Three States Ease Homeschool Rules

This article was published on the National Governors Association webpage. Virginia is one of the states included in the article:

"With the enactment of recent legislation, any parent with a high school diploma may now homeschool their children in Virginia. Previously, a parent was only allowed to homeschool a child in Virginia if the parent held a bachelor's degree, was a certified teacher, enrolled the child in a correspondence course approved by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or provided a curriculum based on state standards in arts and mathematics and evidence that the parent was able to provide an adequate education for the child."

Of course this law change is more of a paperwork change then an "easing of standards" as the accountability part of the homeschool law (proof of progress is what they call it here) has not changed and has always been the same for parents with or without a college degree.

The first sentence is also misleading: "With the enactment of recent legislation, any parent with a high school diploma may now homeschool their children in Virginia.". Parents with a high school diploma have always been able to homeschool their children. The extra hoops that they had to jump through may have made the school officials feel all "warm and fuzzy" but it really did nothing but make the NOIs (Notice of Intent) for those folks a bit longer.

The article also contained this statistic:

"Nationally, the homeschooling rate for students with parents whose highest educational attainment was a high school diploma or less increased from 0.9 percent in 1999 to 1.7 percent in 2003, according to NCES."

I also found it interesting that this article did not really express an opinion of whether this statistic and the "easing of the homeschool rules" was a good thing or not! Of course I know what I think…