Suppose John Smith Construction Inc. is building a bridge near your home. They file a safety report with the local government, showing they have passed all requirements with flying colors and that the bridge is structurally sound. Then you find out that the safety inspector who wrote the report was an independent contractor hired by John Smith Construction Inc.—John Smith’s brother-in-law. You further find out that the local government will accept the report at its word, and doesn’t ask for copies of the original measurements or any other documentation. How safe will you feel driving over that bridge?
Unfortunately, most states that require homeschooled students to have portfolio reviews rely on this exact system—the parents choose and pay for their own evaluators, who may be relatives or friends, and the school district that receives the evaluations takes them on faith without ever looking at the portfolios themselves. The result is a system that invites corruption. At stake is not bridge safety, but children’s educations.
We have been covering Pennsylvania’s HB 1013 since last February. (See HB 1013 and Accountability and HB 1013 Is Bad for Homeschooling.) In a nutshell, the state’s current homeschool statute requires parents to first create a portfolio of their child’s work and have it evaluated by a certified teacher or other qualified individual, and then turn both that portfolio and the written evaluation in to the local school district for review by the superintendent. HB 1013 would remove the superintendent’s review, requiring parents to turn in only the written evaluation. We have had several homeschooling parents email us surprised that we oppose HB 1013 when it only removes what they argue is a redundant extra step. Because accountability for portfolio evaluators is included in our policy recommendations, we feel it is worth taking the time to explain why this extra step is not only not redundant but actually critically important.
Portfolio evaluations by teachers or other individuals play a role in homeschooled students’ assessments in 10 states. Evaluators are usually certified teachers, though some states may also allow other professionals or individuals who have taught in private schools but may not be certified to serve as evaluators. In each of these 10 states, the parents choose the evaluators, and they also pay them. There is no required training for being an evaluator, and in all states except for Pennsylvania there is nothing to ensure that evaluators are doing their job. In other words, there is nothing to prevent an evaluator from pocketing the parents’ money and signing off on their children’s portfolios without even glancing at them. And as we will show, this absolutely does happen.
Conflict of Interest
In some cases, portfolio evaluations are conducted by relatives or close friends, who will likely feel pressure to sign off on the students’ portfolios regardless of their quality. As Kieryn Darkwater remembers:
My home state, Florida, required an annual portfolio review by a certified teacher. We had one portfolio review done by a teacher who was a neutral third party, and she started asking me questions about my education that year. My mom became upset and we never went back. Instead, one of my relatives who is in the adult education field and has been a certified teacher for as long as I can remember “reviewed” our portfolios for us. I say review lightly, because no thorough review was expected or given—if that had been the case, my math and my siblings’ writing and reading comprehension skills would have been noticed. Instead, we presented our portfolios, and they were signed off on without a glance.
No state specifies that portfolio evaluators should not be relatives or close family friends. As a result, in too many cases, those trusted to look over homeschooled students’ portfolios to determine whether they have made sufficient progress have major conflicts of interest. This may not be ethical but it is completely legal.
The Financial Incentive
The fact that the evaluators are paid by the parents can also create a problem. As Teresa M. remembers:
At the time my parents were homeschooling us in the state of Ohio a certified teacher was needed to sign off that the children were being educated. They were supposed to look over the last year’s work to verify. The woman who did ours was also a member of our church and homeschool support group and never even looked at the stuff mom brought her, which wasn’t much. I even remember mom commenting that ‘P only cared about her check clearing.’
Homeschool alumni have reported hearing their parents and others sharing the names of the evaluators who go the easiest and ask the fewest questions. This creates a financial incentive to have a reputation for being an easy evaluator, someone who doesn’t look too closely.
Closing Ranks
Homeschooling communities’ tendency to close ranks around their own also contributes to these problems. In the wake of the passing of HB 1013, a homeschool alumni from Pennsylvania wrote this:
I do not know what would have become of my education if HB 1013 had passed while I was still a homeschooled child. I suspect that our already fragile standards would have plummeted. While I can imagine my evaluator raising the alarm (privately, of course, to my parents) if I were literally unable to perform basic addition, it’s more difficult to imagine her refusing to approve us to continue homeschooling. After all, she was one of us, and saw homeschooling as a moral imperative, not just an education option. More than likely, she would have admonished us to do better and signed the forms. Even if she hadn’t, what would have prevented us from simply finding another person to sign?
During the annual review itself, my evaluator went through my portfolio and read selectively. She glanced at the grades my mother had given me on the tests we chose to include, and maybe read through one of them in detail. It would have been blindingly easy to fake our way through an evaluation. All we would need were a couple of inflated tests. Without the superintendent review, an already easily-corruptible process would have had no teeth at all. We could count on our evaluator to put in some effort because her license was on the line if the school board contradicted her review. If nobody had checked her work, how could we trust her to check mine?
It is a common practice for a homeschool parent who has a teaching certificate or otherwise qualifies to be an evaluator to conduct portfolio evaluations for other homeschooling families in her community. Many homeschooling parents feel the need to prevent outside intervention in homeschooling families even when there are concerns and to make sure homeschoolers look good regardless of the cost to the children in question. As a result, homeschool parent evaluators are likely to sign off on every portfolio, including those with severe deficiencies.
Yes, But Is It Common?
By now the problem should be obvious. Without accountability, there is nothing to stop an evaluator from signing off on a homeschooled student’s portfolio without looking at it, or to prevent an evaluator from signing off on a portfolio they know is substandard. How often does this happen? The Testimony of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators gives us some idea:
Under current law, the school district receives the evaluator’s report and student portfolio. We work to provide the parents with appropriate feedback that is designed to assist them in their role as their child’s teacher. . . .
We view this work as a core responsibility, not just because it is the law, but because we think it helps those parents who choose home schooling and protects those children whose parents may not have the best motives in mind. It is not unheard of for a few parents to use the home education law as a way to have their child avoid discipline, truancy charges or other consequences. We urge you to leave the accountability and oversight provisions of the home education law as is. We believe the relatively minor burden placed on parents and school districts to assure that appropriate education is being provided is worth the price. We do not know how many home schooled students will be harmed should their direct oversight be removed.
We do know from the last public report on home education issued by the Department of Education that, of the 22,136 students who were home educated in 2006-07, 14 had affidavits returned by the superintendent, 108 were identified by the evaluator as having inappropriate educational programs, and 228 were identified by the superintendent as having inappropriate educational programs. In 2006-07, 12 formal hearings were held regarding inappropriate programs.
While the responsibility of reviewing the evaluators’ reports and students’ portfolios each year is extra work for school districts, it is work that goes to the core of what we have sworn an oath to do. It is work that is appropriately assigned to us. By removing the requirement that student portfolios and evaluations undergo an annual review by the superintendent, home education students would no longer be subject to independent, unpaid review of each student’s academic progress. . . . We strongly oppose removing the responsibility of the superintendent to review the annual evaluation and portfolio and instead place this responsibility solely with the paid evaluator.
While evaluators identified 108 inappropriate educational programs for the 2006-2007 school year, superintendents located 228 additional inappropriate educational programs that evaluators had signed off on. These evaluators may have been friends or relatives, or they may have been more interested in getting paid than in properly carrying out their responsibilities, or they may have had more concern for the reputation of the homeschooling community than for the education of the community’s children. That the portfolio review system needs accountability is verified both by the testimony of homeschool alumni and the records kept by the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators.
Conclusion
We need a system of accountability for portfolio evaluators. Whether it be a conflict of interest or the financial incentive or a desire to close ranks and keep other homeschoolers free from outside intervention at all costs, evaluators have many reasons to be less than honest in their evaluations—and it is the children who suffer. Evaluators should not be able to sign off on insufficient progress without having to worry about getting caught. Many homeschooled children rely on portfolio evaluations to ensure that they receive an education, and when evaluators fall down on the job it is these children’s education that suffers. When evaluators are not held accountable, parents are not held accountable, and when parents are not held accountable there will be homeschooled children who receive substandard educations.
At this point, there is likely no stopping HB 1013, as it is unlikely that the current governor will veto the bill. What we can do is raise awareness about the importance of accountability for portfolio evaluators. We would not allow a construction company building a bridge to hire and compensate their own safety inspector. Why would we think this system any less given to corruption when applied to homeschooling? Accountability is important whatever is at stake, whether bridge safety or children’s education.
Please join us in promoting accountability for portfolio evaluators.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Sarah Jones: “I’ve been lucky”
“Standardized testing isn’t enough. I performed well on those tests, but still received a substandard education. Parents should be required to submit curriculum plans to the local district every year, and they should also be required to adhere to certain basic academic standards. School district officials should also be trained to recognize signs of abuse in homeschool families.”
My parents are classical musicians. When it came to literature and the arts, they (my mother, really, my father had nothing to do with the teaching process) excelled. Math, science and history? That’s another story altogether. This is partially due to the fact my parents are also Christian fundamentalists and insisted on using textbooks from Bob Jones University Press and A Beka, the publishing arm of Pensacola Christian College.
I know nothing about evolutionary theory. I had to completely re-educate myself about American and European history. I learned very little—nothing, really—about Africa, or Asia, or South America.
I learned that God literally spoke the world into being in six days. My science tests asked me to remember what got created on what day. I learned that the Book of Job provides verifiable evidence that humans co-existed with dinosaurs, and that the sky was probably a deep magenta color before the Flood.
I learned that the Founding Fathers were born-again Christians, and that God inspired them to create the United States and establish it as a Christian country. I learned that our laws were based on the Ten Commandments and that separation of church and state is a fiction. As for Europe: Ask me anything about the Protestant reformation and the missions movement. My curriculum focused on nothing else. I learned nothing about other religions and cultures, and that’s exactly what the creators of my textbooks intended.
There’s little structure in the homeschool environment, too, and that’s a problem. I didn’t learn to organize myself, or my tasks, or adhere to a schedule. That became a major impediment when I entered mainstream education—and the professional world. That same lack of structure contributed, I believe, to the fact that my brother’s learning disability didn’t get detected until he entered a real classroom.
The worst bit, though, is the fact that my parents had the legal authority to keep me almost totally isolated from the outside world. I attended no activities that were not at our fundamentalist church. And that means I never had the chance to tell anyone safe that my father had a habit of screaming abuse, spanking us with household objects, shoving us, and throwing chairs in our direction when he was angry. The day after he shoved me face first into our couch, and left me with a permanent scar on my knee and a black and blue face, they simply kept me home from church so that nobody could see.
I was nine. I was nineteen before anyone told me the abuse wasn’t my fault.
The solution isn’t one that most homeschool advocates want to hear: Oversight. I spent most of my homeschooling years in Virginia, where my parents taught me under an academic exemption. There are two ways to homeschool in the state; families with an academic exemption are required to submit students for standardized testing, and families with a religious exemption were allowed to go totally off the grid.
Standardized testing isn’t enough. I performed well on those tests, but still received a substandard education. Parents should be required to submit curriculum plans to the local district every year, and they should also be required to adhere to certain basic academic standards. School district officials should also be trained to recognize signs of abuse in homeschool families.
A sound education shouldn’t depend on luck. The simple truth is that most parents, no matter what level of education they possess, simply aren’t equipped to teach all subjects for all grades—and to all learning styles. No one is, and that’s why schools hire teachers. This argument that a parent should have an inalienable right to educate their own children is a nonsensical one; nobody has the inalienable right to educate anyone. Either you’re qualified to do so or you’re not. If you’re not, why on earth should you be allowed to try it anyway?
And finally, homeschool families: Abuse is happening in your world. You are no different and no better than any family anywhere else. If you object to oversight, I’m going to assume that doesn’t matter to you. I’m going to wonder what’s really going on in your home, where nobody else can see. And I’m going to keep fighting to make sure all children get the education they deserve.
Sarah Jones was homeschooled in North Carolina and Virginia K-8. She then attended a fundamentalist Christian high school grades 9-10 and a fundamentalist Christian college. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 16 May, 2016 by CRHE
Bethany Brittain: “It didn’t take long for me to lose my excitement”
“Oversight of my home education would have given me someone to see the severe authoritarian parenting happening in our home. The beatings that were handed to us daily as obedience to god. Maybe an agency of oversight would have missed the abuse. But I can tell you that not having anyone really paying attention to my education cost me years of having to make it up.”
I remember when the first box of school books came in the mail. Up until 6th grade, I had gone to school—normal school with desks, books, and a teacher. Now we were enrolled in correspondence school or home school. My mom would be my teacher. I was excited by the idea. I couldn’t wait to learn on my own terms. It didn’t take long for me to lose my excitement.
The books came from a Mennonite educational agency. They were to keep our tests, grades, and school records. The first problem I remember having was what to do when I didn’t understand something. We started somewhere around 1979 when the Internet wasn’t an option. If I couldn’t understand the book, I only had my parents to ask for help. Dad was pretty good at explaining what he knew. His explanations were long, but I usually walked away with the answer I needed. The downside of asking Dad was that he knew nothing about math, science, or history. I could ask my mom, but she couldn’t always help either. She knew more about math than my dad, but she often lost her temper. I remember long hours of trying to learn math from my mother while she screamed at me, “Why don’t you try?!” Tears ran down her beet red face. I learned to fake my work. It worked well to fake what I didn’t know because who looked over my homework?
Both of my parents were often busy with other “homesteading” activities. You see, we lived off the grid and isolated from outsiders. There was water to get from the creek, goats to milk, and property to manage. I spent a great deal of my childhood cooking, cleaning, and caring for younger siblings.
Our Mennonite overseers would never know the work I didn’t learn. Then there were the topics that even the Mennonites books didn’t teach me. Their science book was filled with religious doctrine. In a discussion on minerals, I learned that women often adorn themselves with gold which is a sin. I learned nothing about the scientific theory or any other helpful look into the world around me.
My parents constantly worried about outsiders coming in and meddling with there lives. Stories about fending off authorities with shot guns often came as dinner conversation. Yet if there was oversight, I would have had a well rounded education. Instead of excelling at writing and failing at math, I would have learned both. Instead of hating science and history, I would have been fascinated with these topics. How do I know this? Eventually I went to college.
My entrance exam scores were high in reading and writing and way below in everything else. Starting in beginning math, I worked hard. Eventually I aced college algebra and chemistry. You see, I loved to learn.
If my mother were reading this, she’d tell you how poorly the public schools were educating me. I agree public schools do have short-comings, but there is still oversight. No public school would allow me to milk goats, clean house, and mother a young sibling. Oversight of my home education would have given me someone to see the severe authoritarian parenting happening in our home. The beatings that were handed to us daily as obedience to god. Maybe an agency of oversight would have missed the abuse. But I can tell you that not having anyone really paying attention to my education cost me years of having to make it up.
I didn’t learn, really learn, until I went to college at 29 years old.
Bethany Brittain was homeschooled in California in the late 1970s and 1980s. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by Sarah Henderson
Sarah Henderson: “We did not wish to be home schooled”
“If my parents were required to show some sort of portfolio, they would have needed to make sure that there were books, and show progression through grades (even if the progression was at an individual pace). They would have also needed to obtain and evaluate school work from us.”
I left and went to high school when I was 17, and earned a high school diploma, but I found this difficult due to the high number of significant gaps in my education, including not knowing how electricity works, not understanding the periodic table, and not understanding the relationship between decimals and fractions. I also did not know how to write essays, descriptive paragraphs, or persuasive paragraphs. I also had significant gaps in the knowledge of history; I did not know about the residential schools for Aboriginal people in North America, and I did not know how recently the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage had occurred. I received no instruction in the arts or technology.
When I was 18, our circumstances resulted in all my younger siblings attending school. One close in age brother attempted high school, but dropped out after one year, because his education gaps and learning disability were too difficult to overcome. One other sister graduated high school. So far, three more siblings obtained some high school credits but dropped out due a combination of factors, including lack of support for education at home, the extreme lack of educational background to support a high school education, and difficulty stemming from having to learn how to learn, in addition to the remedial work that was required to catch up to their grade level. Out of 9 homeschooled children, only 2 have already received high school diplomas, 4 have dropped out, and one more sibling is expected to successfully complete high school (for a total of 3 high school graduates, and 6 drop outs).
I believe that having some form of oversight could have improved the educational outcomes in my family. Because we did not wish to be home schooled, being interviewed by an outside party may have allowed us to express our wishes to attend school; although a safe platform to say this would have been needed, since we would have been severely punished if we had expressed that wish to someone who was in a position to help provide that outcome. Perhaps having a superintendent oversee the homeschooling process would have motivated my parents to be more organized, and to create lesson plans and follow through on them.
If my parents were required to show some sort of portfolio, they would have needed to make sure that there were books, and show progression through grades (even if the progression was at an individual pace). They would have also needed to obtain and evaluate school work from us. Because there was no one to show the work too, and there was no measurement of failure as homeschoolers, my parents were not motivated enough on their own to provide a good education, and there was no one to step in and ensure that a good education was provided between when my oldest brother started being homeschooled in 1992 and 2006 when everyone was finally given the opportunity to go to school. That is 14 years of unsuccessful homeschooling, which could have been avoided with some form of homeschooling oversight.
To read more about my experiences, please go to my writings on the Coalition for Responsible Home Education or on Homeschoolers Anonymous, and my blog.
Sarah Henderson was homeschooled from 1994 to 2002 in Nova Scotia and Ontario. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 16 May, 2016 by CRHE
Jane Smith: “I am haunted by the question of what might have been different”
“Homeschooling students who, like me, are privileged to have the skills necessary to fill in the gaps in our education can often bounce back from sub-standard educations. But others, like my brothers, who lack these skills will forever pay the price. The costs of the lack of oversight are borne by the most vulnerable.”
My family’s experience with homeschooling and outside supervision demonstrates just how high the stakes can be. The first time my family homeschooled was in the mid-1980s, well before homeschooling was mainstream. My older sister, my younger brother, and I avoided contact with outsiders during school hours, gave our home school a name in case anyone ever asked where we attended, and were very conscious of the transgressive nature of what we were doing.
As I recall, my parents notified the superintendent of the neighboring school district since that was the location of the church school we had been attending prior to homeschooling. As a result, my mother kept records to ensure we completed the required number of school days and at the end of every year we were tested by the school psychologist in academic subject areas. There were few surprises—we often struggled to keep up with our grade levels in math, but all excelled in reading. The testing procedure was noninvasive and it was very reassuring to my mother to have evidence that she was not failing us academically. (She was far less enthusiastic about homeschooling than my father was.)
By the time I was approaching 7th grade, my parents were in the process of adopting two brothers. I was completely bored at home, begging to go back to our church school. I finished high school there, using the same curriculum we had been using at home. Because the curriculum was so utterly lacking in academic rigor, I was able to graduate before I turned 16. By this time, my younger brothers were showing substantial difficulty succeeding in school due to serious mental health issues, behavioral difficulties, and apparent learning disabilities. So in the early 1990s, my parents turned to homeschooling once again.
This time, homeschooling was more widely recognized as an educational alternative so my parents contacted the superintendent of our own school district. There was now a requirement that homeschooling parents should have a high school diploma. Since neither of my parents had one, they drove me and my church school diploma down to the superintendent’s office, hoping it would suffice. It did. This time around, however, there was no annual testing. No oversight at all, as I remember.
My younger brothers used the same curriculum we older children had used; however, where we had been very motivated readers, they were not. Where we were enjoyed relatively good emotional and mental health, they did not. But this time there was no oversight and no desire on the part of my parents to seek out outside help. They were convinced that they could “fix” my brothers’ emotional, behavioral, and educational difficulties through prayer and corporal punishment. My older sister and I begged them repeatedly to get professional help, but they always insisted they had just had a breakthrough or ignored our pleas altogether.
Today the contrast between the lives of my older siblings and me on one hand and the lives of my younger brothers on the other could not be greater. My sister is a homeschooling mom of four brilliant children who are not only academically successful but also have the opportunity to exercise their abilities in art, music, and drama in a way that my sister and I only dreamed of. My brother just younger than me has proven to be very upwardly mobile in his job. I earned a PhD and am now a tenure-track college professor. In contrast, my younger brothers have struggled to maintain stable, law-abiding lives and have done time in prison.
I am haunted by the question of what might have been different if there had been someone on hand to urge my parents to acknowledge the failure of their methods and get professional help. Homeschooling students who, like me, are privileged to have the skills necessary to fill in the gaps in our education can often bounce back from sub-standard educations. But others, like my brothers, who lack these skills will forever pay the price. The costs of the lack of oversight are borne by the most vulnerable.
Jane Smith was homeschooled in Pennsylvania in the mid-1980s and her brothers were homeschooled in Oklahoma in the early to mid-1990s. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 16 May, 2016 by CRHE
Cynthia Jeub: “I wasn’t really taught anything after I was ten years old”
“In the state of Colorado, homeschooled students are required to take placement tests every couple of years. There’s an exemption for parents who are certified teachers. My dad had a bachelor’s degree in English, and had taught it briefly, so we never took any tests.”
For most of my K-12 education, I studied three subjects: homemaking, business, and competitive forensics. I had more than a dozen younger brothers and sisters, who I was expected to babysit and care for whenever my parents were busy. I kept the house clean, bathed children, and I cooked and baked. I learned business because my dad gave me a microloan at age 9, and failure to pay him back was not an option. At age thirteen, I became the main administrative assistant for the family business. Every spring semester, speech and debate competition was my top priority, so I spent that time researching, practicing, traveling, and performing.
I learned only very basic math and science, and when I got to college, I couldn’t make it through a basic chemistry class because I couldn’t do the algebraic equations. At this point, I’m taking a break from college so I can teach myself middle-school level math, science, and history from Internet resources and books.
In the state of Colorado, homeschooled students are required to take placement tests every couple of years. There’s an exemption for parents who are certified teachers. My dad had a bachelor’s degree in English, and had taught it briefly, so we never took any tests. The first tests I ever took were my driver’s permit test and the SAT. As such, when I got to college, I struggled with scoring well on tests I’d studied for, because I’d never been trained for the pressure of the test layout and format. My homeschooled friends who did take the tests didn’t have such a difficult time with the organization of college when they graduated.
I’m not convinced that standardized testing reflects intelligence or learning. You know what would have helped? Prioritizing my education, instead of filling my time with so many other things. I was expected to put everything else before school—the family business, keeping the house in order and watching my siblings, staying competitive in speech and debate. I often got in trouble for trying to study while I was supposed to be doing something else. If someone had just told me it was okay to want to read all the time, instead of feeling like educating myself was a waste of time and a distraction, that would have been fantastic.
There was also the problem of religious stigma, and I was afraid to read about evolution, other religions, and atheistic philosophy. If someone had just told me, “You can read about science and philosophy without fear of betraying your family’s faith and reputation,” I would have done so much better.
Cynthia Jeub was homeschooled form 1996 to 2011 in Minnesota and Colorado. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Last Updated: 19 May, 2020 by Chelsea McCracken
Opacity in Data Reporting: A Look at Cardus (2011, 2012)
This post summarizes our research review, which provides a critical analysis of Pennings et al. (2011, 2012). Click HERE to read a more in-depth version of the arguments presented.
In 2011 and 2012, the Canadian Christian think tank Cardus published reports on their study of adult graduates of Christian private schools in North America. (The 2011 publication focused on schools in the United States and the 2012 publication focused on Canada.) Though the authors of the report, Pennings and his team of researchers, did not set out to analyze homeschooling, best research practices required that some incidental data also be collected on homeschool graduates.
The Cardus publications relied on random samples of homeschool graduates whose responses to various surveys were weighted based on the number of respondents and then weighted again for a variety of demographic factors. As such, the Cardus survey is one of the only studies of a representative sample of homeschool graduates—and one of the only studies whose results can be applied to the larger population of all homeschoolers.
The major findings of the study relate only to religious homeschoolers (or, as defined in the study, homeschoolers whose mothers frequently attended religious services) in the US and Canada. The researchers found that homeschool graduates were less academically prepared for college and had less higher education than public school graduates; that they had a strict and legalistic moral outlook; and that they reported more feelings of helplessness and a lack of clarity about their life goals. In addition, American religious homeschool graduates reported more divorces and fewer children than public school graduates, as well as a lack of interest in politics and charitable giving; however, these characteristics were not shared by Canadian respondents.
Though the study lacked significant methodological flaws, its lack of focus on homeschooling limits the conclusions it allows us to draw. For example, the small sample size limited the number of statistically significant results. The researchers did not define ‘homeschooling’ or distinguish between different types (for example, umbrella schools, correspondence programs, etc); nor did they account for differences in the number of years children spent being homeschooled. The study was limited to religious homeschoolers and defined them by their mothers’ attendance at religious services—this may not be the most precise definition. The homeschool graduates who were surveyed were mostly in their late 20s, which may not have provided a complete picture of their lifetime outcomes.
If the study was more or less sound, the write-up was less so. For some reason, Pennings et al. chose not to report their statistical data in a meaningful way. The dozens of graphs they include in their publications are not labeled in units or with a scale on their y-axes. This makes it impossible to translate data from a graph into a statement like “Group X had 3.4 more children than Group Y.” At best, we can only say that “Group X had more children than Group Y.” Furthermore, though Pennings et al. describe performing significance testing and state that the p-values are represented on the graphs, this does not appear to be the case.
For these reasons it is difficult to draw any direct conclusions from this study. The soundness of the methodology makes some of its findings suggestive of larger trends, but the study’s lack of focus on homeschoolers and opaque methods for reporting data hinder its explanatory power. Apparently the authors plan to follow up on their previous study with one that more directly targets homeschoolers—hopefully this future study will illuminate some of the more murky aspects of Cardus (2011, 2012).
Last Updated: 15 November, 2018 by CRHE
A Timeline of Homeschool Legislation
This timeline highlights a trend toward loosening oversight of homeschooling over the past two decades. While most major changes are included, this timeline is a work in progress and is more complete from 2011 to the present than it is before these years.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by CRHE
Sierra S.: “My mom … was obviously overwhelmed”
“If there had been more oversight, my mom may have been able to get more motivated to get organized and give me and my sisters the education we needed. My sisters and I would not be in the very difficult place we are right now because of being under educated.”
My parents decided to homeschool me and my 2 younger sisters because they believed it was the will of god. California law only requires parents to notify state or local officials of the intent to homeschool. No testing or further assessment is required.
I believe my parents’ decision to homeschool was motivated by fear that my sisters and I would be exposed to the world too soon. My parents were very big on letting their kids be kids, which is good—except we were never challenged and we weren’t ready for adulthood. I do believe my parents had good intentions with sheltering us, and they’ll say to this day they don’t regret their decision to homeschool. However, I regret being homeschooled immensely.
I was about 10 or 11 when my mom started homeschooling me and my sisters, and it actually started out okay. My mom started out excited and organized; however, she quickly ended up becoming neglectful. I was a month from being 12 when my life-long sick brother died. We were all grieving. My mom would spend hours at a time in her room and sometimes all day. My sisters and I pretty much did whatever we wanted all day.
My mom had severe anxiety. Her motivation to educate us went in cycles; she would try to get organized and would talk about her plan for the school year, but she never followed through. She was obviously overwhelmed. Not only were there were 3 of us in different grades, but my sister is dyslexic. The pressure of having to juggle all of our educations must have been extreme. I also think my mother expected us to be more motivated and teach ourselves. But how many kids want to do school/homework over playing and talking?
When I was 13, my family and I moved to Florida. Florida law requires assessment with some exceptions. My mom said she put me and my sisters in an umbrella school, which is basically homeschooling through a private school. I actually recently asked my mom what umbrella school we were in, but she doesn’t remember.
Through all the curriculum we started, I don’t think we ever finished one. As a teen, I remember reading through almost my whole psychology book and trying to teach myself multiplication a few times. That’s how often I did school. My self-esteem was very low. Many times I felt too stupid to even try and I felt like my parents didn’t care anyway.
As a teenager I was depressed. Doing nothing day after day, having nowhere to go, and having no real direction in life only made me feel more hopeless. I had a lot of goals for adulthood about future careers and college, so I’d often feel depressed about being nowhere near my goals, and many times I would try to talk to my parents about feeling stupid and under-educated. They would just blame me for not doing my school work and, more times than not, my mom would say “Well, sorry I’m such a bad mom.” Then I would have to spend the rest of the conversation reassuring her that she was a good mom. My intention was never to make her feel like a bad mom. I needed someone to push me and believe in me. To this day I still feel like my parents gave up on their children because they didn’t believe in us.
Sometimes when I would get worried about not being ready for college, my mom would tell me that I was on a “different path.” I guess it was supposed to make me feel special, but I wanted to be ready for college. I wanted to choose my own path.
When I was 18, and my church friends graduated, my mom threw me a graduation party, which made me feel guilty because I know I had hardly done any school since 4th grade and I was not even close to where I needed to be. I expressed feeling guilty to my mom about having a party when I’m not really graduated, and getting gifts and money from my friends and family. She replied, “But you do have a diploma.” For a second, I got my hopes up and said, “Really?? Where is it?” Then she got mad at me because I couldn’t just take her word for it. I never saw a diploma. But what was worse is I felt like everyone at the party knew I wasn’t really graduated. Like everyone could see right through.
Not only do I not have a diploma, I don’t have any records of anything about my homeschooling. I don’t know how my mom did it. She managed to get us through our teenage years without having us analyzed by a teacher or tested. I even contacted someone at the Florida Department of Education to see if they would have any record of what umbrella school I was in, but they couldn’t help me. So, basically I have zero proof that I was homeschooled.
When I was 18, I got a job as a preschool teacher aide/afternoon teacher specifically so I could afford getting a high school education. With the money I earned, I signed up for a school that could get me a diploma in 6 months or less, which I would find out too late that it was a scam. The very little work the school sent me was very easy. Then I got the diploma, I cried tears of joy. It took me several months to realize I’d been scammed. I should have known because I didn’t learn anything from that school.
I’ve let go of a lot of bitterness against my parents, although I’ll admit that once in a while it still hurts a little. I love them and I understand that my mom and dad were grieving and my mom had severe anxiety. The thing is, they had 3 kids that they neglected in a big way.
Today my education is my own responsibility. I’m 23 and I have to learn elementary math, just so that I can qualify for high school. Not being properly educated (yet) makes being successful much harder, but I can’t let what someone else did to me in the past determine what I do now. As easy as it would be, I can’t spend my life playing the blame game. I am determined to succeed in my goals.
If there had been more oversight, my mom may have been able to get more motivated to get organized and give me and my sisters the education we needed. My sisters and I would not be in the very difficult place we are right now because of being under educated. More oversight would’ve helped not only educationally but also, in my family’s case, emotionally. I believe having motivation to get out of bed and a daily goal of doing school would’ve given my mom, my sisters, and I more purpose.
Sierra S. was homeschooled in California and Florida, 2002-2009, grades 4 to 12. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Testimonials page.
Posted: 30 October, 2014 by Rachel Coleman
Why We Need Accountability for Portfolio Evaluators
Suppose John Smith Construction Inc. is building a bridge near your home. They file a safety report with the local government, showing they have passed all requirements with flying colors and that the bridge is structurally sound. Then you find out that the safety inspector who wrote the report was an independent contractor hired by John Smith Construction Inc.—John Smith’s brother-in-law. You further find out that the local government will accept the report at its word, and doesn’t ask for copies of the original measurements or any other documentation. How safe will you feel driving over that bridge?
Unfortunately, most states that require homeschooled students to have portfolio reviews rely on this exact system—the parents choose and pay for their own evaluators, who may be relatives or friends, and the school district that receives the evaluations takes them on faith without ever looking at the portfolios themselves. The result is a system that invites corruption. At stake is not bridge safety, but children’s educations.
We have been covering Pennsylvania’s HB 1013 since last February. (See HB 1013 and Accountability and HB 1013 Is Bad for Homeschooling.) In a nutshell, the state’s current homeschool statute requires parents to first create a portfolio of their child’s work and have it evaluated by a certified teacher or other qualified individual, and then turn both that portfolio and the written evaluation in to the local school district for review by the superintendent. HB 1013 would remove the superintendent’s review, requiring parents to turn in only the written evaluation. We have had several homeschooling parents email us surprised that we oppose HB 1013 when it only removes what they argue is a redundant extra step. Because accountability for portfolio evaluators is included in our policy recommendations, we feel it is worth taking the time to explain why this extra step is not only not redundant but actually critically important.
Portfolio evaluations by teachers or other individuals play a role in homeschooled students’ assessments in 10 states. Evaluators are usually certified teachers, though some states may also allow other professionals or individuals who have taught in private schools but may not be certified to serve as evaluators. In each of these 10 states, the parents choose the evaluators, and they also pay them. There is no required training for being an evaluator, and in all states except for Pennsylvania there is nothing to ensure that evaluators are doing their job. In other words, there is nothing to prevent an evaluator from pocketing the parents’ money and signing off on their children’s portfolios without even glancing at them. And as we will show, this absolutely does happen.
Conflict of Interest
In some cases, portfolio evaluations are conducted by relatives or close friends, who will likely feel pressure to sign off on the students’ portfolios regardless of their quality. As Kieryn Darkwater remembers:
My home state, Florida, required an annual portfolio review by a certified teacher. We had one portfolio review done by a teacher who was a neutral third party, and she started asking me questions about my education that year. My mom became upset and we never went back. Instead, one of my relatives who is in the adult education field and has been a certified teacher for as long as I can remember “reviewed” our portfolios for us. I say review lightly, because no thorough review was expected or given—if that had been the case, my math and my siblings’ writing and reading comprehension skills would have been noticed. Instead, we presented our portfolios, and they were signed off on without a glance.
No state specifies that portfolio evaluators should not be relatives or close family friends. As a result, in too many cases, those trusted to look over homeschooled students’ portfolios to determine whether they have made sufficient progress have major conflicts of interest. This may not be ethical but it is completely legal.
The Financial Incentive
The fact that the evaluators are paid by the parents can also create a problem. As Teresa M. remembers:
At the time my parents were homeschooling us in the state of Ohio a certified teacher was needed to sign off that the children were being educated. They were supposed to look over the last year’s work to verify. The woman who did ours was also a member of our church and homeschool support group and never even looked at the stuff mom brought her, which wasn’t much. I even remember mom commenting that ‘P only cared about her check clearing.’
Homeschool alumni have reported hearing their parents and others sharing the names of the evaluators who go the easiest and ask the fewest questions. This creates a financial incentive to have a reputation for being an easy evaluator, someone who doesn’t look too closely.
Closing Ranks
Homeschooling communities’ tendency to close ranks around their own also contributes to these problems. In the wake of the passing of HB 1013, a homeschool alumni from Pennsylvania wrote this:
I do not know what would have become of my education if HB 1013 had passed while I was still a homeschooled child. I suspect that our already fragile standards would have plummeted. While I can imagine my evaluator raising the alarm (privately, of course, to my parents) if I were literally unable to perform basic addition, it’s more difficult to imagine her refusing to approve us to continue homeschooling. After all, she was one of us, and saw homeschooling as a moral imperative, not just an education option. More than likely, she would have admonished us to do better and signed the forms. Even if she hadn’t, what would have prevented us from simply finding another person to sign?
During the annual review itself, my evaluator went through my portfolio and read selectively. She glanced at the grades my mother had given me on the tests we chose to include, and maybe read through one of them in detail. It would have been blindingly easy to fake our way through an evaluation. All we would need were a couple of inflated tests. Without the superintendent review, an already easily-corruptible process would have had no teeth at all. We could count on our evaluator to put in some effort because her license was on the line if the school board contradicted her review. If nobody had checked her work, how could we trust her to check mine?
It is a common practice for a homeschool parent who has a teaching certificate or otherwise qualifies to be an evaluator to conduct portfolio evaluations for other homeschooling families in her community. Many homeschooling parents feel the need to prevent outside intervention in homeschooling families even when there are concerns and to make sure homeschoolers look good regardless of the cost to the children in question. As a result, homeschool parent evaluators are likely to sign off on every portfolio, including those with severe deficiencies.
Yes, But Is It Common?
By now the problem should be obvious. Without accountability, there is nothing to stop an evaluator from signing off on a homeschooled student’s portfolio without looking at it, or to prevent an evaluator from signing off on a portfolio they know is substandard. How often does this happen? The Testimony of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators gives us some idea:
Under current law, the school district receives the evaluator’s report and student portfolio. We work to provide the parents with appropriate feedback that is designed to assist them in their role as their child’s teacher. . . .
We view this work as a core responsibility, not just because it is the law, but because we think it helps those parents who choose home schooling and protects those children whose parents may not have the best motives in mind. It is not unheard of for a few parents to use the home education law as a way to have their child avoid discipline, truancy charges or other consequences. We urge you to leave the accountability and oversight provisions of the home education law as is. We believe the relatively minor burden placed on parents and school districts to assure that appropriate education is being provided is worth the price. We do not know how many home schooled students will be harmed should their direct oversight be removed.
We do know from the last public report on home education issued by the Department of Education that, of the 22,136 students who were home educated in 2006-07, 14 had affidavits returned by the superintendent, 108 were identified by the evaluator as having inappropriate educational programs, and 228 were identified by the superintendent as having inappropriate educational programs. In 2006-07, 12 formal hearings were held regarding inappropriate programs.
While the responsibility of reviewing the evaluators’ reports and students’ portfolios each year is extra work for school districts, it is work that goes to the core of what we have sworn an oath to do. It is work that is appropriately assigned to us. By removing the requirement that student portfolios and evaluations undergo an annual review by the superintendent, home education students would no longer be subject to independent, unpaid review of each student’s academic progress. . . . We strongly oppose removing the responsibility of the superintendent to review the annual evaluation and portfolio and instead place this responsibility solely with the paid evaluator.
While evaluators identified 108 inappropriate educational programs for the 2006-2007 school year, superintendents located 228 additional inappropriate educational programs that evaluators had signed off on. These evaluators may have been friends or relatives, or they may have been more interested in getting paid than in properly carrying out their responsibilities, or they may have had more concern for the reputation of the homeschooling community than for the education of the community’s children. That the portfolio review system needs accountability is verified both by the testimony of homeschool alumni and the records kept by the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators.
Conclusion
We need a system of accountability for portfolio evaluators. Whether it be a conflict of interest or the financial incentive or a desire to close ranks and keep other homeschoolers free from outside intervention at all costs, evaluators have many reasons to be less than honest in their evaluations—and it is the children who suffer. Evaluators should not be able to sign off on insufficient progress without having to worry about getting caught. Many homeschooled children rely on portfolio evaluations to ensure that they receive an education, and when evaluators fall down on the job it is these children’s education that suffers. When evaluators are not held accountable, parents are not held accountable, and when parents are not held accountable there will be homeschooled children who receive substandard educations.
At this point, there is likely no stopping HB 1013, as it is unlikely that the current governor will veto the bill. What we can do is raise awareness about the importance of accountability for portfolio evaluators. We would not allow a construction company building a bridge to hire and compensate their own safety inspector. Why would we think this system any less given to corruption when applied to homeschooling? Accountability is important whatever is at stake, whether bridge safety or children’s education.
Please join us in promoting accountability for portfolio evaluators.
Last Updated: 26 October, 2023 by Rachel Coleman
Statement on Pennsylvania’s Passage of HB 1013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — Coalition for Responsible Home Education Executive Director Rachel Coleman issued the following statement regarding the passage of House Bill 1013 by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives:
“Today, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has sold out homeschooled children. By removing superintendents from the evaluation process, they have removed a critical level of accountability, leaving too many homeschooled children at the whim of neglectful parents and derelict evaluators.
“Homeschooled children have the right to an education. Pennsylvania’s current homeschool law — one of the best in the country — protects this right with a two-step process. First, parents put together a portfolio of their child’s progress and have it evaluated by a teacher or other individual. Second, both the portfolio and the evaluator’s written report are submitted to the school district for additional review. This ensures accountability for portfolio evaluators.
“This accountability is critical because portfolio evaluators are selected and paid by homeschool parents, and are frequently relatives or friends of the family. Further, homeschooling parents often shop around for the evaluators with the lowest standards. The Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators has reported that inadequate homeschool educational programs are twice as likely to be identified during the superintendent review stage than during the initial evaluation stage.
“This measure is part of the Home School Legal Defense Association’s mission to systemically weaken homeschooling oversight state by state, sacrificing the interests of homeschooled children on the altar of parental convenience. Homeschool alumni from Pennsylvania have told us that Pennsylvania’s homeschool law improved the quality of education they received. House Bill 1013 removes this safeguard of educational quality and leaves children open to educational neglect. We urge Gov. Tom Corbett to support Pennsylvania’s homeschooled children and veto HB 1013.”
The Coalition for Responsible Education is a national organization dedicated to raising awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, providing public policy guidance, and advocating for responsible home education practices. For more information, contact Ryan Stollar at media@responsiblehomeschooling.org or (617) 765-7096.