As New Jersey voters head to the polls for a hotly contested election, the future of homeschool freedom in the state is on the ballot. New Jersey has long been a state where parents can homeschool their children without obtrusive government regulations and bureaucracy. Now the legislature is considering multiple bills that not only threaten this fundamental right to home education, but are also antithetical to the American tradition. These bills have languished in committee, but that could change after Nov. 4 depending on whether pro-freedom legislators are elected or sent home.
These proposed bills would unfairly single out homeschool parents for additional scrutiny simply because they choose to exercise a constitutional right and take responsibility for their child’s education.
Among the bills for consideration, one, Senate Bill 1796, would require an intrusive annual notice with no privacy protections for homeschool families and students. Another pair of bills, Assembly Bill 5796 and Senate Bill 4589, would require parents and children to meet annually with school officials for a “general health and wellness check.” Despite peer reviewed studies demonstrating that homeschooled children are not at greater risk for abuse or neglect, these proposed bills single out homeschooling parents for suspicion, undermining the fundamental principle of our legal system: “Innocent until proven guilty.”
What is more, these bills transform public schools into social service agencies by placing the responsibility for the wellness of homeschool children on the public education system, a system that was neither designed nor intended to meet this need. Child welfare is not the role of public educators who are often undertrained for this task, and who are increasingly overwhelmed with attempting to ensure that public school students are on grade level.
Worse still, these two bills are astonishingly vague, leaving “health and wellness check” undefined and open to interpretation by school officials. This invites privacy violations, potentially giving public officials carte blanche to pry into private medical affairs.
Even more troubling is a fourth bill, Assembly Bill 5825, which targets the educational freedom of homeschool families by requiring them to precisely align their private homeschool curriculum with New Jersey Student Learning Standards. This includes required courses, themes, and topics determined by the state.
This bill mandates not only what must be taught in private homes, but also how the parent or guardian must conduct the teaching, ignoring the importance of individual learning and instruction. This undermines one of the core pillars of homeschooling — namely educational freedom — and it threatens religious liberties and freedom of conscience.
The New Jersey state learning standards also require many controversial subjects to be taught. Some of these subjects are matters of conscience and religious freedom. But this bill takes these decisions out of the hands of parents and puts them in the hands of the state.
This is particularly egregious in light of the Mahmoud v. Taylor Supreme Court ruling this very year. The court found that if a public school refuses to let parents opt their own children out of public school classes based on their personal convictions, the school has violated the family’s constitutional right to religious freedom.
The court affirmed in this ruling that parents have a right to direct the education of their child according to their family’s religious convictions, and the same principle applies to this bill in New Jersey. Studies show that 75 percent of parents cite moral instruction as a primary reason they choose to homeschool, and more than 50 percent specifically cite religious instruction.
In addition to potentially violating First Amendment rights, this bill would effectively erase what makes homeschooling unique. It forces parents to conform their instruction to the New Jersey Student Learning Standards, effectively making homeschooling no different than public schools, with the sole exception that the child is at home.
Gone would be the flexibility and freedom that have caused so many families to flourish. No longer would students be able to learn in the ways that best suit them or pursue extra studies in subjects that most interest them. Instead, loving parents would be anchored to the failed curriculum that has overseen mediocre math and reading scores for New Jersey public school students.
Homeschooling is not easy. It is a deliberate choice. Parents and families who choose to take on the challenge do so out of strong convictions and a desire to see their children flourish. This bill would trample these convictions in a way that violates many of the core principles of our democratic republic. It flies in the face of more than 100 years of repeated rulings in favor of religious liberty, parental rights, and educational freedom, from Pierce v. Society of Sisters to Wisconsin v. Yoder and countless others.
Woven throughout these rulings is a consistent principle, perhaps best stated in Pierce: “The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
These bills are more than simple educational regulations. They represent a fundamentally different worldview than the one that animated the founders of this nation, one that replaces loving and caring parents with the unfeeling apparatus of the state.
New Jersey voters, consider this as you head to the polls.
Will Estrada is a husband, homeschool dad, attorney, and serves as senior counsel at Home School Legal Defense Association, a nonprofit organization that advocates for homeschool freedom across the nation in our laws, courtrooms, and local school districts.
