Editor’s note: The following is a condensation of an article by the Home School Legal Defense Fund recently published. We’ve taken the high points and removed promotional copy. But we consider this a legitimate call to action:

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The Trend We See

It is said that one example is an anecdote, two examples are interesting, but three examples are a trend. Off the top of my head, I can name six. 

There is a definite and growing trend in the news media and popular press today to portray homeschooling in a negative light. This is being exploited to support legislative proposals designed to return homeschooling to the bad old days.

But don’t take my word for it. 

Example 1. While few normal people read impenetrable law reviews,  the April 2020 Harvard Magazine profile of law professor Elizabeth Bartholet’s article went viral. In it, she called for homeschooling to be banned. Not more rigorously regulated, but banned altogether. The magazine’s title was “The Risks of Homeschooling,” and featured a house made of books with a sad-looking child gazing out a barred window at happy children playing soccer and jumping rope. The irony lost in the illustration is that many public schools today are like fortresses with security to rival airports—while homeschooled children are free to play and explore and move about freely. (Which we captured in our own illustration in response.)  

But the overwhelming reaction was not in support of the proposed ban; instead, it rejected the article’s extraordinarily offensive and false portrayal of homeschooling. “Homeschooling, [Bartholet] says, not only violates children’s right to a ‘meaningful education’ and their right to be protected from potential child abuse, but may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society.”

The timing couldn’t have been worse for Professor Bartholet’s effort to ban homeschooling—within days of the article’s appearance everyone was home from school when the world shut down due to Covid-19. For the next two years, homeschooling was an oasis for children and parents and was often portrayed as such in the popular press. 

While attention on professor Bartholet’s proposal to ban homeschooling took a hiatus, her concluding quote in Harvard Magazine lingered like the Cheshire Cat’s grin. “‘I think an overwhelming majority of legislators and American people, if they looked at the situation,’ Bartholet says, ‘would conclude that something ought to be done.’”

Then, schools reopened in the fall of 2022. Many children remained home, no longer attending public schools. And in 2023, the anti-homeschooling drumbeat began gaining ground.

Example 2: The Washington Post entered the fray with a six-part series called “Homeschool Nation.” As Matthew Hennessey, an editor at Wall Street Journal wrote, “The knives are out for homeschooling. How else to interpret the sudden spate of critical articles?” Referring to the Washington Post’s series, he wrote, “Somebody somewhere has decided this experiment in liberty has gone on long enough.”

Example 3: Amazon Prime’s entry, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, premiered in June of 2023, but highlighted a decade-old scandal involving a famous homeschooling family. Why now?

Example 4: Then, in October, the HBO series, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, mocked homeschoolers and called for more regulation. 

Example 5: Earlier this summer, Scientific American called for the federal government to regulate homeschooling! As I wrote in National Review: 

There is no general federal power to regulate homeschooling. One might hope that even a journal devoted to science could get basic constitutional principles right, but then one is left to wonder why the editors of a scientific journal would bestir themselves at all to address a nonscientific issue, unless they’re motivated by an ideological agenda unrelated to science.

 “The attack on home schooling is . . . mainly about freedom. There’s a certain type of person who thinks too much of that is a bad thing,” wrote Matthew Hennessey.

Example 6: The extremely well-funded ProPublica, which describes itself as “an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force” weighed in, claiming that too much homeschooling liberty is a bad thing. And an Illinois legislator has since called for more regulation.

Prominent opponents of homeschooling have not been shy. And the calls to rein in homeschool freedom are coming increasingly from mainstream outlets; outlets whose cultural influence is further reaching. It’s up to us to prepare for and resist what is coming; to educate legislators and the public about the many blessings that homeschooling has to offer. 

Editor’s comments: Obviously, some of these examples happened months or years ago, but there is indeed a steady drumbeat of attacks on homeschooling.

The fight for homeschooling has made great gains in the past 30+ years, but these gains, these victories are not irreversible. In a system that most classify as “democracy” it is often possible for the special interest groups (including educrats, “education” unions, and all those who profit from government-run, tax-funded schools) to overturn an important protection by a simple vote in front of politicians who care more about their power and wealth than about children, families, or the future.

Even if you or your family do not homeschool, support those who do. Tell others about what is being done, and encourage those raising their children even a little bit more free from the power of the state. Know and react to the attitude of politicians in your jurisdictions about homeschooling. Support them or fight them as appropriate, and make it known.