Homeschooling in the United States
[1] The right to homeschool is not frequently questioned in court, but the amount of state regulation and help that can or should be expected continues to be subject to legal debate.
[3][better source needed] In August 2020, Gallup released a poll indicating that 10% of parents planned to homeschool in the coming year, double the previous[when?]
In 2007, the most common reason parents gave as the most important was a desire to provide religious or moral instruction (36 percent of students).
"[14] The legality of homeschooling in the United States has been debated by educators, lawmakers, and parents since the beginnings of compulsory schooling in Massachusetts in 1852.
There are also legal questions over the degree of control that a state can exercise on homeschooling families regarding areas like curricula and standardized testing.
The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on homeschooling specifically, but in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972)[17] it supported the rights of Amish parents to keep their children out of public schools for religious reasons.
[19] In Runyon v. McCrary the Court analyzed its prior rulings on educational choice: In Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, the Court held that the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment includes the right "to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children," id., at 399, and, concomitantly, the right to send one's children to a private school that offers specialized training - in that case, instruction in the German language.
The Court thought it "entirely plain that the [statute] unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control."
[20]In the 1988 case Murphy v. State of Arkansas, the court summarized is legal position: The Court has repeatedly stressed that while parents have a constitutional right to send their children to private schools and a constitutional right to select private schools that offer specialized instruction, they have no constitutional right to provide their children with private school education unfettered by reasonable government regulation...Indeed, the Court in Pierce expressly acknowledged "the power of the State reasonably to regulate all schools, to inspect, supervise and examine them, their teachers and pupils..."[21]Additionally, in Meyer v. Nebraska, the U.S. Supreme Court's majority opinion stated that the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause "without doubt...denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized...as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."
Only a short time after compulsory attendance laws became common in the United States, Oregon adopted a statute outlawing private schools.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state law as unconstitutional in its 1925 ruling in Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, 268 U.S. 510 (1925).
[22] The Court held that a state may not prohibit a parent from satisfying a compulsory attendance requirement by sending their children to private school.
This case has frequently been cited by other courts in support of the proposition that parents have a right to satisfy compulsory attendance requirements through home instruction.
Parents' right to homeschool their children has clearly been established through subsequent court decisions to such an extent that any statute attempting to forbid it entirely would certainly be struck down on constitutional or other grounds.
[citation needed] Every state has some form of a compulsory attendance law that requires children in a certain age range to spend a specific amount of time being educated.
[23] Homeschooling laws can be divided into three categories: While every state has some requirements, there is great diversity in the type, number, and level of burden imposed.
[31] The ALSDE has stated that any such reporting requirements "tend to lend themselves to a brick and mortar facility rather than a home school environment.
[37] The court granted the petition for rehearing, and unanimously reversed itself, deciding that non-credentialed parents could homeschool their children under California law.
The academic assessment report needs to be one of two things: either the results of a nationally normed, standardized test or a written portfolio.
Part-time enrollment in public school is rare, but allows for home-instructed students to take some classes (often higher level math and science or electives like foreign language that parents don't feel confident teaching).
[46] Other options not governed by the above include home instruction by a certified tutor with a valid Virginia Board of Education teaching license and religious exemptions.
"[49] Because homeschoolers do not receive a diploma from the state of Virginia, one of the major struggles faced is entering community college or higher education.
[50] Children who receive home instruction are not required to take the SOL examinations, which may contribute to the inability to obtain a diploma accredited by the state.
[51] Under Washington state law RCW 28A.225.010, education is compulsory for children eight or older or if the child has been officially enrolled in public school.
[52] Washington does require (RCW 28A.225.010) that homeschools teach reading, writing, spelling, language, math, science, social studies, history, health, occupational education, art and music appreciation.
(For example, as stated above, Texas considers the successful completion of a homeschool education equivalent to graduation from a public or private school.
Statements that parents could not teach their own children or form their own private schools were removed from the state Department of Education website.
The U.S. Constitution's prohibition against establishing religion applies to public-school-at-home programs, so taxpayer money cannot lawfully be used to purchase a curriculum that is religious in nature.
The top three places in the Texas Independent State Championship (also called "the Ironman Bowl") were claimed by homeschool teams.
Some larger shows in the United States include, but are not limited to the following: The Constitution does not protect homeschooling in explicit terms.
