Editorial: Homeschooling still needs reasonable regulations

Parents should have the right to choose homeschooling for their children. And, to many, it’s an attractive option. Homeschooled students often score above average on college admissions tests, such as the ACT, and often don’t have to comply with state education regulations.

Although certain government mandates and programs concerning education, such as Common Core and standardized testing, are often burdensome to students and educators, the government must keep certain regulations in place to ensure that homeschooled students receive a proper education.

A national trend is going in the direction of great deregulation. Eleven states do not even require students to be registered with local schools or state agencies, according to an article in The New York Times. While other states still require this basic mandate, some are in the process of deregulation.

Pennsylvania is one of them. The Times article mentions that prior to October 2014, parents had to submit student portfolios to school superintendents for approval, as well as report standardized test scores to the local school district. Now, after years of campaigning by homeschooling families and the national advocacy group, Home School Legal Defense Association, parents no longer have to submit portfolios or standardized test results in third, fifth and eighth grade. Thankfully, the policy retains certain supervisions, including professionals approving each student’s work.

The problem with too much deregulation is that some students may not learn fundamental educational and life skills, such as foundational math and working with others, that their public or private school counterparts do. Although there are many responsible home educators in the country, there are bound to be students who fall through the cracks from inadequate instruction.

Enter the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. The group is comprised of many individuals who were, in fact, homeschooled. One of the members is Caitlin Townsend, a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Michigan. Townsend said she “shied away from rigorous math during her high school years.” Although she has certainly found success in her chosen field, she maintains that she “could have benefited from was a system of evaluation that would have given my mother some red flags that I needed some tutoring in science and math.”

Homeschooling itself is not the problem. There are 1.8 million homeschooled students nationwide. The government owes it to each student and citizen to ensure that every student receives a proper education, regardless of ethnic, religious or socioeconomic background. Keeping moderate homeschool regulations in place can help do so and should be the aim of every state that prioritizes the education of its citizens.