A bill backed by the New Hampshire House that aims to loosen regulation of homeschooling won strong support during its first hearing before a state Senate committee Tuesday, with top Republican lawmakers and local homeschool families making the case that it’s time to end state oversight of education that takes place in the home.
“Parents have a natural right to direct the education of their children,” said Bedford Rep. Kristen Noble, who leads the House Education Policy Committee. “This bill affirms that right, while also clarifying the appropriate role for the state: not to manage or supervise home education programs, but to ensure that families are free to pursue them without unnecessary interference.”
Noble’s bill, which supporters have called the “Home Education Freedom Act,” was shaped by homeschool families and groups that support them, a point that came up repeatedly during the public hearing.
“You brought in all the stakeholders on this,” Sen. Victoria Sullivan, a staunch backer of policies to boost education choice, told Noble. “I know this was a long time coming.”
Noble’s bill would end a number of homeschooling requirements: that families notify the state or their school district that they are home-educating a child, and that they keep a record of educational materials they use. The bill also does away with annual academic evaluations for homeschooled students.
“This helps homeschoolers educate their kids without permission slips from the state,” said Doris Hohensee of Nashua, who told the committee she homeschooled six children starting in the 1980s.
Among other things, the bill would bar the state Division for Children, Youth and Families from considering homeschooling “a negative factor for school attendance or adequacy of meeting a child’s education needs.” It would also create a right of action for parents to sue any person who “knowingly makes a report to the Division of Children, Youth and Families or to law enforcement regarding a home educating family that is motivated primarily by the family’s participation in home education.”
“Parents should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and when investigations are triggered by bad faith reporting, they should have clear recourse,” said Melissa Blasek of the conservative group RebuildNH.
A major force behind this bill was homeschool families who don’t participate in the state’s voucher-like Education Freedom Account program but who fear that future regulation of that program could someday tighten regulations for homeschool families.
“So the crux of this is to segregate out homeschooling families that use EFAs from homeschooling families that do not?” Sen. Debra Altshilller, a Democrat from Stratham, asked early in the hearing.
“That is correct,” said Noble.
