Since the founding of the United States, homeschooling has been the first form of school choice available in states across the country as parents opted to educate their children at home rather than send them to a local public school.

Yet some homeschool organizations have been vocal critics of school-choice programs that allow families to use tax funds to cover the cost of private school or homeschool expenses, arguing that those programs open the door to aggressive regulation of homeschooling.

But that hasn’t been the case in Oklahoma or most states that now have robust school-choice programs.

Instead, the states threatening to impose new and cumbersome regulations on homeschool families are states that have little-to-no school choice.

Matthew Ladner, senior advisor for K-12 policy implementation at The Heritage Foundation, said that’s not surprising.

“Choice opponents will be seeking to restrict the ability of families to educate their children at home regardless of whether a school choice program exists or not,” Ladner said.

For example, New Jersey does not have any private-school choice programs. New Jersey’s only school-choice policies allow students to attend public charter schools or pursue inter-district choice among public schools through open enrollment.

Homeschooling is also legal in New Jersey, but that option is under increased attack.

In a recent column, Will Estrada, senior counsel at the Home School Legal Defense Association, warned, “New Jersey has long been a state where parents can homeschool their children without obtrusive government regulations and bureaucracy. Now the legislature is considering multiple bills that not only threaten this fundamental right to home education, but are also antithetical to the American tradition.”

Senate Bill 1796 would require New Jersey homeschool families to notify local public schools, in writing, whenever they choose to homeschool.

Two identical bills, Assembly Bill 5796 and Senate Bill 4589, would require homeschool parents and children to meet annually with school officials for a “general health and wellness check.”

Assembly Bill 5825 would require every homeschool family in New Jersey to register annually and submit a curriculum to their local public school district that “aligns” with the state’s New Jersey Student Learning Standards. It also requires every family to submit an evaluation letter from a qualified person who has reviewed a portfolio of their student’s work certifying that “appropriate” education is occurring.

“This bill mandates not only what must be taught in private homes, but also how the parent or guardian must conduct the teaching, ignoring the importance of individual learning and instruction,” Estrada wrote. “This undermines one of the core pillars of homeschooling—namely, educational freedom—and it threatens religious liberties and freedom of conscience.”

He said the proposed law would anchor homeschool parents “to the failed curriculum that has overseen mediocre math and reading scores for New Jersey public school students.”

New Jersey is not the only state to consider significant new regulation of homeschooling.

Earlier this year, Illinois politicians considered legislation that would have similarly required families to report to local public-school officials whenever they choose to homeschool a child or face penalties for truancy. Under the legislation, families would have also been required to provide proof of immunization for homeschooled children.

Illinois House Bill 2827 stated that “homeschooling is currently the fastest growing form of education in the United States” and claimed regulation is needed to “adequately protect homeschooled children in situations when notification of the type of schooling of the child would help reduce vulnerabilities to abuse and neglect.”

Illinois has only very limited forms of school choice, such as limited open transfer between public-school districts, public charter schools, homeschooling, and one program that allows parents of children in public, private, or home school to claim a tax credit for educational expenses. That tax credit averages $322 and was first enacted in 1999.

The efforts of officials in New Jersey and Illinois to regulate homeschool families run counter to the claims made by some homeschool advocates in Oklahoma, who suggested regulation was more likely with school-choice programs than without.

2,440 Oklahoma Families Claimed Homeschool Tax Credit

In 2023, Oklahoma lawmakers passed the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act, which provides refundable tax credits to families to help cover the cost of private school or homeschooling. For those attending private school, the program provides credits of $5,000 to $7,500 per child, with the largest tax credits given to the lowest-income families. The program also provides a $1,000 tax credit for those who homeschool, with up to $5 million in homeschool credits provided each year.

In 2023, Homeschool Oklahoma issued a statement opposing the passage of House Bill 1934, which created the school-choice tax-credit program.

“Homeschool Oklahoma does NOT support this tax credit and recommends you do not take it,” the group’s leadership declared.

Officials with Homeschool Oklahoma objected that families who filed for the credit would be self-identifying as homeschoolers to the state and would also be required to maintain records of purchases, which Homeschool Oklahoma officials suggested would lead to government control.

“The bill unequivocally ensures that the state can track participating families through the student’s social security number, which the parent must give the state, along with details about the curriculum purchased,” Homeschool Oklahoma’s statement said. “The state may ask for money back based on the curriculum chosen, so parents may limit their choices to what the state accepts. Homeschooling families incorporating Christian discipleship into their education, which we strongly encourage, would be at a disadvantage because this tax credit gives the state a say in a family’s educational choices.”

The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act does not prohibit families from using Christian materials as part of their child’s curriculum.

Homeschool Oklahoma officials stated that “we have repetitively asked our legislators to leave us out of any legislation.”

Officials with Homeschool Oklahoma continue to insist that “history shows that accepting government money leads to increased oversight.”

However, no new regulations have been imposed on homeschool families since the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program became law, and no legislation to increase homeschool regulation has cleared either legislative chamber.

Many homeschool families have readily embraced the tax-credit program. According to an Oct. 1 report issued by the Oklahoma Tax Commission, 2,440 homeschool families in Oklahoma have used the $1,000 per-child tax credit this year, utilizing more than $3.1 million of the available $5 million in credits.

National polling has shown many homeschool families support school-choice programs, even if the leaders of homeschool organizations do not.

A nationwide poll of 1,000 K-12 homeschool parents conducted from Aug. 29–Sept. 2, 2024, for the organization “yes.every kid. Foundation” found that 84 percent of homeschool families supported the creation of Education Savings Accounts and 88 percent supported tax-credit school-choice programs.

The poll found a majority of homeschool parents strongly supported both ESAs (53 percent) and tax credits (58 percent).

The poll showed only 27 percent of homeschool families viewed ESA or tax-credit programs as “a way for government to monitor people.”

Only 5 percent of homeschool families strongly opposed ESA programs and only 3 percent strongly opposed tax-credit programs like the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act.

According to the poll, 87 percent of homeschool families began homeschooling in 2021 or later due to COVID restrictions. Over half of homeschool families (58 percent) are entirely new to homeschooling, having started since 2022.

Overall, 42 percent of homeschool families in the survey had incomes below $75,000 and 59 percent had incomes of less than $100,000 per year. Only 18 percent had income greater than $150,000 annually.

Not only has proposed regulation of homeschool families gone nowhere in Oklahoma, but state leaders have publicly criticized other states that pursued greater regulation.

On March 19, Gov. Kevin Stitt took aim at Illinois’ proposed homeschool regulations, declaring, “This would never fly in Oklahoma. School choice is the law of the land here because we believe parents know what’s best for their kids, period.”