The real key is what powers they have if they decide the homeschool family’s work is unsatisfactory. That and even Pennsylvania only requires one yearly review and that by a teacher the family chooses.
I am tempted to let my husband move us to Texas where, once we have kids, all we’d have to do is say “We’re homeschooling” and that’d be it. Iowa has pretty strict laws too.
It’s a libertarian freedom issue to me. The fewer regulations on me personally, the better. I don’t want the state checking that I store my guns properly and I don’t want them checking that I teach my kids properly.
I just wondered. I read part of the link from the D.C. website (it was linked to from the HSLDA article) and it sounded as if they'd made some changes to the original proposal based on input from homeschoolers and HSLDA, i.e., it sounded as if they were trying to be responsive to their constituents.
I can see the libertarian viewpoint. However, I don't mind my students having to take a test to ensure that I've actually taught what I ought to be teaching, and having periodic checks for homeschooled students sounds much the same to me.
To some extent, it appears that having the homeschooled students even take some of the same standardized tests might be a plus for many homeschooled families - more evidence for the contention that homeschooling is at least as successful as traditional schooling, and sometimes more so.