Home Education

The Law

The U.S. Constitution does not regulate homeschooling; this is left to the individual states. According to the Christian organization Home School Legal Defense Association, approximately half of U.S. states have little or no regulation; the other half have moderate to high legislation. Those states with little regulation require parents only to inform them of their decision to homeschool, whereas states with moderate to high legislation require the submission of test scores. The age at which compulsory education begins for children varies between 5 years of age and 8 years of age depending on the state.

In the United Kingdom the law permitting home education makes home education equal in legislation with school education. Section 9 of Education Act 1996 requires that the parents of a child of “school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable: (a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and (b) to any special educational needs he may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.” In the United Kingdom there is no clear definition of “an education” and no clear guidance from the Department of Education regarding what an education should look like. This can lead to confusion and misunderstanding between home educators and their local authorities. More recently in the United Kingdom, the Children Act 2004, strengthened by Statutory Guidance 2007, has placed a duty on local authorities to safeguard children's welfare, and the distinction between welfare and education has become [Page 478]blurred. The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has issued home education guidelines for local authorities, but these are contentious within home education organizations and among some local authorities.

Numbers

Numbers of home educators are hard to ascertain. In the United States, whereas some states count home-schoolers closely, other states are less rigorous. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that in 2003, there were approximately 1.1 million homeschooled students, representing 2.2% of the school-age population. This demonstrates a growth from 1999, when the figures were 850,000 and 1.1%, respectively.

In the United Kingdom there is no requirement to register as a home educator with any formal administrative body, and therefore, numbers are impossible to calculate with accuracy. In the United Kingdom estimated numbers vary between 10,000 and 170,000. Mike Fortune-Wood, home education activist and researcher, used a freedom of information request to arrive at his conclusion that the figure of known home-educated children may be about 18,100. By extrapolating to include children not known to their local authorities, Fortune-Wood suggests the population may be close to 45,250 children, a figure that represents about 0.5% of the national school-age population. Recent 2007 figures broadly support these figures. This latter research suggests that numbers of home-educated children have increased threefold since 1999.

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