Why A ‘Goldilocks’ Approach to Regulating Homeschoolers Is Best

My home state of Connecticut was recently rocked by a horrendous case of child abuse. A 32-year-old man was allegedly imprisoned by his stepmother for over 20 years. When he was finally freed from the long imprisonment that started when he was 11—after he set a fire to draw the attention of emergency services—he weighed only 68 pounds. The case set off a firestorm of controversy, not least because the principal at the school he had attended before his stepmother withdrew him said the Connecticut Department of Child and Family Services (DCF) had been called at least 20 times for concerns of abuse, but that investigators had closed the case.

The case has led to renewed calls for oversight of homeschoolers in Connecticut. The Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate, for example, issued a report on May 5, calling for homeschoolers in the state to be subjected to additional regulations, including: 

the parent and child appear annually to provide enrollment documentation, that the child be independently evaluated annually for academic progress, and that the parent provide initial and periodic assurances that the child is in good health. 

This case is deplorable, and a just society should certainly want to take all reasonable steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Still, there are many questions. Will more regulations of homeschoolers avoid cases of horrendous abuse like this in the future? What is likely to happen when child protective services or school systems are tasked with enforcing these regulations? How does the State best build needed trust and connection between homeschooling families and public institutions? These questions—and similar ones—should be asked by cautious legislators when considering universal rules on homeschoolers in reaction to headline-grabbing cases of abuse.

The first, and most obvious, question to ask is whether blanket rules like the ones proposed by the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate are likely to either catch or deter abuse. Although even one of these cases is too many, this level of abuse is thankfully rare, and so very little data exists on whether universal regulation of homeschoolers decreases their incidence rate. Will mandating homeschooling parents appear in person with their children for an annual inspection deter or impact truly malicious parents? Will such parents show up or otherwise obey such administrative rules directed at homeschoolers?

These are not rhetorical questions: it is genuinely difficult to tell what might move the needle in terms of catching or stopping such horrendously ill-intentioned parents. As Melba T. Aguilar, who regularly works with child protective services, told me, “Of course, many families will comply with the regulations … but those tend to be the families who don’t need the regulation to begin with.”

Certainly, pulling a child out of school after a child protective services investigation may be a “red flag” for child abuse. As Child Welfare Monitor notes, “isolation is a common element of severe and chronic child abuse cases.” But even that potentially obvious marker is not always a clear indication. According to The Hechinger Report—a nationally-recognized source for education—conflicts between parents and students over how to integrate students with behavioral or developmental challenges sometimes lead to child protective services calls. According to that report, one mother alleged in a lawsuit that she and the school repeatedly clashed over how best to handle her child’s ADHD. She said the school wanted her to withdraw her child, and so threatened to refer her to child protective services to increase the pressure to leave. That mom alleged that “[o]nce … the threat to involve [child protective services] came after she’d sent the boy to school in boots instead of his uniform shoes on a cold, wet day.” I asked Ms. Aguilar about her preferred outcome, and she said: “withdrawal from school, especially when achieved by simply not showing up, should trigger a brief investigation.” She added:

I would be most comfortable with this being performed by social workers with the state’s education department, with the child welfare agency becoming involved only if that investigation flags something requiring further intervention.

This leads to a second question: what entity is going to be charged with enforcing these universal rules and does it have the administrative capacity to do so? It might seem that creating more administrative obligations for homeschoolers simply gives child protective services additional needed powers to investigate suspected abuse. Further, the risks of investigation into “innocent” families may seem trivial: investigators can simply close the case and the family moves on. However, most child protective services are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of reports they receive. Crushingly high caseloads—which lead to frequent staff turnover—plague many agencies. Adding more to the purview of child protective services might make it more difficult for them to find the “needle in the haystack” of severe child abuse among all the calls they receive. 

Further, no investigation by child protective services is costless. In addition to the cost incurred by the agency, families also undergo significant stress and anxiety. One reporter embedded with child protective services noted that “[e]ven when cases are closed, investigations institutionalize perceptions of parents as risks to their children, generate anxiety and prompt disengagement from the very service providers who should be sources of support for families.” Unintended consequences in this arena can be significant. For example, if homeschooling families are required to submit to a yearly physical—as one proposed bill would require—there could be serious second-order effects. Consider a homeschooling family without health insurance that decides to skip an annual physical to save money. If one of their children becomes seriously ill, will they delay seeking medical care for fear of being reported to child protective services for failing to meet this requirement? Likewise, many families choose to homeschool their medically-fragile children. Already burdened by a blizzard of doctor’s appointments, will they be investigated for opting out of a “well-child” visit? Regulations concerning how a homeschooling parent cares for his or her children should take into account that each family is unique, and “one size fits all” rules will inevitably present serious challenges.

Relatedly, thoughtful policymakers should be sensitive to the concern that greater involvement of child protective services may increase homeschoolers’ distrust of public institutions and contribute to greater adversity between state agents and parents. To make a comparison: one mother who was reported to child protective services after a short visit with a hospital social worker about her own mental health said she would be reluctant to talk to hospital staff in the future, even if she needed help. Her bad experience resulted in significant distrust of public health institutions, making it less likely she would seek support for her mental health problems. Similarly, if parents are aggressively reported for alleged “educational neglect,” it’s easy to imagine a parent who pulls a child out of school, realizes after a year that decision isn’t working for the family and the child’s education is suffering, yet is reluctant to re-enroll her child for fear of being reported to the authorities. Or consider a homeschooling parent who realizes her child’s struggles with reading may be due to dyslexia. Will she be deterred from seeking outside help from specialists for fear of being referred for investigation? 

To the extent authorities seek to prioritize integration of homeschooled children into the wider community, they might consider first providing additional positive mechanisms to achieve that goal, such as allowing homeschooled children to play on public school sports teams, take individual classes at local schools, access services for special needs children, or join in public school clubs and drama/choral productions. Likewise, if policymakers want to get more homeschooled students involved in more standardized testing, they might consider non-punitive tactics, including opening up spots for homeschoolers to participate in local school standardized testing or providing funds for parents to administer such tests at home. My own children are homeschooled, and we administer standardized tests at home, but at a cost of over $200 annually! For many parents, this is cost prohibitive. I have also frequently heard complaints from homeschooling parents of older children that it is very challenging to find schools that will allow their kids to join in on AP exam testing days, etc. 

In short, policymakers should be aware that this is an issue with no easy solutions. Any proposed legislation should be carefully evaluated in light of its goals. Is the aim to ferret out cases of severe child abuse? Is it to push homeschooling parents to ensure their students make academic progress? Is it to provide homeschoolers with more opportunities to engage with the world outside their homes? Once such goals are identified, careful thought should go into whether the proposed legislation is likely to achieve them, with a cautious eye towards unintended consequences. 

Lawmakers should also be careful about legislating as a reaction to isolated cases of terrible abuse. There is an adage in the legal field that “hard cases make bad law.” In 1904, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. warned that bad legal precedent can be set “because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgement.” To be sure, if it is possible to make laws that will prevent cases of terrible abuse like that recently discovered in Connecticut, a good legislature will not tarry in enacting them. But care should be taken that they are precisely targeted to the harm they seek to prevent. In the words of a childhood fairytale, when it comes to homeschoolers, we need “Goldilocks laws”—neither too strict nor too permissive, but “just right” for the ends they are trying to achieve.

Ivana Greco is a homemaker and homeschooling mother of four, as well as a Senior Fellow at Capita.