Responsible homeschooling means acknowledging that homeschooling is not always done responsibly. Homeschooling in the US has such minimal requirements with no oversight or enforcement, the only true requirement of being a homeschooler is being a parent or guardian to a child.

Homeschooling does not just attract parents who want to do things the right way. It attracts a spectrum of homeschoolers that reflect the spectrum of people who become parents.

Since the door is open for all parents to be homeschoolers, standards need to take into account the worse case scenarios, not the average or best case. These exist to protect the kids who need it most, no matter who they have as a parent.

This definition of responsible homeschooling is what I believe to be the minimum required to homeschool responsibly. Meeting them does not guarantee that homeschooling will be successful or not do harm. It aims simply to avoid the most common sources of the greatest harms done in homeschooling.

Responsible homeschooling

The goal of an education is to create a functional, socially integrated adult capable of being financially and socially independent from their family. This means that a homeschooled adult without the academic or social skills to have a career, live on their own, and go to college if they choose, have been failed by their education. Many teachers and parents have other goals for the education of their child, but the primary goal should be to prepare a child to be a functional, independent adult.

*

Homeschooling should aim to provide an education on par, or better than what is being provided at public school. This includes both in the range of areas of study being offered, and as high level of material. This doesn’t mean that homeschooling needs to imitate public school curriculum or classes, or that students can’t learn at their own pace. But homeschooling should be teaching grade level appropriate skills, in as broad a range of subject areas as their peers are learning. Course work should culminate at a 12th grade level, in all core subject areas.

*

Some subjects are core curriculum and necessary to be employable and functional in society. Reading, writing, history, math and science all contain fundamental skills that students should carry into adulthood. If a parent does not have the skill to provide instruction to this level, it is their duty to source a teacher or tutor who can give instruction in that subject. If a parent is not sure why a 12th grade level of a subject are necessary for a functional adult, they are not equipped to teach that subject.

‍ ‍*

Homeschool students should be equipped with the social and academic skills necessary to attend college if that is their wish. College is not a requirement for a successful life. But it is not a teacher’s place to make that decision for their student by choosing not to teach them the core subjects that are required to be accepted to college.

*

Students deserve a full time education. It is normalized in the homeschool community to condense learning time down to an hour or two a day. There is simply not a way to provide an education equivalent or better than what a public school student receives in an hour or two a day. Homeschoolers often achieve this by eliminating the majority of subjects, or only teaching a handful of the skills that are usually included in that subject. Some homeschool curriculum also teach “abbreviated” curriculum that does not cover a fraction of what is expected in public school. If a homeschool teacher is not sure what students are working on for six hours a day in a public school classroom, they should familiarize themselves with their state’s education learning standards, and see the amount and level of skills students are expected to master in each grade.

*

Students deserve a full time teacher:  It is neglectful for a working parent to attempt to homeschool, even if they work from home or have the ability to take their child to work with them. With work from home jobs becoming more common, more working parents are homeschooling. A child deserves the full time attention of a teacher, like they would have at public school. There are also parents who own a business or have a flexible job which allows their child to accompany them to work to do their schoolwork while their parent works. This is not providing an education. It is simply providing a workspace for a child to self-teach.

*

Students deserve school to be the focus of their school-aged years: Children should not be homeschooled in order for the child to be available to help with adult responsibilities. This can mean working in the family business, working another job to help financially support the family, to be available to provide childcare for siblings, or to care for a sick, disabled, or elderly family member at home. Children deserve to have the focus of their childhood be their education. This means as well that an older sibling should not be responsible for teaching or supervising younger siblings homeschooling.

*

The student’s experience with their education should be the priority over a parent’s experience homeschooling. Many homeschool content creators and authors advocate for the lifestyle that homeschooling allows their family. However, the focus can be on the parent’s satisfaction with the homeschooling lifestyle, not the outcomes for the homeschooled adult. The success of homeschooling is not measured by how much a parent enjoyed the experience, or how happy the homeschooled child is at the moment, it is the outcomes that the homeschooled adult experiences. Many homeschool parents also do not take their child’s schooling preference into consideration, and will homeschool regardless of whether their child is asking to attend a traditional school or hates being homeschooled. Children should have a say in what their educational experience is, which includes not just academics, but their social life as well.

*

Homeschooling parents should have an education beyond the level which they are teaching. Teaching is a skill that involves being able to engage with material on a higher level, contextualize and help make connections. Teaching is not learning alongside a student or facilitating them teaching themselves. It’s my belief that if we require bachelor’s degrees of teachers in schools, bachelor’s degrees should be required of a parent who signs up to teach k-12 material. A high school level education is not advanced enough to effectively teach high school level material. A higher level understanding is needed to be an effective teacher.

*

Homeschooling for the purpose of isolating a child from their peers or community is harmful. There is a large subset of homeschoolers that homeschool because it allows them to have control over their child’s life, what they learn, and what they encounter. The goal is not to protect their child from the bad in the world, but to limit their child’s knowledge of the world so that their child is indoctrinated into their parent’s worldview.

*

Homeschooling in order to segregate a child from people of different beliefs, religion, race, gender identity, or economic class is harmful. This is often presented as a way to protect their child from negative outside influences, but the effect is neither to protect their child nor to educate them. It is to ensure that the child holds the same prejudices that their parents do. 

*

Responsible homeschooling means that a student has the social and academic skills necessary to transition to a traditional school if the need arises. No parent can prevent the unexpected from happening for the entire course of their child’s education. Parents can lose their jobs. Parents divorce. A parent can become chronically ill, disabled, or even pass away. No one thinks it will be them, but when it happens the child is bearing the brunt of a difficult transition during a family crisis.

*

Children should not be homeschooled to prevent or delay age appropriate development. It is developmentally age appropriate for most 5 and 6 years to begin practicing independence from their parents, learning to be away from them for periods of time, learning to listen to other adults besides their parents, to spend time among their peers, and to have to do things independently such as use the bathroom, feed themselves, or ask for help when they need it. Parents should not homeschool because they “aren’t ready for their kids to grow up,” or don’t see signs of readiness for this independence while their child is with him at home.

*

Children should not be homeschooled because they are their parent’s “best friend,” emotional support, or because the parent will be lonely if they go to school. Parents should not rely on their children to fill their emotional needs.

*

Children should not be homeschooled in order to accommodate a parent’s mental health struggles, such as anxiety, trauma, OCD, or agoraphobia.