Homeschooling: The Ultimate School Choice
by William Heuer & William Donovan
WHITE PAPER No. 170 | June 2017 PIONEER INSTITUTE
Pioneer’s Mission Pioneer Institute is an independent, non-partisan, privately funded research organization that seeks to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts through civic discourse and intellectually rigorous, data-driven public policy solutions based on free market principles, individual liberty and responsibility, and the ideal of effective, limited and accountable government.
This paper is a publication of Pioneer Edu- Pioneer Health seeks to refocus the Massachu- cation, which seeks to increase the education setts conversation about health care costs away options available to parents and students, drive from government-imposed interventions, toward system-wide reform, and ensure accountability market-based reforms. Current initiatives include in public education. The Center’s work builds driving public discourse on Medicaid; present- on Pioneer’s legacy as a recognized leader in the ing a strong consumer perspective as the state charter public school movement, and as a cham- considers a dramatic overhaul of the health care pion of greater academic rigor in Massachusetts’ payment process; and supporting thoughtful tort elementary and secondary schools. Current ini- reforms. tiatives promote choice and competition, school- based management, and enhanced academic per- formance in public schools.
Pioneer Public seeks limited, accountable gov- Pioneer Opportunity seeks to keep Massachu- ernment by promoting competitive delivery of setts competitive by promoting a healthy business public services, elimination of unnecessary reg- climate, transparent regulation, small business ulation, and a focus on core government func- creation in urban areas and sound environmen- tions. Current initiatives promote reform of how tal and development policy. Current initiatives the state builds, manages, repairs and finances its promote market reforms to increase the supply of transportation assets as well as public employee affordable housing, reduce the cost of doing busi- benefit reform. ness, and revitalize urban areas.
Pioneer Institute is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization funded through the donations of individuals, foundations and businesses committed to the principles Pioneer espouses. To ensure its independence, Pioneer does not accept government grants. HOMESCHOOLING: THE ULTIMATE SCHOOL CHOICE
Table of Contents
Executive Summary______4
History______4
How Many Are There?______6
Who & Why______8
Demographics______9
Diversity______10
The Hybridization Of Homeschooling ______11
The Cost of Homeschooling______12
Federal Policy Impact______12
Summary/Conclusions______13
Recommendations______15
3 HOMESCHOOLING: THE ULTIMATE SCHOOL CHOICE
Executive Summary the universal tenet of homeschoolers is the importance of parental choice and the conviction that parents are best Although many may be surprised at the growth of homes- equipped to make the educational decisions that affect their chooling during the past few decades, the real surprise is prob- children. ably how that growth happened and that it continues. Home school advocates and practitioners have succeeded despite a lack of funding, recruiting efforts, publicity, and grant mon- History ey from philanthropic billionaires. Meanwhile they’ve faced The notion that modern homeschooling harkens back to the opposition from the National Education Association (NEA), era before compulsory education, when “schooling” occurred obstacles imposed by individual school districts and various when an itinerant schoolmaster arrived in town and children state restrictions, regulations, and requirements. There is also learned basic reading and “cyphering” from their parents, is a little if any professional development for parent-instructors simplistic one. In those days most children simply followed in and virtually no future career path (or pensions) for those par- their parents footsteps: girls would learn how to run a house- ents. Systemically, there is a lack of institutional knowledge hold and boys would take up the occupation of their father. with which to keep the homeschooling movement going for- This model of homespun homeschooling was based on family ward. necessity and schooling occurred by happenstance. Today’s Other alternatives to traditional public school have encoun- homeschooling is not a revival of the past but a conscious life- tered some of these same impediments, yet homeschooling has style choice influenced by many factors. survived and prospered over the past half-century in the face Homeschooling as the ultimate in parental choice also epito- of all these challenges. mizes the concept of local control of education. Since educa- Unlike private, parochial, and even charter schools, there is no tion is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the text of the marketing to entice parents to homeschool. The homeschool- 10th Amendment effectively places it in the hands of the states: ing way of life often originates via word “The powers not delegated to the United of mouth and the old-fashioned way: one Today’s homeschooling is States by the Constitution, nor prohibited client at a time. Social networking, homes- by it to the states, are reserved to the states chooling blogs, and the abundance of how- not a revival of the past but respectively, or to the people.” Even though to books authored by homeschoolers also a conscious lifestyle choice homeschooling has been legal in all 50 have helped parents understand the reali- influenced by many factors. states since 1993, states have attempted to ties of a homeschool lifestyle. exert local control by establishing a mish- This paper will attempt to elucidate some mash of rules and regulations for homes- of these issues by reviewing a brief history of homeschooling, chooling families. the challenges associated with defining and counting home- While 13 states have homeschooling statutes and 10 states schoolers, the predominant reasons for homeschooling, and require or permit homeschoolers to function as private schools, the critical role parental choice plays in the decision to home- 11 states require no notification that a family is homeschool- school. ing.1 In five states (including Massachusetts) homeschooling There is no typical homeschooler or homeschooling family. is conducted under the “otherwise instructed” provision of the The “one size fits all” model that has characterized traditional compulsory attendance statute with no explicit mention of public schools has been anathema for homeschoolers as they homeschooling. No state mandates that homeschool parents formulate individualized learning plans for each of their chil- have a college degree. dren. Their method is not a scalable package in the conven- There are 14 states that permit part-time homeschooling tional sense, but rather a proliferation of unique agendas cus- at a public school, seven prohibit it, and the rest leave it up tomized to meet the needs of the individual student. to individual school districts. Twenty-three states (plus the While the tutorial aspects and advantages of homeschooling District of Columbia) require that homeschoolers be test- 2 are difficult to replicate in the public system because they are ed. Twenty-two states allow homeschoolers to participate in expensive, there are many innovative components of home- extracurricular activities in their local school, seven prohibit 3 schooling that could be replicated in the traditional school those activities, and the remainder leave it up to the district. environment. While 21 states ban homeschoolers from participating in high school sports 19 permit it (and five more grant permission if Homeschooling is a viable alternative for the many students the homeschooler is participating in dual enrollment). Five and their families who wish to opt out of traditional public states (including Massachusetts) permit athletic participation schools. Regardless of a family’s rationale for homeschooling, with district approval.
4 HOMESCHOOLING: THE ULTIMATE SCHOOL CHOICE
As the first state to enact a Compulsory Attendance statute in advance by the superintendent or the school committee." in 1852, Massachusetts mandated schooling by requiring Today, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are the only two every city and town to establish a public school for all children “approval” states in the country, meaning that an education between the ages of 8 and 14. This schooling was required to plan with an assessment process must be submitted to the be in session for a minimum of 12 weeks each year with six of 7 district and be approved before homeschooling can begin. those weeks being consecutive. In most cases, the school committee delegates approval to The architect of this revolutionary concept was Horace Mann, the superintendent, who is responsible for every child in the known as the “Father of American Education” as well as the district under the compulsory attendance statute. In Mas- “Father of the Common School.” However, historian Milton sachusetts, since the superintendent has responsibility for Gaither notes: “Ironically, some of the very people pushing so all students and the approval process also applies to private strongly for common schools that would raise the masses up to schools, homeschoolers are not being singled out by needing the level of the middle-class Protestant consensus were tutor- to be approved. ing their own children at home out of a fear that these very While the 1922 US Supreme Court decision in Pierce v Soci- masses would corrupt their own kids. One such individual was 8 ety of Sisters ruled that compulsory attendance statutes could Horace Mann himself, whose wife Mary taught their three not restrict students to attending only public schools, it was children at home even as he stumped the country preaching 9 Wisconsin v Yoder, a decision handed down 50 years later that the common school.”4 furthered the argument that parents have the ultimate respon- Even more ironic was Horace Mann biographer Jonathan sibility to determine how best to educate their children. In Messerli noting that, Yoder, the Supreme Court agreed with several Amish families “From a hundred platforms, Mann had lectured that the who refused to send their children to school beyond eighth need for better schools was predicated upon the assump- grade due to their religious beliefs. A basis was being estab- tion that parents could no longer be entrusted to perform lished to support exceptions to traditional schooling. their traditional roles in moral training and that a more In the latter part of the 20th century, a confluence of events systematic approach within the public school was nec- set the stage for the surge in homeschooling. Contempo- essary. Now as a father, he fell back on the educational rary homeschooling can trace its roots to the 1970s and ’80s. responsibilities of the family, hoping to make the fireside Although a number of education reformers at that time were achieve for his own son what he wanted the schools to highly critical of public 5 accomplish for others.” schooling, two were Horace Mann’s hypocrisy of notable for becoming This hypocrisy of maintaining parental choice for himself maintaining parental choice while advocating a system of public education for others seems convinced that reform eerily similar to the mindset that is so common today: Many was not the answer for himself while advocating a people of means who can choose to live in districts with bet- and they became the system of public education for ter schools or opt for private schools resist giving educational pioneers of the homes- choices to those less fortunate. chooling movement. others seems eerily similar to the mindset that is so common Since the advent of the compulsory attendance statute in Mas- Dr. Raymond Moore sachusetts, a number of key court decisions helped pave the was appalled by Cal- today: Many people of means way for the homeschooling we experience today. In 1893, the ifornia’s attempt to who can choose to live in Commonwealth v Roberts 6 decision found that state law per- lower the compulso- mitted instruction “by the parents themselves, provided it is ry attendance age to districts with better schools or given in good faith and sufficient in extent.” Six years later, two years and nine opt for private schools resist months. His research the “otherwise instructed” wording appeared for the first time giving educational choices to when the relevant section of state law was changed to read: on the negative effects “but if such a child has attended for a like period of time a of schooling on young those less fortunate. private day school approved by the school committee or if such children resulted in the child has been otherwise instructed for a like period of time in publication of Better 10 the branches of learning…” Late Than Early in 1975, his advocacy of homeschooling, and his prominence as an early hero of Christian homeschoolers. Then, in 1913, upon petition from the Massachusetts School 11 Superintendents Association for legislation relative to school Meanwhile, John Holt, after writing How Children Fail and 12 attendance and the employment of minors, the statute’s word- How Children Learn, came to the conclusion that schools ing was changed to "otherwise instructed in a manner approved couldn’t be reformed. He became a homeschool proponent
5 HOMESCHOOLING: THE ULTIMATE SCHOOL CHOICE
and coined the term “unschooling” to reflect the child-cen- on these essentials: the district may request a proposed cur- tered approach he advocated. In 1977, while working in riculum (along with the hours of instruction in each of the Boston, he established Growing Without Schooling, the first proposed subjects) and may have access to materials being used national homeschooling newsletter and essentially became the (but only to determine the type of subjects and grade level for spokesman for secular homeschoolers. comparison purposes). Instruction shall be equal in “thor- oughness and efficiency, and in the progress made therein, Positive publicity during these years was sporadic but it did as that in the public school of the same town…” The district bring homeschooling to the may consider the length of the homeschool year and the com- attention of the public. When The legal aspects of petency of the parents (but neither certification nor a college Grant Colfax, a homeschooler degree is required). An assessment process should be specified homeschooling in who raised goats on his family’s in the education plan, although alternative means of evalu- farm in California, was accept- Massachusetts are ating a child’s progress, such as periodic progress reports or ed to an Ivy League institution dated work samples, may be substituted for the formal testing based on several in 1983, it made national head- process. significant court cases lines: “Goat Boy Goes To Har- 13 brought during these vard.” Holt’s 1981 appearance A decade later, the SJC’s Brunelle Decision (Brunelle v Lynn on the Phil Donahue Show Public Schools – 1998 17) affirmed theCharles ruling and also formative years of generated 10,000 letters seek- declared that a home visit is NOT presumptively essential modern homeschooling. ing more information on the to the protection of the Commonwealth’s interest in seeing homeschooling phenomenon.14 that children receive an education, and thus such visits may Meanwhile support groups and not be required as a condition for approval. The SJC also took homeschooling organizations were also starting to come into the opportunity to note that “teaching methods may be less existence. formalized, but the home setting may be more effective than those used in the classroom because the teacher-to-student The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), ratio is maximized… (the state) cannot apply institutional a national Christian-based organization founded in 1983, standards to this non-institutionalized setting.” provides legal advocacy for homeschoolers. Throughout the 1980s, statewide organizations such as the Massachusetts Since Brunelle, there has been neither further legislation nor Home Learning Association (MHLA), which was established significant court cases, and homeschooling continues to oper- in 1987, were forming to assist families navigate homeschool- ate under the precedents set by these three decisions. ing procedures in their respective states. The legal aspects of homeschooling in Massachusetts are How Many Are There? based on several significant court cases brought during these formative years of modern homeschooling. In Perchemlides v There’s an old saying that is apropos to homeschooling: “Not Frizzle, a 1978 Superior Court decision, the superintendent everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that of schools in Amherst was overruled in his rationale for disap- can be counted counts.” proving an education plan submitted by a homeschooling fam- Hardly any discussion “Everything that can be ily.15 The court specified that the district could not consider the of homeschooling is counted does not necessarily lack of a plan identical to that of the public school, a lack of complete without hear- socialization, fear of setting a precedent, or the parents’ rea- ing the question, “How count; everything that son for wishing to homeschool. The latter factor clarified that many homeschoolers counts cannot necessarily are there?” In 1980, the “otherwise instructed” provision in the Commonwealth’s be counted.” statute was not conditioned on religious beliefs, as had been educational theorist and the situation in prior national cases brought before the US homeschooling advo- — Albert Einstein Supreme Court. cate John Holt answered by replying “Nobody Two subsequent rulings by the Massachusetts Supreme Judi- knows, but I'd guess somewhere close to 10,000 families.” cial Court (SJC) outlined the approval process and solidified the manner in which homeschooling functions in the Com- Now, some 35 years later, the parents of over two million chil- monwealth today. TheCharles Decision (Care and Protection of dren in the United States believe education is too important to 16 be left to the educators, and are adhering to Holt’s philosophy Charles, 1987 ) reaffirmed the approval process but cautioned 18 districts that approval must not be conditioned on require- (and the title of his seminal 1981 book): Teach Your Own. ments that are NOT essential to the Commonwealth’s interest Holt’s rough estimate of 10,000 held sway in the early that all children should be educated. It proceeded to expand 1980s. Then significant growth kicked in. By the 1990s state
6 HOMESCHOOLING: THE ULTIMATE SCHOOL CHOICE
How Many Homeschoolers are There?*