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When Illinois state Rep. Terra Costa Howard filed a bill in early February requiring families who homeschool their children to notify school districts, she expected some opposition. But she could not have predicted that tens of thousands of people would come out against it.
House Bill 2827, also known as the Homeschool Act, received 40,536 witness slips in opposition to the bill — a way for members of the public, government officials, and advocacy organizations to share their position on proposed changes to state laws. Usually, bills get around a dozen witness slips; the most controversial ones might get a few hundred.
Homeschool families and supporters showed up to the capitol to rally against the bill, as reported by Capitol News Illinois. During a committee hearing in March where the bill was presented, debate lasted for over two hours as Republican lawmakers spoke against the bill and people testified against it.
The proposal — which received the backing of the Illinois State Board of Education — would have required parents who are homeschooling their kids to have a high school diploma and would have allowed education officials to request evidence of learning materials and homeschooled students’ work.
It did not pass the House and never made it to the Senate.
Opponents of the Homeschool Act said it infringed on parental rights to educate their children and homeschooling does not need any more regulations. They say parents know what is best for their children and high-profile cases of child abuse are not enough for the government to add more restrictions.
The parental rights movement in Illinois has been slowly building up momentum over the past few years with debates at the statehouse over the now defunct tax-credit scholarship and Republican lawmakers filing bills to advance school choice and curriculum transparency. The debate over homeschooling is the latest issue galvanizing the movement.
Costa Howard and supporters of the bill wanted to add more restrictions to homeschooling after an investigation by ProPublica and Capitol News Illinois found the lack of laws around homeschooling in Illinois made it harder for the state to follow up on cases of students not receiving an education or being abused and neglected. Right now, families who homeschool their children do not have to notify the Illinois State Board of Education that they are doing so nor do they have to provide information on what students are learning throughout the year.
State regulations around homeschooling vary across the country. Illinois is one of a handful of states, including Michigan, New Jersey, and Connecticut, that have little to no regulations.
It’s unclear how many Illinois students are being homeschooled because of the lack of data collection.
A spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education said in a statement to Chalkbeat that homeschooling in the state is “almost entirely unregulated,” but that the state’s compulsory attendance laws require parents “ensure their child is being educated whether in a traditional or other setting.”
The bill would also have allowed regional offices of education to start truancy proceedings if needed for children who are not being educated while being homeschooled — the same oversight as for children enrolled in traditional public schools.
Illinois truancy law considers a student to be truant if they miss about 5% of the school year without a valid excuse. Students’ cases can be referred to truancy officers hired by the district to look into cases and taken to court. The law says punishment can include a misdemeanor charge or a fine for a parent or guardian.
The fact that HB2827 would subject homeschool parents to truancy laws is one of the main concerns of opponents.
In an interview with Chalkbeat, William Estrada, senior counsel for the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, a conservative homeschool advocacy group based in Virginia, called the bill the most “draconian anti-homeschool bill that we’ve ever seen in our 44-year history.”
Costa Howard said that she heard the opponents’ concerns and carefully crafted the bill to ensure there were no curriculum requests.
But, Costa Howard said, “I don’t think we should ever back down when we have kids and their education and their safety at risk.”
Supporters believe paperwork will ensure students are educated
One piece of the Homeschool Act would have required parents to keep a portfolio of curriculum, students’ work, assessment of student progress, and other materials to ensure homeschool children are receiving a complete education.
Whitney Evans Harrison, a supporter of the bill, believes that if her parents had to show what they were teaching her throughout the school year, she might not be struggling with math as an adult.
Harrison said she believes her learning gaps in math education started when she was pulled out of public school in central Illinois and homeschooled throughout elementary school. Harrison said her mother had a teaching certificate, but was hands-off when it came to teaching. She explained that when it came to math, her mother handed her a teacher’s manual and workbook and sent her to study alone and bring back what she worked on.
In high school and college, she said she barely passed math classes, and the gaps in her math abilities still show up as an adult.
“I struggle to do basic budgeting on a daily basis. I don’t understand numbers,” said Harrison. “It took me three, four years to pass basic math competency to graduate college.”
Supporters of the bill such as the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an advocacy organization based in Massachusetts, say they are not against families deciding to homeschool students. They understand that families have good reasons why they want to do so.
“We want all children to have education in all of the main subjects,” said Emily Allison, who worked with the group and was homeschooled as a child in Illinois. “We want children to be prepared to enter the workforce, right? We want kids to be able to grow up and be positive, contributing, educated members of society who are prepared for the realities of life.”
But opponents argue that it is a “misconception” to say there aren’t any regulations when it comes to homeschooling kids, since they have to teach certain subjects.
“Homeschoolers are required to teach their kids in the English language. They’re also required to teach them the current grade level that they’re at, and the current subjects that they would get in a public school setting,” said Arkasia Cox, a member of the Peoria Area Association of Christian Homeschoolers and a homeschooling parent.
The Illinois State Board of Education’s homeschooling guidance outlines those requirements. But there are few rules about what subjects parents can teach their children, the length of the school day or year, and using state standardized tests. Parents are not required to keep records on their child’s attendance or what schoolwork and homework they did throughout the school year.
States like New York, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania require parents to notify their local school district that they will be educating their child at home. New York state requires parents to have an Individualized Home Instruction Plan that includes syllabi, curriculum, textbooks, and the number of hours on a subject, and to submit quarterly reports.
A piece of paper isn’t enough to stop abuse, opponents say
Supporters of the bill, such as the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, say they want protections for children against abuse and neglect. The group keeps a database of cases where homeschooled children have experienced abuse and neglect or have died.
The investigation by ProPublica and Capitol News Illinois last year centered on a child who was abused by his parents and pulled out of school to be homeschooled. There aren’t any laws in Illinois that would prevent parents from pulling a child out of public school if they are suspected or being investigated for child abuse and neglect.
Jennifer Roland, the director of public policy and government affairs at the Illinois Collaboration on Youth, a nonprofit organization based in Chicago that works on issues such as child welfare, said the organization supported HB 2827 because it wants some accountability in place to ensure that kids are doing well and learning.
“If a child is not going to school, and the state is not aware of where the child is being schooled, there is this possibility of harm,” Roland said. “I don’t think the idea was to say parents are going to use that as a means to harm their children or that parents are going to harm their children in the process of homeschooling them, but it does leave a gap.”
Another case highlighted in the ProPublica and Capitol News Illinois investigation and cited by supporters of the bill is that of 9-year old Zion Staples of Rock Island, Illinois. The young boy died due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2022, according to a coroner’s report obtained by the two news organizations. Zion’s mother did not report what happened and hid his body in a trash can for months, until a friend of the mother reported the incident, according to officials. According to the news report, no one noticed when Zion, who was homeschooled at the time, went missing.
Opponents say submitting a piece of paper to a local school district would not prevent children like Zion Staples from being abused and that other state departments should be responsible for monitoring cases.
Kathy Wentz, of the Illinois Homeschool Association, said child abuse should be addressed by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
“If there is abuse in the home, that’s a DCFS issue. That is not a homeschooling issue,” Wentz said, referring to the state department responsible for investigating child abuse.
Both sides say they are not giving up yet
Even though the Homeschool Act did not pass through the legislature this year, Costa Howard said she remains committed to getting it passed into law. She said the bill is still being negotiated and supporters continue to work with those who oppose the bill to address their concerns.
“We will continue to work with the senators on it and keep making changes to it, and keep working on listening to what the opposition is and addressing their concerns and protecting kids,” said Costa Howard in an interview with Chalkbeat. “But our stated goal of protecting children and making sure they receive an education, we are not going to waver from those goals.”
Costa Howard said she does not know if the bill will come up in veto session this fall or if she’ll have to bring it back up during the spring legislative session in 2026.
Whitney Evans Harrison says she will continue to support the bill.
“It matters that we have rules, because rules are there to try to help us from not getting hurt,” she said. “If someone cuts themselves on the knife, you make sure that the next person who has the knife knows this side of it is sharp, and you want to hold it by the handle.”
The Illinois State Board of Education said in a statement it does not anticipate any changes to how data is collected on students who are being homeschooled without passage of legislation. “Without a legal requirement, any data collected would be incomplete,” the statement said.
While supporters of the Homeschool Act are looking forward to the next chance to present the bill in the state legislature, opponents say they are also prepared to stop it.
“We will fight it just as we fought it last year,” said Wentz, of the Illinois Homeschool Association. “There is, quite literally, no version of this bill that we will not fight.”
Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.
