New requirements for Michigan homeschoolers? Not likely

Compared to most states, Michigan is a homeschoolers’ paradise. With no oversight, no reporting, and few requirements for would-be homeschool teachers, there’s a low barrier to entry — and no accountability.

Michigan is at one end of the spectrum; at the other is Pennsylvania, where homeschoolers must provide records of a requisite number of instructional hours and have student performance evaluated annually. More states have struck a balance: some reporting and compliance with state standards, without elements homeschoolers consider invasive.

Michigan is unlikely to follow suit. In April, state Rep. Stephanie Gray Chang, D-Detroit, introduced House Bill 4498, which would create minimum reporting requirements for homeschoolers — the kind of information that would enable local districts to determine how many kids are being homeschooled. Absent that data, it’s all but impossible to measure outcomes — such as college admissions, career readiness, employment versus unemployment — for homeschooled kids, or to even begin a discussion about broader homeschooling policy.

State Rep. Amanda Price, R-Holland, chairwoman of the House Education Committee, wrote in an open letter posted to her Facebook account that the bill won’t get a hearing, and state Sen. Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair Township, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said his committee would not take up a corresponding Senate bill.

That’s too bad. Chang’s bill merits discussion. The reporting requirements it proposes are far from invasive — the bill would require homeschoolers to report the names and addresses of students to their local district, require homeschooled kids to meet twice each year with a doctor, social worker, teacher, or other approved individual, and to keep records of those meetings. There’s no attempt to dictate educational standards and curriculum or force standardized testing.

It’s hard to say how many Michigan kids are schooled at home. The Coalition for Responsible Home Education puts the number between 51,000 and 68,000. A Free Press analysis using student enrollment and U.S. census data suggests it’s closer to 100,000. But that’s the point — because homeschooled kids’ names needn’t be registered with the state or local districts, they’re impossible to count. And that’s not likely to change.

Although homeschoolers comprise a relatively small segment of the population, they’re ideologically in line with the credo of personal choice dear to some far-right politicians (though the homeschool population itself is diverse, and not aligned with a particular political persuasion). Thus, it’s verboten to even discuss creating reporting requirements that would elicit the most basic data from homeschooled parents — or to use the added reporting to help ensure kids’ safety.

Chang’s bill was prompted by the deaths of two Detroit children, Stoni Blair and Stephen Berry. Their mother, Mitchelle Blair, is accused of abusing and killing them. Blair removed them from local schools in favor of homeschooling. Because there are no reporting or check-in requirements — parents don’t even have to declare an intention to homeschool — Stoni and Stephen disappeared from the public eye.

There’s no reason to believe homeschooled kids are at greater risk of abuse or harm than any other child, but there’s also no question that schools can provide an important touchstone for a child in a dangerous environment, another caring adult to ask about problems, an accessible outlet for help when home’s not safe.

From a public policy standpoint, it’s a question worth asking: Where do parental rights stop and the state’s constitutional responsibility to educate children begin? It’s a conversation we aren’t likely to have any time soon.