Illinois lawmaker calls for strengthening protection for homeschooled children

State Rep. Terra Costa Howard, D-Glen Ellyn, is calling for stronger homeschool laws following reporting about the state’s lax oversight. She’s pictured in a file photo on the House floor. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)

By BETH HUNDSDORFER
& MOLLY PARKER
Capitol News Illinois
investigations@capitolnewsillinois.com

An Illinois lawmaker heading a child welfare committee said the state must strengthen its laws and policies to protect homeschooled children facing inadequate education, abuse and neglect.

Rep. Terra Costa Howard, the chair of the Adoption and Child Welfare Committee in the Illinois House, called for action following a Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica investigation, which revealed little accountability for parents who pull their kids from school and then fail to ensure they receive an education. In the worst cases, the investigation found, parents isolated and mistreated their children.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to children who are not being educated,” Costa Howard said in an interview with Capitol News Illinois. Costa Howard, a lawyer with extensive experience in juvenile court, said she supports homeschoolers but that the article made clear the state needs to make changes.

While regulations on homeschooling are minimal across the nation, Illinois is among a small number of states with virtually no rules about homeschooling: state authorities can’t compel proof of teaching methods, attendance, curriculum or testing outcomes; homeschool teachers don’t need a high school diploma or GED; and parents aren’t required to notify anyone if they remove their kids from school.

The Democrat from suburban Glen Ellyn said that “at a bare minimum” the state should mandate that parents must notify a school district or other governmental entity when they choose to homeschool. This is a requirement in 39 states and Washington, D.C., but is entirely optional for parents in Illinois. “We need to know these kids exist,” Costa Howard said.

Past efforts in Illinois to implement regulations on homeschools have faced strong resistance, including against a bill in 2011 to require registration and another in 2019 to enact inspections and curriculum reviews of homeschools. In both instances, the outcry was so intense that Illinois lawmakers swiftly withdrew the bills from consideration.

That resistance persists today, as evidenced by the numerous emails that reporters received from homeschool families and their advocates in response to the article. They argued that public schools, despite being heavily regulated, can also subject children to abuse and inadequate instruction. “Most public schools in Illinois are not doing a good job,” wrote Steven Durfey, of Bartlett, a village 35 miles west of Chicago, whose children were homeschooled. In other states, recent efforts to bolster homeschool regulations have failed in the face of similar opposition from families who homeschool and the groups that represent them.

Michael Mobley, who worked as a truancy officer for eight years in south-central Illinois until his retirement in 2018, has experienced this backlash firsthand. Illinois law says that homeschools must provide an education equivalent to what is taught in public schools, and if they don’t, those children would be truant – in violation of Illinois’ mandatory education laws. Around 2013 he proposed a system to verify whether homeschools were meeting this mandate, but homeschool advocates protested his proposal. And Mobley said he didn’t find much support from state officials either.

“Homeschooling is the third rail of politics in Illinois. The legislature, the Illinois State Board of Education, which are all politically appointed, will not do anything,” said Mobley. “I hope that this renewed attention to this problem brings change. But I can tell you first-hand that any legislative attempt to regulate homeschooling will be met with swift and certain opposition.”

But in the wake of the reporting, the governor and other key lawmakers also signaled a willingness to engage in discussions about what changes might be needed, although they offered few specifics. Spokespeople for Senate President Don Harmon and House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said both legislative leaders were interested in hearing more from experts and advocates, including officials from the Department of Children and Family Services and the Illinois State Board of Education, to find “best solutions” and “address problems.”

Alex Gough, a spokesperson for Gov. JB Pritzker, said the governor supports parents’ rights to choose homeschooling for their kids’ education, but also “believes every child deserves to be protected during their educational experience.” He said the governor is “open to input and feedback from the General Assembly on this issue.”

The June news article highlighted cases involving two children who had been removed from public schools to homeschools. One child was beaten and given little to eat while he received almost no schooling, according to police records and court testimony; on his 11th birthday in December 2022, he was taken into state protective custody, where he remains. That same month, a 9-year-old boy accidentally shot himself with a gun he found in the home while his mom was running errands. Instead of alerting police, she hid the body. Seven months passed before police, responding to a concerned call from a friend, found the child’s body in a garbage can in the garage.

Homeschool groups that oppose changes in the law say cases of abuse among homeschooled children are tragic but rare.

But the June reporting highlighted another issue with the state’s oversight of homeschooling: Schools may offer protection and stability to children in a volatile home environment, but there is often poor coordination between education departments and DCFS.

Decades ago, DCFS was able to open an investigation into educational neglect if a homeschool family was accused of failing to provide an adequate education to their children or neglected to register them for school or ensure their regular attendance. But in 1989, lawmakers voted to remove that authority from DCFS and place it with regional offices of education, which oversee truancy intervention.

The two entities do not coordinate their investigations or share results of their findings.

Costa Howard plans to convene meetings in the coming months between state child welfare and education officials. And she plans to call on DCFS to improve its data collection about the schooling status of the children it investigates.

The DCFS Office of Inspector General is required to review the agency’s actions when a child dies while in the custody of the state, or whose family was investigated within a year of their death.

The reports do not generally include whether the child who died was regularly attending school, chronically truant or homeschooled, but Costa Howard believes they should.

Other child advocates also welcomed changes in the law.

Dr. Veena Ramaiah, a board-certified child abuse pediatrician, said homeschooling is sometimes a red flag.

“I completely understand that abusive parents who ‘homeschool’ and are trying to hide their children are a small minority but I wonder if the thousands of parents who are sincere would ever be willing to compromise a little on oversight in order to save that handful of children who are being abused and hidden,” she said. “I would hope that the safety of even one child would trump the minimal effect on parental rights that more oversight would provide.”

Diana Hartmann, superintendent of Regional Office of Education 44 in upstate McHenry County, north of Chicago, said offices like hers feel like they have little authority to intervene if there are allegations of inadequate homeschooling, such as in cases where parents pull a child from school to evade responsibility for truancy. She also welcomes legislative action.

“I’m wholeheartedly ready to align with others that would like to introduce legislation to clean up the abuses of withdrawing students for homeschooling,” she said.

Hartmann took exception to a statement that ISBE provided reporters, included in the June story, saying that regional education offices can take action under existing truancy laws. Families who homeschool, she noted, are not required to maintain any records of their activities; therefore, “without proper legislation to close the loophole, there is nothing we as an ROE can do besides ask.” And asking, she said, “will have no benefit” because “there is nothing to do after they say no.”

In response to questions seeking clarification on the agency’s position, ISBE noted that while ROEs have authority to investigate truancy, the law does not provide “explicit authority to an ROE to verify the adequacy of a homeschool program; thus, when a family that is suspected of truancy claims to be homeschooling, an ROE’s ability to intervene can be limited.”

For its part, ISBE said it stands ready to help find solutions.

“We are committed to working with lawmakers and regional offices of education on this issue to ensure student safety and wellbeing are protected,” the agency said.