first state to have this problem. In 2010, the revelation that administrators in Texas were listing dropouts as homeschool transfers to improve their school ratings led to a state probe. “Closing the home schooling loophole will actually increase the stature of home schooling by removing the current cloud of uncertainty concerning dropout rates,” said Robert Sanborn of Children at Risk about the situation.

In some states, lax homeschooling laws have made it difficult to enforce truancy laws. “I despise the law, because the families I deal with use it as a loophole,” Kalamazoo County attendance officer Jerry Jansma said of Michigan’s lax homeschool law in 2012. “Improved homeschooling laws would make the difference between homeschooling and truancy more clear and compulsory attendance laws easier to enforce,” said Coleman.

“At the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, we believe that homeschooling should be an intentional and child-centered educational option, not a way for administrators or parents to cover up a high school dropout problem,” said Coleman. “We support greater oversight of homeschooling to ensure every homeschooled child receives a good education in a safe home environment.”

The Coalition for Responsible Education is a national organization dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices. https://responsiblehomeschooling.org  

Eleanor Skelton: “I saw no balance”

“My homeschooling put me on the dean’s list in college. But I didn’t know anything about life beyond academics. … My parents focused so much on academics, shunning extracurricular activities, that I had no idea how to do anything else.”

Eleanor SkeltonMy homeschooling put me on the dean’s list in college. But I didn’t know anything about life beyond academics.

I was homeschooled K-12 from 1994-1999 in southeast Texas, from 1999-2003 in rural southwestern Colorado, from 2003 to 2005 in the Dallas metroplex, and from 2006 to 2008 in Colorado Springs. Preschool began by age 2, and I could read Nancy Drew books by the end of first grade.

My parents chose homeschooling for me and my two younger siblings because they had been bullied in public school, and they wanted to shelter us from ungodly influences. The school shootings in the 1990s, especially Columbine, seemed to justify their decision.

We had standardized Iowa testing every odd numbered grade year, and both my sister and I took the ACT and SAT in our junior year of high school. My brother started high school this year. Because my family used the A Beka Academy video distance education program, my sister and I graduated with an accredited high school diploma that colleges recognized.

Texas did not require standardized testing, but my mom did it anyway since she feared she wasn’t prepared to teach us, even with a structured program. But Colorado required both the testing and that my parents send a letter of intent to home-educate to our local school district, describing our curriculum.

Homeschooling prepared me for the university in a strictly academic sense. I maintained a 3.9 GPA while I completed 119 credits during my first three years through courses like calculus and organic chemistry. My parents weren’t surprised, because I had scored in the 90th percentile throughout middle and high school.

English professors praised my critical reading skills, and I tutored general chemistry at the Science Center on campus.

But I knew I was lucky.

I met two sisters through Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse magazine pen pal program in high school. Both of them were homeschooled. They told me they weren’t going to college because they were in training to be mothers. The 20-year-old sister read and wrote short stories at a middle school level. But the younger one’s letters had only first grade vocabulary, and she often confused basic spelling rules. She was 17 years old, and her parents were about to graduate her. Neither one knew mathematics beyond basic algebra.

My study buddy in college was homeschooled and later graduated from her Apostolic Pentecostal church school. Her mother created a high school transcript for her, but our university required she take the GED to earn her bachelor’s although she already had an associate’s degree from the local community college.

She graduated with a bachelor’s in psychology despite constant struggles with spelling and grammar. My friends and I often proofread her papers so she could make it through an assignment. Her mother wrote papers for her associate’s degree. But she felt guilty and inadequate. After community college, she did not allow her mother to interfere again.

But while I could ace courses, I was not prepared to live as an independent adult when my parents told me I could either transfer to Bob Jones University or move out of their house over two years ago. I’d read Harry Potter and asked for a curfew later than 7:30 p.m.

My parents focused so much on academics, shunning extracurricular activities, that I had no idea how to do anything else.

And after I left, I found out that if corporal punishment left marks, it was abusive. I realized my parents made me wear long sleeves and didn’t let me wear bathing suits after spankings with the belt to hide what they had done. Not because government agencies were against the divine plan for discipline of children.

Homeschooling gave me a head start in academics, but I’ve had to catch up culturally and socially the last two years. Figure out how to interact with people. And isolation made my pain invisible.

And although my friends and I were homeschooled to fulfill religious agendas, I saw no balance in the community between undereducation because the world is evil on the one hand and an overemphasis on academia without socialization on the other. 

This is how I came to support homeschool oversight.


Eleanor Skelton was homeschooled from 1994 to 2008 in Texas and Colorado. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.

Statement on the Goochland County School Board

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Homeschool Alumni and Advocates Ask Goochland County School Board To Give Students a Voice in Religious Exemption Policy

Goochland County, Va.—On Tuesday, January 13th, the school board in Goochland County, Virginia, repealed a new policy that would have asked students over age 14 to affirm their personal religious beliefs before granting them a religious exemption from school attendance. Under Virginia’s religious exemption clause, parents remove their children from attendance at school but are exempt from following the academic or assessment requirements of the state’s homeschooling statute.  Now that the school board has repealed its new policy, students no longer have a say in whether they are taught at home under rules that bypass academic requirements.

“The Goochland County school board has done these students a grave disservice,” stated Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. “By conceding to opposition from parents who are unwilling to allow their children to state their own beliefs, the school board has robbed children of their ability to express their own views on school attendance. Children homeschooled under Virginia’s religious exemption clause have a legal right to be heard.”

State law authorizes school districts to grant a religious exemption from school attendance only in cases where both the pupil and the parents have a religious objection to school attendance. In a 2013 Washington Post article, Josh Powell spoke of being educationally neglected at home and begging local school officials to admit him to public high school, but to no avail. The Goochland County school board’s now-repealed policy, which invited students to voice their own beliefs about school attendance, would have prevented parents like Powell’s from denying their children an education against their explicit desires, and it would have brought the school board into compliance with state law.

“At CRHE, we believe that children should be able to give input into their own education, especially when children are taught at home under a religious exemption that allows parents to bypass the regular homeschooling requirements,” said Coleman. “It is long past time to give these children a voice in their own education.”

For more information, see our longer analysis HERE.

The Coalition for Responsible Education is a national organization dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices.  

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Virginia School Boards and the State’s Religious Exemption

Recent events in Goochland County, Virginia, have pitted religious homeschooling parents against the right of their children to have their religious beliefs heard. In Virginia, parents can homeschool through their local school district, with annual notification and testing or portfolio review, or they can obtain a religious exemption from school attendance. During the 2013-2014 school year, school boards across the state granted 6,381 religious exemptions. Obtaining a religious exemption requires both the student and the parents to have a “bona fide” religious objection to school attendance. Over the past several decades, many school boards have failed to ascertain the religious beliefs of the child when granting religious exemptions, instead considering only those of the parents. But when the school board in Goochland County moved to hear the religious beliefs of the students before granting religious exemptions, the students’ parents objected, and the school board has since backed down.

Goochland County’s new policy would have asked students over age 14 to affirm that they personally have a religious objection to school attendance before granting a religious exemption. A student would be allowed to affirm his or her religious objection to school attendance on paper, or, if necessary, in person. State law requires school boards to excuse from school attendance “any pupil who, together with his parents, by reason of bona fide religious training or belief is conscientiously opposed to attendance at school.” According to statistics on the Virginia Department of Education website, Goochland County has 41 students with religious exemptions, 9 of whom are in grades 9-12. The school board’s new policy would have allowed these children to voice their religious beliefs themselves.

However, many homeschooling parents in Goochland County opposed the new policy, arguing that their children shouldn’t have to voice their views in order to obtain the exemption. “I don’t believe the school board has the authority nor should they to interfere with families schooling their children this way,” stated homeschooling parent Doug Pruitt. State and national organizations of homeschooling parents organized opposition to Goochland County’s new religious exemption policy and hundreds of homeschooling parents attended the school board meeting on Tuesday, January 13, where Goochland County voted to repeal its new policy and return to only considering the religious beliefs of the parents when granting religious objections. In this way, the homeschooling lobby prevented homeschooled children from having their voices heard.

Goochland County is not alone. In early January 2014, the school board in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, took steps toward changing its religious exemption policy, which had for years considered only the religious views of parents, but a month later it reversed course in the face of opposition from the homeschooling lobby. Other counties, including Botetourt County and Buckingham County, have reviewed their policies in the last year as well, and they too have faced opposition.

Why the interest in changing policies now, specifically? A 2013 Washington Post article followed the story of Josh Powell, a student exempted from school attendance under Virginia’s religious exemption statute and educationally neglected by his parents. Josh recounted begging officials at Buckingham County Public High School to enroll him, but to no avail. While the University of Virginia School of Law’s Child Advocacy Clinic had concluded in a 2012 report on the religious exemption, “7,000 and Counting,” that it was “rare” for school boards to have any contact at all with the students they granted religious exemptions, Josh’s story put a personal face on this failure and highlighted the negative impact inadequate implementation of the statute can have on children.

In December 2013, the Virginia School Board Association released a policy page recommending “that a school board granting a religious exemption should contact the student and parents annually.” Furthermore, in January 2014 we wrote in support of HJ 92, a resolution which would have called for a study of the implementation of the religious exemption to ensure that children’s voices are heard. While the resolution failed to pass, largely as a result of lobbying from homeschooling parents, some school boards have taken independent action to reevaluate their implementation—only to find themselves opposed by homeschooling parents and the homeschooling lobby.

The Home School Legal Defense Association has maintained that the policy was a violation of state law. In fact, the opposite is true. In footnote 5 of Johnson v. Prince William County School Board (1991), the Virginia Supreme Court stated that “the emphasis [of the statute] is as much on the religious belief of the ‘pupil’ as it is on the beliefs of the parents.” The following year, the Fairfax Circuit Court applied the Johnson ruling to hold that “when children have had sufficient time and experience to develop religious beliefs of their own, their views should be heard.” The court also mentioned that in 1976 the legislature changed the wording of the religious exemption clause from exempting any child “whose parents conscientiously object [to school]” to exempting any child “who, together with his parents” is conscientiously opposed to school attendance. “Under the present statute the parents’ objection appears to be necessary but by no means sufficient,” the court concluded.

The Virginia courts’ decisions are consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion in Yoder v. Wisconsin, which held that a state could not punish Amish parents for truancy violations after the 8th grade when the Amish had a bona fide religious objection to secondary education. Several factors were key to the Court’s decision: first, Amish children would still be able to fully function in the Amish community with only an 8th grade education; and second, this was not a case of Amish children wanting to attend public school and being prevented from doing so by their parents. Justice Stewart wrote that the case “in no way involves any questions regarding the right of the children of Amish parents to attend public high schools, or any other institutions of learning, if they wish to do so.” At no point has the Virginia Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court found that a parent could use their religious beliefs to prevent a mature minor from going to school against the minor’s wishes.

At CRHE, we believe that children should have input on the method of education they receive, especially children homeschooled under religious exemptions that allow parents to bypass regular homeschooling requirements. Indeed, parents homeschooling under Virginia’s religious exemption are not legally required to educate their children. We were pleased to see the school board in Goochland County take steps to bring its religious exemption clause in step with the law, but were saddened to see the board cave to the efforts of homeschooling parents to keep their children from being heard.

Executive Director Rachel Coleman on Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane

This morning Executive Director Rachel Coleman appeared on Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane. Other guests included Motoko Rich of the New York Times and Michael Farris of HSLDA. We are pleased to see this issue gaining more attention.

You can listen to the episode below. Rachel Coleman starts at 14:16.

The deregulation of homeschooling?

For other media coverage of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, click here.

A Homeschool Glossary

Educational philosophies and approaches

John Holt – a former teacher who called for homeschooling as a radical alternative to the school environment of the 1960s, Holt promoted self-directed learning and rights of self-determination for children; he published the first homeschooling newsletter, Growing Without Schooling, from 1977 until his death in 1985

relaxed/eclectic homeschooling – a type of homeschoolingwhere parents (sometimes with the input of their children) obtain curricular materials from various sources; there may be some child-directed learning, generally combined with instruction from the parents or other individuals

school-in-a-box – a type of homeschooling where parents purchase an entire pre-packaged curriculum; there is little academic innovation or child-directed learning

unschooling – a type of homeschooling which is intended to be composed entirely of child-directed learning; parents are viewed as merely ‘facilitators’

worldschooling – a type of homeschooling where the world is intended to be the primary locus of learning; travel experiences typically play an integral role

Some homeschoolers follow a particular curricular philosophy such as:

Charlotte Mason – child learning takes place primarily through ‘real-life’ situations

Classical – intended to replicate a classical education in the liberal arts as practiced by intellectuals beginning in the Middle Ages

Montessori – allows children full access to learning materials with the expectation that they will learn at their own pace

Waldorf – approaches education holistically; primarily values imaginative self-expression

Administration

correspondence school – a school which distributes a complete curriculum to homeschooling families by mail; may refer to private school-in-a-box distributors or to public school programs which dispense state curricular materials to enrolled homebound students

cyber charter – a charter school—that is, a state-funded public school which is self-governed rather than bound to state curriculum—in which homeschooled children may enroll online, taking courses over the internet

educational neglect – legally, the inclusion of educational neglect in a state’s child abuse statute allows social services to become involved in cases of truancy; colloquially, any case where a child’s education does not adequately prepare him or her for a productive life

homeschooling co-op – an informal organization of several homeschooling families where households may meet regularly for group activities such as sports or courses taught by a member parent or other individual

truancy – failure to comply with the state’s compulsory school attendance statute, from which homeschooling under certain conditions is typically presented as an exception

umbrella school – a private or nonpublic school created with the intention of overseeing the individual homeschooling families which serve as its ‘satellite campuses’; umbrella schools are unlikely to exist as brick-and-mortar buildings and are primarily administrative entities, providing little to no supervision of their satellite homeschools

Religious movements

child training – a euphemistic term generally used to refer to a particular style of corporal punishment which involves striking children, often including infants, with an implement until they submit unquestioningly to their parents’ commands

Christian patriarchy – a belief that men should be the heads of households and that women should be submissive and obedient homemakers; gender roles are essentialized and viewed as complementary rather than egalitarian

courtship – an alternative to romantic relationships which are begun and led by the participants; courtship is initiated and supervised primarily by the participants’ parents

home-churching – the practice of holding parent-led religious services at home rather than attending services led by a minister; typically practiced by religious homeschoolers who have some objection to their local church or to church attendance in general

HSLDA – the Home School Legal Defense Association, an organization run by religious homeschoolers which has been primarily responsible for eliminating provisions for homeschooling oversight in many states; homeschooling families may purchase membership in exchange for the promise that HSLDA lawyers will defend them in cases of legal dispute over homeschooling

purity – a belief that experience with both the sexual and the emotional aspects of relationships should be limited to marriage; at ‘purity balls’ girls are urged to promise their fathers that they will not engage in romantic relationships before marriage

Quiverfull – a belief that children are always a blessing and that therefore one should have as many as possible; any attempt to control fertility is seen as a rejection of God’s gifts

stay-at-home daughter – an adult woman who remains under her father’s roof and his authority until she is married; stay-at-home daughters are unlikely to attend college or work outside the home

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