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Connecticut Democrats’ attempt to gain control of homeschooling reveals a desire to “force homeschoolers into alignment with the same ideological materials and standardized assessments that have already sparked controversy in government schools,” Sheri Few, founder and president of United States Parents Involved in Education, wrote in an op-ed at The Hill last week.
The national parental rights leader observed that Connecticut’s HB 5468 represents “a troubling pattern emerging whereby government agencies fail in their most basic responsibilities and lawmakers find someone else to blame.”
Few referred to state Democrats’ attempt to regulate homeschooling after their own government systems failed to attend to “repeated warnings in tragic child-abuse cases.”
“It is hard not to see this as a political sleight of hand,” she asserted. “A crisis exposes government negligence, yet instead of holding those agencies accountable, lawmakers pivot to regulate an entirely unrelated group.”
Rather than celebrate the Connecticut parents who choose to homeschool, sacrificing, for their children, their time and perhaps an opportunity for additional employment income, Democrat lawmakers want to require them to notify the government of their curriculum and be subjected to screening by the Department of Children and Families (DCF) and the Department of Education.
As Family Institute of Connecticut (FIC) recently noted in an update on an expansion of the legislation, the bill actually seeks universal registration of all children in the state and an investigation of all adults who live in a child’s home.
The legislation makes these requirements for parents who wish to homeschool their child:
Not later than two business days following receipt of a withdrawal form under this subdivision, the superintendent of schools, or the superintendent’s designee, shall cause to be conducted with the Department of Children and Families a records check of each person who resides with such child and is eighteen years of age or older. Such records check shall include the following: Whether such person is (i) on the state child abuse and neglect registry … or (ii) currently under investigation by the Department of Children and Families for an allegation of abuse or neglect ... If such records check finds that any such person is on the state child abuse and neglect registry or currently under investigation by the department for an allegation of abuse or neglect, such withdrawal shall not be effective and such child may not be withdrawn from public school pursuant to this subdivision. Not later than five business days following the commencement of such records check, the superintendent, or the superintendent’s designee, shall notify such parent or guardian whether such withdrawal is effective.
As Few observed, lawmakers were urged by citizens to make changes to DCF, “the agency that failed to act on repeated warning signs.”
“Burdening every homeschooling family with new academic mandates does nothing to stop the rare individuals who intend to harm children,” she wrote. “The state had the information it needed — it simply did not act.”
Few sees the bill as representative of lawmakers who choose to deny that parents are entrusted with the “God-given authority” to raise their children, rather than the government.
“But for some lawmakers, parental authority is an obstacle to be managed rather than a right to be respected,” she noted. “Their eagerness to regulate homeschooling is not about protecting children from abuse; it is about ensuring that all children, even those educated at home, are exposed to the state’s preferred curriculum, values and worldview.”
“Laws that seek to control homeschooling reflect a government far removed from the vision of limited authority embraced by our Founding Fathers,” Few asserted. “Homeschooling has become one of the last remaining spaces where parents maintain full autonomy over their children’s education. That autonomy is not a loophole; it is liberty.”
“Homeschoolers are not the problem — government overreach is,” she concluded.
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