69ý

School Choice & Charters

Va. Plan Would Ease Standards For Home School Parents

By Mary Ann Zehr — May 05, 2004 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

Gov. Mark R. Warner of Virginia has several weeks to decide if he will sign a bill that would make it easier for parents in the state with only a high school diploma to home school their children.

Advocates of home schooling say that Virginia has the most stringent qualifications of any state for parents to teach their children at home—and that the requirements should be eased to enable a broader range of parents to do so.

But Belle S. Wheelan, Virginia’s secretary of education, has asked Gov. Warner, a Democrat, not to sign the bill. She argues it would inappropriately remove input from local school districts in the home schooling of children whose parents don’t have college degrees.

Current law automatically permits parents who have bachelor’s degrees or who are certified to be teachers in Virginia to teach their children at home.

Parents who have just high school diplomas may also home school their children, but such parents must meet one of two additional criteria: They must either teach their children through a correspondence course that has been approved by the state, or have their children’s curriculum approved by the local district’s superintendent.

The home schooling bill on the desk of Gov. Warner would alter the law so that parents could automatically teach their children at home—without having the curriculum preapproved—as long as they had at least a high school diploma.

The curriculum requirement for home schooling parents without college degrees has erected an unnecessary barrier, argued Joe Guarino, a part- time lobbyist for the Richmond, Va.-based Home Educators Association of Virginia, which first proposed the bill to Virginia legislators. The legislation was sponsored by state Delegate Robert B. Bell, a Republican.

While some school officials have readily approved the curricula that home schooling parents without college degrees have proposed, other school officials have created hassles for them, Mr. Guarino said.

Above Average

Chris Klicka, the senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association, a national group based in Purcellville, Va., said his organization has played a role in getting states to relax qualifications for parents to teach their own children. In part, the organization has done so by filing and winning lawsuits regarding the qualifications of parents, he said.

Mr. Klicka cites research conducted by home schooling advocates that shows that home-schooled children score, on average, well above the 50th percentile on standardized tests. “If the child is doing above average, what difference do the parents’ qualifications make?” he said.

Forty-one states don’t have any qualifications for parents to teach their children at home, according to Mr. Klicka. Eight of the nine states that do have qualifications require only that parents have a high school diploma or General Educational Development certificate, he said.

Mr. Klicka said that Virginia stands alone in requiring parents to have a college degree or meet one of the other criteria laid out in the law.

Virginia is one of 24 states, however, that require home schoolers to take standardized tests.

The Home School Legal Defense Association urges that states relax any regulations regarding home schooling, including mandatory tests.

“Our position is that we should trust the parents,” said Mr. Klicka. “We are very much in favor of home school laws that operate on an honor system.”

But Ms. Wheelan, the Virginia secretary of education, believes that parents who have only a high school credential should be required to receive some guidance from their school districts or the state. “When you’ve not been to college,” she said, “you need some kind of input from people on what is expected.”

Charles B. Pyle, the director of communications for the Virginia Department of Education, said that the tremendous growth in the number of home-schooled students in Virginia shows that the state has not been overrestrictive in regulating that area of education.

Since 1990, he said, the number of home-schooled children in the state has increased about sixfold, from 2,944 to 18,102. The state has 1.2 million children enrolled in public schools, he said.

After the home schooling bill was approved by the Virginia legislature, Gov. Warner asked lawmakers to amend it by requiring parents with only a high school diploma to score a certain level on a standardized test before they would be permitted to teach their children at home.

The legislature rejected that amendment on April 21. By law, Mr. Warner has 30 days from that date to decide whether to sign the bill.

The Virginia Education Association opposed the home schooling bill during legislative debate, but doesn’t intend to lobby Gov. Warner to veto it, said Jean H. Bankos, the president of the state affiliate of the National Education Association.

She added that parents in Virginia can get around home schooling laws by requesting a religious exemption from compulsory schooling.

The state granted 5,628 of the exemptions in the current school year, Mr. Pyle said.

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in 69ý
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by 
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

School Choice & Charters Charter 69ý Are in Uncharted Political Waters This Election Season
From big constitutional questions to more practical, local concerns, the charter school sector faces a number of challenges.
6 min read
Illustration of a montage of election and politics imagery with a school building and money symbol included.
iStock/Getty
School Choice & Charters Private School Choice: What the Research Says
Private school choice programs are proliferating as debates continue about their effects on low-income students and public schools.
7 min read
Image of research, data, and a data dashboard
Collage via iStock/Getty
School Choice & Charters States Are Spending Billions on Private School Choice. But Is It Truly Universal?
More than half a million students in eight states last school year took advantage of private school choice open to all students.
7 min read
data 1454372869
filo/DigitalVision Vectors
School Choice & Charters Explainer How States Use Tax Credits to Fund Private School Choice: An Explainer
Twenty-one states have programs that give tax credits for donations to organizations that grant private-school scholarships.
12 min read
budget school funding
iStock/Getty