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The Outcome is the Mission
I heard the quote above on a podcast this weekend. The podcast was about the medical profession in the United States. It means that if the outcomes of what a government agency is doing are overwhelmingly negative then it must be the mission of that government agency.
One could say the same about public education. Based on international standards and national testing, our children are not growing academically. In fact, they are losing ground every year. As unions and their progressive allies grow in power, it's clear that the outcome is the mission.
Every year, despite calls for "school choice" and the development of charter schools, the options become fewer. Even those options are coming under more federal guidelines and as they do, parents have less choice in how their children are educated.
There is one more option for many parents and their children. That's homeschooling. Each year, more families are taking that option. These two articles chronicle this increase and why it is happening:
Homeschool Growth: 2023-2024 - JHU Institute for Education Policy
Rise Of Homeschooling Is Making A Transformative Impact On Education
The unions and the education establishment are aware of that trend and want to stop it.
As they usually do, progressives frame destructive motives behind phrasing and language that make it sound like they want to improve and protect the very thing they wish to destroy.
Homeschooling is no different.
That's where the "Make Homeschool Safe Act" comes in. This "model" homeschooling bill was created and is supported by this group:
Home - Coalition for Responsible Home Education This group is supposedly a homeschool advocacy group. However, as soon as you dissect their name, the phrase "responsible home education" is a clue that this group currently believes that many current homeschoolers are not "responsible" and that abuses of the homeschool system are rampant. It's clear this group does NOT advocate for homeschoolers.
While there are abuses in any system, stats indicate that there have been approximately 500 cases of child abuse in homeschool situations since 2000. This is an average of 20 students among millions each year. While no abuse of a child should be tolerated, this number compares to incidents of violence in public schools, 938,000, in just one year, 2019-2020. The student population of public schools is much greater than the number of homeschool students and the number of students affected by violence in the public schools is 12%. Out of 2.5 million homeschool students in 2019-2020 alone, the percent who experienced abuse during that year was is 0.0008%.
Seems the CRHE is making a mountain out of a molehill by citing concerns about abuse of homeschool students. But why?
Why are they so concerned about the supposed "lack of academic progress" of homeschool students when national data shows those students are outperforming those in public schools? The home-educated typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests (Ray, 2010, 2015, 2017; Ray & Hoelzle, 2024).
Research Facts on Homeschooling – National Home Education Research Institute
Finally, why are they concerned about the "qualifications" of parents to educate their children? Statistics show that whether homeschool parents were ever certified teachers is not notably related to their children’s academic achievement, particularly in this day of online educational resources and support.
If one takes a closer look at the CRHE, there's a lot to be learned.
First, the name itself is a clue. Whenever someone wants to reduce any practice they don't approve of they attach the word "responsible" to their group name. This implies that there is something inherently wrong with the practice. "Responsible home education" suggests that what is going on in homeschools across the country is NOT responsible or acceptable and they want homeschoolers to be questioned, monitored, and legislated by government. This will make it harder to do and therefore, people won't want or be able to homeschool. The mission is the restriction of homeschooling.
They go further as they present their support for a model bill called the "Make Homeschool Safe Act." Again, the title of the law suggests that homeschooling is currently UNSAFE and needs to be made safer.
In the article below, the "Make Homeschool Safe Act" is the 23 page "model" legislation proposed by the CRHE. This legislation would go far beyond the requirements of every state government regarding homeschooling. The bill demands so much government oversight and red tape that it would virtually end the practice and dilute the purpose of homeschooling in America.
One national organization that has over 100,000 homeschool members, the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) not only disagrees with the position of the CRHE, but they go one step further and call the "Make Homeschool Safe Act" a threat to homeschooling.
What Homeschoolers Need to Know about the “Make Homeschool Safe Act”
Model bills like this bill are created and pushed by organizations for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's actually to help something become better or to keep people safer. For example, many parental rights advocacy groups have proposed bills in state legislatures that promote transparency in education and the right for parents to control the decisions made regarding the health and education of their children. These bills actually want to get government out of the private decisions of families.
However, whether it is to fund raise for their group, insert themselves into prominent positions when decisions are made, or influence policy makers regarding homeschooling, the Council for Responsible Home Education is promoting a bill that could destroy homeschooling by bringing government into the homeschool model.
Model bills are "Trojan horses" meant to get government control over those things the government currently has little or no control over. The "Make Homeschool Safe Act" will allow state and federal governments to legislate homeschooling out of existence. It's like many of the current "school choice" bills which masquerade as a way for parents to move their children from public schools to private schools. These bills, when passed, create so many government hoops for private schools to "jump" through in order to be certified by the state, they become more like public schools. Parents enroll their children in private schools to escape public school ideology, only to find that their private school has been legislated into enacting the same or similar public-school ideology in their classrooms. The only difference is now the parent is paying via a "tax credit" for the education they were fleeing.
The "Make Homeschool Safe Act" with its regulations on the qualifications of teaching parents, demand for intrusive checks on the school by government bureaucrats, government control over student testing and evaluation of those tests by government bureaucrats, and an initial waiting period to start homeschooling after removing students from public schools, is a way of slowing and then eliminating homeschooling in America. It's not the first time sabotage of homeschooling has been tried.
In Maryland in 2022, a house bill was proposed to create a "homeschool advisory council" for the state. State Delegate Ruth proposed HB 832. Immediately, homeschoolers statewide went into action and the delegate withdrew her bill. They saw what the bill would do to their homeschooling options. See the article below:
Research Facts on Homeschooling – National Home Education Research Institute
Homeschool parents need to become educated about this model bill and work in their local districts and states to oppose it. Pay attention to legislative sessions in the states and look for efforts to take this model bill, adjust it slightly, and then enact it. The bill is actually the way for the government school system to weaponize education against parents whose value system differs from the woke ideology being promoted in many classrooms. It's an ideology that the children belong to the state. Don't believe me? Look at this recent court decision from Vermont:
Or, look at this recent set of "guidelines" put forward from the State of Maryland regarding "telehealth" appointments in public schools:
Upon a closer look, see how Maryland plans to implement telehealth in the schools using these definitions:
Notice the section between the read lines.
Also, look at this section of the policy explanation:
In the explanation circled with red is information about at which age a child can consent to treatment without parents. Your 12-year-old could consent to any treatment suggested by a "health care provider" in the schools. Many legislators in Maryland believe the child belongs to the State. These definitions are proof.
The only place a parent will be able to avoid these overreaching policies will be in a homeschool. Perhaps that is one reason government officials and organizations like CRHE want to make regulations so restrictive on homeschoolers that many homeschools are eliminated.
Many homeschoolers and other parents are hoping with Trump's election and his promise to either get rid of or downsize the U.S. Department of Education that homeschooling and parental rights will be safe. Let's remember that most policies and laws regarding education in a state are made and enforced by that state such as the two example policies in Vermont and Maryland.
Homeschoolers also need to beware of organizations like the Council for Responsible Home Education who don't have the best interests of homeschoolers in mind. Always check the mission statements of these groups and who they have as their staff, board of directors, and corporate sponsors. Parse every sentence and look critically at the words they use in their mission and talking points.
Remember the saying, "the outcome is the mission." The outcome of bills like the Make Homeschool Safe Act will be that homeschooling will be legislated out of existence. It seems that might be the mission of the Council for Responsible Home Education and other groups that support it.
We need to keep them from their ultimate outcome.
Other Information Regarding Homeschooling:
The following articles by Darren Lombardo of the Delmarva Parent Teacher Coalition are excellent resources for those who are interested in homeschooling:
Top Reasons to Exit Public Schools
Homeschool Legal Defense Association: HSLDA - Making homeschooling possible
For more information on the Delmarva Parent Teacher Coalition go to:
Delmarva Parent Teacher Coalition | Making Education Even Better than Imagined
