Posted on 04/05/2025 9:44:55 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Good neighbors help each other. They check in during tough times, shovel snow, and lend tools. However, parents can go to jail if families team up for homeschooling in Wisconsin.
The state flatly prohibits homeschool collaboration. Joining an after-school soccer team or Girl Scout troop is fine. However, parents cross the line if they teach reading, writing, or arithmetic to someone else’s child. The law is clear: “An instructional program provided to more than one family unit does not constitute a home-based private education program.”
Similar laws exist elsewhere. North Carolina homeschool groups cannot include children from more than two families. Parents in New York “may arrange to have their children instructed in a group situation for particular subjects,” but not more than half the time. In Iowa, homeschool groups may not include more than four unrelated children.
Vermont enforces limits on teamwork, but parents need a flow chart to figure out the law. The state defines a home-study program as something offered to children from one family plus others “not residing in that home who either are two or fewer in number or who are from one family.”
Try saying that three times fast.
The most likely interpretation is that two Vermont families may collaborate no matter how many children they have. However, if three Vermont families work together, at least two must be limited to one child each.
Maryland and North Dakota also have confusing laws. Parents who want to join forces must be careful, or they could be guilty of a misdemeanor. Penalties in Wisconsin include a $500 fine and up to 30 days behind bars.
Families with resources do not have to worry. They can pay private school tuition or buy houses in expensive neighborhoods near high-performing public schools. If they prefer home education, they can hire tutors for each subject.
Regular folks cannot afford these options. They must take whatever the government offers or go it alone. COVID-19 lockdowns pushed many families to take the leap. They saw the low quality of virtual instruction and grew desperate.
The result was an innovation frenzy. Some families pooled their resources and hired outside instructors. Other groups rotated teaching duties among themselves or designated host parents. Hybrid models also emerged.
When the pandemic ended, many parents realized they liked these arrangements and kept them going. Today, 1.5 million U.S. students — 3 percent of school-age children — participate in nontraditional collaborative learning groups.
Some call these homeschool co-ops “learning pods” or “microschools.”
Definitions overlap and vary. Parents focus more on learning than labels. In states that restrict collaboration, the details matter.
If regulators find an unauthorized learning community, they can define it as a private school — no matter how small it is — and crush it with a long list of bureaucratic demands piled on top of zoning restrictions already onerous.
Private schools spend significant money to navigate these hurdles, while smaller groups meeting in a home, church, or other facility have no chance. Teacher unions like it this way. They see anything that diverts resources from their $857 billion public school monopoly as a threat.
The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers’ union, did its part by opposing a 2021 measure that would have legalized microschooling for up to 20 students from five families.
The union did not try to hide its main concern: Public schools “would lose per-pupil state funding for students who leave to attend microschools.” When Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the measure, union officials cheered. What they never mentioned was the Constitution.
Two landmark Supreme Court cases, Pierce v. Society of Sisters from 1925 and Meyer v. Nebraska from 1923, recognize parents’ right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.
The Institute for Justice stands ready to defend this right with free legal services. Yet, litigation should not be necessary. Public schools struggle with learning loss and could use grassroots competition to spur innovation. Florida, Georgia, and Utah already have microschool laws to close the gap.
Other states should get on board. Everyone wins when neighbors help neighbors.
Daryl James is a writer at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Va.
Keith Neely is an attorney at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Va.
“Oh, brave new world, with such people in it.”
If kids are learning at home schooling in one instance, but other parents feel they can’t teach, then what is wrong with sending their kids to where kids are learning, if it is acceptable to the other parents? To do otherwise is just holding up progress, but gives these “Homeschool Police” something to do.
The quality of education each student is receiving should be whatever works best. Wasn’t much of a problem back when public schools were doing their job.
The teacher's unions, power and control. I think the teacher's union officials need a better security detail than Donald Trump.
How would they know??
Friends in GA homeschooled their kids. They collaborated with other parents. There was testing by the public schools. Smartest and most cordial kids I ever met.
The importance, to the American communist party, of the black-robed busing decree was to destroy the concept & control of neighborhood schools and the sense of belonging that they engendered so successfully for the previous 150 years...
It was the first, and most important step, in taking control of the Nation’s education system and redefining it as a government indoctrination system...
This was extremely successful and we are left with several generations of mind-controlled half-wits (in comparison to the common people of the pre-1970s)...
The educational success of home schooling is viewed as an existential threat to communist goals...
Allowing two or more families to begin the process of returning to the neighborhood concept will be met with extreme penalties...
So, you can’t have a neighbor who has knowledge of something you do not have, such as chemistry, or French in to educate your child. Who thought this up??
So, you can’t have a neighbor who has knowledge of something you do not have, such as chemistry, or French in to educate your child. Who thought this up??
But I think the article is a little bit misleading.
For example, the article says about Wisconsin: "The state flatly prohibits homeschool collaboration. Joining an after-school soccer team or Girl Scout troop is fine. However, parents cross the line if they teach reading, writing, or arithmetic to someone else’s child."
But the HSLDA website makes no mention of restrictions against groups or co-ops in Wisconsin. No state can prohibit homeschool families from meeting and learning together. It's their First Amendment right.
A closer look at Wisconsin homeschool law tells us that WI just doesn't count group meetings and co-ops toward the required "hours of instruction."
I think groups and co-ops should be counted. The state really has no business telling homeschool families what to count.
But, not counting a co-op as instruction is very different from prohibiting it. Just my 2 cents.
The same for the other states mentioned in the article. As far as I can tell, those states don't prohibit families from meeting and learning together, either, but they might not count all those meetings as "instruction."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.