Choice and mandatory reporters

A number of people have raised concerns over homeschoolers' lack of exposure to mandatory reporters. Without these reporters, there are concerns that children can use homeschooling to hide abuse. One individual, Elizabeth Bartholet, grabbed attention when she proposed a presumptive ban on homeschooling. This wasn't an outright ban on homeschooling, but it's close. She wants excessive oversight and at least some time in a conventional classroom.


Abuse is more prevalent in our schools. I do not support efforts to undermine one of the few options of escape. If we are truly concerned with child abuse, we will not trap children in an abusive environment.

I let my mind wander and stumbled into an idea that could potentially address concerns with the lack of exposure to mandatory reporters. Like usual, I gave away my idea in the title of this post, and my idea differs drastically from the proposals of Elizabeth Bartholet. Instead of creating obstacles for children wanting to escape abuse, we can help children escape by embracing school choice. Actually, let's change that. I prefer educational choice since most children would learn best outside of a schooling environment.

Although I do not like education spending to have strings attached by the government, I do not think that it's realistic that we will see taxpayer-subsidized educational spending without at least some oversight. One way that this oversight can be achieved is to send all funding through schools or educational organizations instead of directly to families. This could go to private school tuition, or it could go to educational resources requested by a family.

One of the big problems with education in America is that we underestimate the role of learning in the educational process. Education is primarily the responsibility of the learner, not the teacher or parent. Children should be deeply involved in their own educations. In the case of homeschooling, this could include the acquisition of educational resources. If you want homeschooled children to see mandatory reporters, you can do this by having the mandatory reporters responsible for providing homeschoolers with requested resources. Parents can go along, but the child could be expected to be present.

This model could provide additional opportunities for mandatory reporters to see children. Some resources are more affordable if they are shared. In order to access these resources, children would likely need to visit some sort of educational facility.

While I'm at it, I'm going to throw out a subset of this idea. Libraries already serve some of the functions of a homeschooling resource center. It might be worth consideration to allow libraries to serve this purpose. This would require some changes in library functions. Obviously, parents could check out books and share them with their children, but tapping into a child's educational funds could include a requirement for a child to be present when using or collecting their resources.

I have one final thought. Wouldn't it be a red flag if the government allocated funds to a child, and that child never collected any benefits? This idea may not be perfect, but I think it's a compromise that addresses the biggest criticism currently aimed at the homeschooling community, the rare occurrence of a family using homeschooling as a means of hiding abuse.