“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.
But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, ‘whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,’ and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.” – John Adams
Why Homeschool Parents Face Unfair Legal Presumptions
A simple principle has framed the American justice system since its founding: one is innocent under the law until proven guilty in a court of law. We do not condemn on hearsay, we do not judge on speculation, and we do not presume guilt. Or at least, we are not meant to pervert justice in these ways.
Sadly, many elected officials across the country have forgotten this foundational principle and are now advocating for policies that are based upon a principle of injustice: one is guilty under the law until proven innocent in a court of law.
The Make Homeschool Safe Act: Government Overreach Explained
One such policy, titled the Make Homeschool Safe Act, is a model policy created by the Coalition for Responsible Home Educators (CRHE) with the intention of “making homeschool safe” through state-directed regulations, restrictions, and oversight of homeschooling families.
It proposes that state legislators take actions such as implementing homeschooling registration, parental qualifications, teaching and testing requirements, background screening, and additional child protective measures.
What CRHE Proposes for Homeschool Regulation
What reason does CRHE give for advocating for such extreme measures? On their website, they state, “Homeschool laws nationwide are so lax that it’s easy for abusive or neglectful parents to isolate, hide, and harm their children. We can’t know how many children have been harmed, but there’s a lot to learn from the data that is available.”
CRHE is operating on the assumption that children cannot be trusted with their parents, so it is the government’s responsibility to ensure the protection of children from their parents. Clearly, they have adopted the unjust premise that parents are guilty until proven innocent.
Notice that CRHE is not arguing that, since some homeschool parents have been found guilty of child abuse in a court of law, we should seek to improve justice in those cases. Rather, they seek to judge all homeschooling parents for the crimes of a few. CRHE has acted as the judge and jury of all homeschooling parents and has ruled that homeschooling is often a cover for abuse, and therefore, it is not individual child abusers that must be punished, but homeschooling parents, guilty or innocent, as a whole.
By taking on this collectivist approach to justice, the Coalition for Responsible Home Education has passively adopted and promoted the posture that homeschooling parents are guilty until proven innocent.
Examining the Data: Are Homeschools Really Unsafe?
NHERI Research Findings on Homeschool Safety
Since CRHE claims to concern itself with learning from the data, let’s take a moment to examine research on homeschooling and abuse to find out if the assumption made by CRHE is credible:
The National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) compiled a plethora of studies that closely examine the claims made by CRHE and the data presented by them. Based on this extensive review, the NHERI concluded:
“The Coalition for Responsible Home Education (2015) created a database from ‘… publicly available online news articles and, in some instances, court records to find and document the cases of severe abuse or neglect in homeschool settings.’ They did not state that the database is representative of the overall homeschool population. The organization found that there was no statistically significant difference in child fatality rates between homeschool children and public school and private school children.”
Homeschool vs Public School Abuse Statistics
Not only did CRHE fail to back their assumption that homeschooling parents are prone to abuse their children, but the raw data also proves that the opposite is true!
Sexual Abuse Rates: Homeschooled Children 257% Safer
In fact, “It is worth noting that there have been some indications of a lower incidence of abuse and neglect of home-educated children than those in the general public” (Ray, 2018), and a Gen 2 Survey found that homeschooled students are 257% less likely to be sexually abused than their public-schooled peers.
So, if CRHE is truly just concerned with helping children who are likely to suffer abuse, their efforts ought to be concentrated in the public schools—not the homeschools!
Real Consequences of Anti-Homeschool Legislation
It is easy to recognize the dangerous implications of the Make Homeschool Safe Act by simply reading the document. Forced vaccinations? Government check-ins? May it never be so! Sadly, the corruption of this model policy is rooted much deeper than the words on its pages.
As with any person, homeschooling parents are innocent under the law until proven guilty in a court of law. We cannot pass laws to punish parents collectively for the sins of a few. We cannot allow the government to both demand innocence and punish innocence in the name of preventing potential abuse.
Remember the warning made by John Adams all those years ago: innocence must be a protection against punishment because when we collectively convict entire groups in the court of public opinion, we trade justice for injustice.
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