Virginia is the latest battleground in the debate over religious homeschooling and the educational rights of parents and children.
Homeschoolers are spreading like wildfire across the country, but they aren’t allowed to do whatever they wish. Each state has its own rules for what is required to homeschool. Most require some form of report and testing to keep the parents in check.
Virginia has the most unique statutes in the country. Its Constitution allows parents to homeschool their children without reporting to their school board. If allowed, they can teach their children under the Religious Exemption clause, which permits students to be excused from public school if it is done because of religious beliefs.
This method frees thousands of Virginia parents to teach their children according to their religious convictions. It also helps establish what Home School Legal Defense Association Senior Counsel Scott Woodruff describes as a “Wall of separation”.
“This wall of separation, on the one hand, protects government sponsored schools from having religion come in and influence and control them. On the other hand, it protects religious education from the government coming in and issuing mandates” said Woodruff.
But is this healthy for students?
A recent bill sought to address this in the Virginia House of Delegates. Delegates Tom Rust and Vivian E. Watts sponsored the bill in hopes of finding more information on those who are studying under the Religious Exemption statute.
“It is in no way an effort to overturn the religious exemption…. I do think we have a responsibility to make sure that young people are getting an adequate education to prepare them for adulthood” said Delegate Rust.
The bill proposed that Virginia’s education department study how individual school districts evaluate applications for the Religious Exemption, as well as confirm whether the district is checking in with parents and reviewing their case. Once this information was gathered, it would be analyzed by the Department of Education, and suggestions would be made to amend the clause, so that students are receiving the best possible education.
While the bill failed in committee, the questions it asked were hotly debated by those fighting for stronger homeschool regulations as well as by those who are for lessening the restrictions.
Those opposing the bill, including the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, believe that the bill provided no new answers.
“The overt purpose [of the bill] is to ask five questions, but we know this to be illegitimate because we already know the answers to the questions” says Woodruff.
Also known as the HSLDA, the Homeschool Legal Defense Assocation also argues that the study would covertly pave the way towards limiting parental rights. The HSLDA worries about these potential limitations, for it believes that “The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right.”
Others, like the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, argues that the data is needed since there are no other sources.
“There’s a lot of unknowns in this [study] and we have not even filed these up with these homeschool students who have graduated…...there’s a lot we don’t know” said CHRE’s Executive director Heather Doney.
The CRHE was founded off of a belief that “Homeschooling laws….is seriously lacking in protections for the rights of children and youth.” Because of this, it avidly supports developing policies and regulations which protect kids from abuse and make it possible for them to get the best possible education.
The recent legislation in Virginia was designed to determine how homeschool students studying under the religious exemption are doing. But the debate shows that parents, legislators, and students are divided over the pivotal question of who comes first legally, the parent or the child.
