Home Schooling Legalities: Is it Illegal to Home School My Child?

Some parents are concerned of legal restrictions they feel home schooling may impose on them when deciding to home school their children. Parents fear that home schooling their children is either illegal or that the steps needed to acquire home school certification are too ponderous or odious to accomplish. Some of these fears are justified depending on where the parents reside; however, the fears are usually larger than is appropriate.

The rules and laws of a child's education are set down and enforced by the individual states even though the Constitution of the United States makes no mention of education and the Department of Education tends to play a very large role in the certification of home schooling. The laws do vary from state to state, though.

It is legal in all fifty states to home school children, but some states have fewer restrictions than others. For example, Texas and Idaho place a minimum of restrictions on parents who decided to home school their kids. However, Massachusetts and New York are very particular about the methods and keep a close watch on parents who do home school their children; even requiring curriculum approval, regular student achievement scores to be submitted on a timely basis, and even home visits. Pennsylvania requires local school districts to review any materials that are to be used in home schooling for approval.

Many bills have been introduced into Congress that would expand the power of the states to enter the home of children who are home schooled or to compel parents to enroll their children into public school. While efforts have been made to monitor or defeat these legal efforts, they were overturned in 2006. Parents need not worry too much about rights being taken away since the trend of courts has been stalwartly in their favor for many years.

The Supreme Court case of Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) stated that the care and education of a child rested solely on the parents of said children, not the state in which they reside. The court also reaffirmed the rights of parents to make decisions regarding their children's education in 2000 with the Troxel v. Granville case, which in and of itself was not an issue of home schooling, home school advocates used it to further their goal of freedom to choose how their children are educated.

The HSLDA (Horne School Legal Defense Association, http://www.hslda.org ) was founded in 1983 to support the rights of parents who wish to home school their children and has fought many battles in the courtroom on behalf of such parents. This association closely follows any changes made by Congress and the states regarding education and publishes a yearly account of legislative acts.

Even though government from state to federal levels have tried to chip away at the parents' rights to home school their children, court cases generally have been settled in the parents' favors.

There have been cases of social workers who zealously try to protect what they feel is their duty to protect the children of parents who home school. Even with no evidence of parental abuse, such social workers try to follow through with their attempts. The HSDLA works to provide support and resources to parents so that such legal and social issues never have to be dealt with in the first place.

It is a good idea for parents considering home schooling to assiduously investigate all the necessary paperwork, supervision and requirements by law of their resident states. The parents are the ones who need to be first educated in home schooling.