Education

Lawmakers explore regulation of Oklahoma homeschoolers

October 2, 2024

Ray Carter

Since statehood, the constitution of Oklahoma has allowed parents to homeschool their children. And throughout state history, various politicians have sought to impose heavy-handed regulations on those families.

State Rep. Amanda Swope, D-Tulsa, is the latest lawmaker who has sought to regulate homeschool families, filing legislation earlier this year to mandate state registration and background-check requirements for homeschool parents and guardians.

The bill did not receive a hearing, so this week Swope used a House Common Education Committee interim study to advocate for state regulation of homeschoolers once again, claiming that child abusers are able to evade detection by claiming to homeschool. Swope said some children are withdrawn from public school when concerns arise about abuse.

But presenters at the study relied often on hypotheticals. When specific cases were cited, they revealed that law enforcement officials were often notified of problems prior to a child being withdrawn from public schools.

And presenters did not explain how new regulations would produce better outcomes in those situations, even conceding that public-school officials often fail to report abuse.

Samantha Field, government relations director for the Massachusetts-based Coalition for Responsible Home Education, which has lobbied states to regulate homeschool families since 2013, claimed that Oklahoma’s lack of homeschool regulations means it is “open to exploitation” by child abusers seeking to evade detection.

“Students are often withdrawn from school to be ‘homeschooled’—not really what we would consider homeschooling—in order to frustrate or end completely a child-abuse investigation,” Field said.

She said 31 children have died nationwide in the last 24 years after being withdrawn from public school for alleged homeschooling, based on public reports. She also said there have been 148 cases where a child, allegedly being homeschooled, was subjected to extreme, torture-level abuse.

However, while those cases are tragic, those figures are a fraction of a fraction of all children nationwide during the time period covered. In 2021 alone, there were 54.2 million students nationwide in kindergarten to 12th grades, and in the 2021-2022 school year it’s estimated that there were 3.13 million homeschool students nationwide.

As a result, advocates for regulating homeschoolers would potentially impose new requirements on 100 percent of students due to horrible incidents involving as few as 0.0000001 percent of all school-age children.

And speakers repeatedly admitted that most homeschool families are not abusers even as they advocated for increased state regulation.

“My sister chose to homeschool her three children,” said Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (OICA) CEO Joe Dorman. “And in turn, her three children chose to homeschool all of their children. All of them have turned out wonderfully well and successful products of their education.”

Dorman said there have been “many” cases of child abuse and death in Oklahoma where “children were not in a school setting.”

However, officials did not provide any data indicating that homeschooled children are in greater danger than children in public schools, where many high-profile incidents of abuse have occurred in recent years. In several notable cases, school officials have been accused of covering up child abuse committed by school employees.

Dorman conceded there are real problems with abuse and failure to report abuse in public schools.

“OICA worked about three legislatures ago with lawmakers to shift the mandatory reporting laws,” Dorman said. “There was an issue in schools where teachers were not reporting immediately to the hotline. They were reporting to the administrators. And sometimes the administrators would not follow forward and report that themselves.”

Dorman also noted a case in Rush Springs in which a special-needs child was attending public school. State officials were notified of abuse concerns and a home check was performed, but no action was taken against the adults living with the child. It was not until a teacher notified authorities a second time that the child reported being severely abused at home that action was taken.

“There are problems in homeschool. There are problems in public school when reporting doesn’t happen,” Dorman said. “And I would argue that child would have been much better off if the investigation had been a little bit more thorough up front or if it would have happened early on.”

David Blatt, the director of research and strategic impact for Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, conceded that chronic absenteeism from school is “a longstanding problem.”

Blatt noted that a recent report by Appleseed found “that there is tremendous variation and inconsistency in how truancy laws are administered and enforced across Oklahoma,” with wide variation in how officials in each school district and local prosecutors handle the issue.

“In some jurisdictions and at some times, it can be a straight shot from a student missing as few as five or 10 days of school and charges being filed against the student and parent by a district attorney or a city prosecutor,” Blatt said. “In other jurisdictions, however, and at other times, charges are never going to be filed no matter how many unexcused absences are racked up.”

The report found that more than 14,000 truancy charges were filed against adults in district courts in Oklahoma between 2012 and 2022. Additional charges may have been filed in city courts.

Blatt said there is anecdotal evidence some parents claim they are homeschooling a child to evade the penalties for truancy.

Even so, Appleseed officials recommend that fines no longer be imposed on families for truancy since many parents of truant children have limited funds.

And Blatt conceded that homeschooling is successful in many instances.

“Are there students for whom homeschooling is a good, maybe even the best, choice? Absolutely,” Blatt said.

Oklahoma not only provides constitutional protection for homeschooling but also provides a tax credit to help homeschool families offset associated costs.

The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act provides refundable tax credits of $5,000 to $7,500 per child to cover the cost of private school tuition as well as a tax credit equal to $1,000 per homeschooled child.

The tax credit was not cited by advocates as a justification for imposing homeschool regulation during the meeting.

One lawmaker noted the problems highlighted by advocates of homeschool regulation—the concern that adults falsely claim to homeschool a child to undermine abuse investigations—can already be addressed by Oklahoma judges.

State Rep. Ronny Johns, R-Ada, noted that when he worked as an assistant principal at Ada Junior High, his duties included getting kids to truancy court.

“I know our judge, if they were going to pull them out to homeschool, then he required them to come back the next month … with enrollment papers, etc., to make sure that they were indeed following up on their home school,” Johns said.

The following month, Johns said the judge required parents to provide documentation of academic progress. Parents had to abide by both requirements before truancy charges were dropped.

While some speakers alluded to imposing regulations that would require homeschooled students to be effectively in class for the same amount of time as public-school students, state Rep. Dick Lowe noted that homeschooling can achieve the same level of education in less time.

Lowe, R-Amber, said he and his wife homeschooled their children when the youths were in grade school. He noted it took far less time to cover material in that setting than what would have been required in most public schools dealing with larger classes.

“We were ranching and there were just two students in that (homeschool) class—my two sons, at that point,” Lowe said. “And by noon, they had everything covered. They were really good ranch hands after that.”

When the boys later returned to public school, Lowe said they were “almost a year ahead” of their peers. And, he noted, such outcomes are not unusual.

“This committee has been provided, recently, some information that homeschool students test higher than public-school students,” Lowe said.