Homeschooling Burden in Pennsylvania

August 06, 2004 Recently making the rounds in the education blogosphere is the story of the Pennsylvania family fighting against the Commonwealth's onerous homeschooling regulations. Our position on Homeschooling is that it--like parenting--should be completely deregulated. If a family choses not to send Johnny to the local public school, it is none of the state's business how Johnny gets educated.

Especially since the state can't guarantee Johnny's education in government-run public schools.

Bridges 4 Kids has an article on the 'Best and Worst States for Homeschoolers' in which they make the point that all homeschoolers want is a little autonomy. They write: "Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, North Dakota and Pennsylvania, on the other hand, impose some of the most restrictive laws on homeschooling families, according to the HSLDA [Home School Legal Defense Association]."

We assume they mentioned Pennsylvania twice for emphasis.

At right is a little synopsis of Pennyslvania's homeschool regulations, via the HSLDA. (We can't read them either.)

These burdens upon homeschooling parents color Pennsylvania red for "high regulation" on HSLDA's map of America, ranking the homeschool burden for parents. Meanwhile just across the river in New Jersey (colored green for their lack of burden for parents), the situation is very different.

Here are New Jersey's regulations (via HSLDA):

We'd suggest the bureaucrats in Pennsylvania take a page from New Jersey's book and release homeschooling families from any and all requirements. Maybe then they could reassign the folks responsible for monitoring homeschoolers and task them with overseeing public schools.

Housecleaning begins at home.