By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Illinois politicians’ latest attempt to impose their will on homeschooling began with a single tragic story of one child’s abuse. Lawmakers took that case of parental neglect and twisted it, expanded on it, and turned it into an indictment of homeschooling in general. Now they want new legislation to control it.
Homeschooling risks truancy, they say. And abuse, educational neglect and poor accountability. That’s how lawmakers are fear-mongering about Illinois’ long-standing, hands-off approach to homeschooling in an attempt to gain more power over parents and children.
But if you know anything about Illinois’ public education system, you’ll recognize the rank hypocrisy immediately. Illinois schools are full of truancy, abuse, educational neglect and poor accountability. Yet lawmakers do little to nothing about that. Instead, they’ve turned their attention towards the last form of education they don’t control.
The bill at hand, House Bill 2827, would force homeschooling parents – and private schools – to annually submit a declaration form to their local school district, with the potential penalty of fines and even jail time if parents don’t comply. Among other items, the bill also requires administrative and curriculum standards.
The bottom line is, the proposed law is an infringement of the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children (see the Supreme Court case Troxel v. Granville).
Yet Illinois State Rep. Terra Costa Howard, the lead sponsor of the legislation, justifies her bill by saying homeschooled children “lose daily contact with teachers and others who are mandated to report abuse and neglect.” That’s coming from someone who’s said and done nothing to address the source of the state’s biggest sexual abuse problem: Chicago Public Schools.
And State Rep. Michelle Mussman, another bill sponsor said, “We really are looking for a better way to capture the small, the very important subset of kids who are…missing an education or worse.” But Mussman and most Illinois legislators have done little to address the state’s own public school literacy collapse. Six out of every 10 children statewide are unable to read at grade level – that’s more than 1.1 million public school students.
Below we lay out the many hypocrisies of the homeschool bill supporters.
1. Rampant chronic absenteeism in public schools. Lawmakers’ concern about “truancy” in homeschooling falls flat considering they consistently allow up to a quarter of Illinois public school students to be “chronically absent” (10% or more missed school days in a year) each year. That’s based on data straight from the State Board of Education’s annual report card.
Chicago’s numbers are far worse – over 40% of CPS students were chronically absent in 2024. These kids are at risk of “academic and social problems” according to the State Board of Education.
Absenteeism skyrocketed during the covid years and has remained at elevated levels since.
Many Illinois teachers also consistently fail to show up for class, again based on state education data. Over a third of all teachers statewide were considered “chronically absent” in 2024, meaning they missed 10 school days or more during the year. The National Bureau of Economic Research warns that student outcomes decrease significantly when teachers are absent for 10 days or more.
Who are lawmakers holding accountable for this? And why aren’t they holding themselves accountable?
2. Ongoing sexual abuse in schools. If legislators really cared about the abuse of children, they would shut down Chicago Public Schools immediately. The district has recorded nearly 1,000 allegations in the last couple of years, many of them severe cases of molestation and abuse.
Here are some examples from the CPS Inspector General in 2024:
Case No. 20-01345. “A security guard sexually abused a 16-year-old student for approximately five months. In his capacity as a security guard, he pulled the student out of class to have sex in various locations in the school, such as storage rooms and janitor closets. He also sexually assaulted the student in his car and his home.”
Case No. 20-01530. “An intoxicated teacher groped an eleventh-grade student twice on the buttocks while at the school’s graduation. The student disclosed the teacher’s conduct to a staff member, who notified DCFS and the school’s then-principal. However, the principal failed to notify the Law Department of the allegations as required.”
Case No. 21-00326. “An employee of a vendor after-school program sexually assaulted an elementary school student at the student’s school on multiple occasions between 2014 and 2017, when the student was seven to ten years old. The student disclosed three separate incidents: one in which the vendor employee touched and rubbed the student’s genitals under their clothes, and two in which the vendor employee touched and rubbed the student’s buttocks under their clothes. The abuse took place in the school’s gym and cafeteria.”
Those are but a few of the 446 cases that range from misconduct and sexual harassment to nonsexual conduct that raises “the appearance of impropriety or possible grooming concerns.”
Illinois lawmakers have known about the rampant cases of abuse since the Chicago Tribune first exposed the depth of CPS’ crisis in 2018. The district should be under the same extreme public and political pressure as the Catholic Church was when its own sex abuse scandals broke. Yet lawmakers have done little to nothing about it.
3. Public school students are unable to read or do math. Lawmakers’ supposed concerns about homeschool parents failing to provide an education to their children is particularly laughable given the dismal state of public education in Illinois.
Illinois lawmakers haven’t made any serious attempt to restore literacy and numeracy – the long term data backs us up on that. Instead, all they’ve done is throw billions upon billions of dollars at the education system to no effect.
Overall, just 33% of all 8th-grade Illinois students scored proficient in reading on the 2024 Nation’s Report Card test. In math, it was just 32%.
The results for the state’s minority children were far worse. Just 16% reading and 9% math proficiency for blacks. For Hispanics, it was just 24% and 18%.
In many districts, kids are far, far away from proficiency. Take the Decatur Public Schools. There a full two-thirds of black third graders scored at the lowest possible level on the state IAR test in 2024. Most of those students are grade levels away from proficiency.
Then look at Decatur’s 11th graders. It’s the exact same thing: 69% were at the lowest level. These children have been abandoned by the system.
And not a single kid can read proficiently at all in some schools. Last year, Wirepoints analyzed report card data directly from the Illinois State Board of Education and found 67 schools across the state, enrolling over 11,500 students, where not a single child could do math at grade level. There were another 32 schools where zero children were proficient in reading.
4. Unhelpful teacher evaluations. And for those lawmakers so concerned about accountability, there’s the open question about why they’ve done nothing to fix the state board’s broken “accountability” metrics for teachers.
Despite all the failures we’ve tallied above, the system allows virtually every teacher in Illinois to be rated “excellent or proficient” year after year. It’s apparent that lawmakers don’t truly care about accountability.
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This homeschooling bill is an attempt by lawmakers to take over the last part of education that isn’t under their explicit control – and a way for the teachers unions to squash another form of competition.
It’s hypocrisy, and government overreach, at its worst.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- One big reason your Illinois property taxes are so high. And why you should get a big refund.
- No matter what Pritzker or the Tribune says, Illinois’ NAEP education results are abysmal
- Chicago Public Schools’ sexual abuse and misconduct cases everyone should know about
- The next absurd bill from Illinois’ legislature: Removing student test scores from teacher evaluations
- Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system – Wirepoints Special Report
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Most likely the main reason they are doing this is that home schooled kids are white. The parents are educated themselves so it is easier for them. The parents speak English whereas many Hispanic/Spanish speaking parents who are not as educated would have an extremely difficult time teaching their kids. Many in the inner cities have had just basic education so they would have a difficult time teaching. Common Core is hieroglyphics for most everyone. Best guess most home school kids use Khan Academy and that is never mentioned as an alternative by media or school districts but it is… Read more »
There are dozens of different homeschooling curricula available, Khan Academy is far from the only one. There are religion-based curricula such as Seton and Kolbe (Catholics) and Abeka (Evangelical), there are classically oriented curricula (Charlotte Mason), curricula focused on specific subjects such as math or science, etc. That is part of the attraction of homeschooling — the variety of options it offers
Thanks for the info. I knew there were more. It is appreciated.
Actually, there are thousands of curricular/academic providers for homeschoolers: https://www.homeschoolroadmap.org/p/deluxe-charts.html
Actually, there are thousands of curricular/academic providers for homeschoolers: https://www.homeschoolroadmap.org/p/deluxe-charts.html
It’s fine and fair to complain about Chicago/IL politicians, and of course the CTU, but what’s the practical/possible solution? CHI/IL residents keep re-electing the same politicians, so they must like the city/state car skidding toward the cliff…
Exactly Matt. The voters must approve and it won’t change unless the voters change what they want.
Typical democrat decision. Generate a solution to a non problem all the while ignoring existing problems that will cause great societal upheaval. A full generation of barely functional illiterates. Well done Illinois politicos, well done!
I appreciate how much Wirepoints uses data in their articles. What is evident in the above article is the lack of data associated with homeschooling. Any evidence of advantages or disadvantages of homeschooling is purely anecdotal.
There is research. It’s just not something about which many researchers are interested. Check out https://nheri.org/. And homeschooling in the modern era has been around for 40+ years. That means we’re surrounded by homeschool graduates – many pushing 50 years old – and don’t know it…because they’re normal productive members of society.
Thanks for the link! The Illinois data was pretty sparse. I’m looking for a comparison with the data Wirepoints uses regularly like the state testing data for 4th, 8th, and 11th with reading, math, and science. It would be great if we could compare communities or neighborhoods homeschool students with public school students (even better would be private/parochial too)!!
I also would not discount the grooming aspect to all of this as well…
Our children are & have been used & abused since ancient times ie. child sacrifices to the gods etc…
The lgbtq agenda is a ready avenue for the groomers to obtain their victims…
It is truly demonic…
Spot on. Many teachers that I know – maybe 1/3 – present themselves as gay. They are in a ‘profession’ around kids in order to exercise their sick perverted urges. (see item 2 above if you doubt me: Ongoing sexual abuse in schools.) They can count on CTU to protect them and encourage their disgusting lust. They deserve chemical castration and prison time.
force all the home school parents to become dues paying CTU members, that’ll show um!!
Jail time ha! Know your oppressors.
There was a time when I would have had severe doubts about homeschooling except for a very few parents who had the educational background and time to do it. The failure of so many public schools in the past few decades has changed my mind. I do not put the blame on teachers, Yes, a few are unqualified and have a bad attitude. But the real problem is so many of these schools are their parents. In far too many cases they are ‘unqualified’ to be parents and are the ones who are ‘indifferent’. I know I would not want… Read more »
Sorry Frank, your past thoughts made you a uneducated subject Fool! We homeschooled our 2 basically till HS. No regrets, daughter EdD at age 29. Son, basically quit 3rd college at NIU, ended up in the ARMY for 12 years. Now works on cars as a mechanic. Homeschoolers are better educated and smarter than most public schoolers. I encourage all stay at home moms to consider it. When my wife is on her deathbed, she will never say she wish she had spent more time with her children when they were young. She spent all her time with them, teaching… Read more »
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=Sorry Frank, your past thoughts made you a uneducated subject Fool=
At least I know enough that it is ‘an uneducated…’
Sorry for your hostility in life and your bad grammar.
The issue is teachers unions. Not teachers. Teachers unions are the poison here, they are unconstitutional and will be tossed into the garbage. Don’t believe me read “Not Accountable. Rethinking the constitutionality of public sector unions” by Phillip Howard. Sayonara parasitic vermin.
The Teachers union owns the State house just like it runs Chicago.
This article hits it on the head and infuriates me to no end. This state’s politicians have no shame and are not worth a crap. That is why I ALWAYS vote against the incumbant, no matter what. There needs to be term limits. At least then SOME of the ongoing LONG-TERM corruption may be able to be addressed. In my experience, home schooled students do better scholastically, are more emotionally and psychologically stable and more successful outside of school than those unfortunate students who must attend public schools. The poor students that are forced to attend a public school don’t… Read more »
Hey, don’t be so shy!f
Illinois politicians know exactly what they are doing. They pass these laws to increase political donations from the teacher’s union. It’s that simple.
Absolutely! The teachers unions sure do not have the students’ best interests at heart!
How many more government jobs, with government pensions and benefits will be created to collect and shuffle the new paperwork? Maybe they hope the home schooled kids will pop into public schools and raise the average scores?
This is a money grab. Public schools want the per student payment for homeschooled kids. This bill takes away the rights of parents and students. And the state can’t push there far left agenda if kids are home schooled.
The Illinois pols have no love for Catholic schools either.
Illinois parents as well as parents nationally need to wake up to the fact that America ranks 25th globally in math, reading and science. Whose first? Yep, it’s China, closely followed by other Asian nations. I understand what DEI, CRT and BLM are. Unfortunately those curriculums will not advance our nation. As Bill Maher commented about American education, “China is eating our lunch!”
What about the well documented chronic 40% truancy of CPS ‘teachers’?
There isn’t well documented chronic truancy for staff. Truancy is avoiding school without permission or a valid excuse. Teachers miss days for many different reasons and CPS teachers are allowed to take their PTO/sick time, staff development, parent meetings, professional development, medical leave, etc… Your ignorance to the issue doesn’t make it true.
Semantics PPF, you offer only Semantics. You consider the contract so sacred but contracts need offer, acceptance, legal purpose and an exchange of value. CPS/CTU contracts fail the exchange of value test. Teachers are paid, present or not. Are they producing graduates with the skills of good citizenship? No! The truancy rate actually could mean the missing children are on to the scam.
PPF – I know you are an accounting expert with a prestigious education, but results matter. I know of no successful organization with a 40 percent absenteeism rate, no matter the rationalization. That is the relevant point.
There isn’t a 40% absenteeism rate though. You can’t even formulate your argument with an ounce of truth. That would imply that teachers miss 40% of all days they are expected to be in attendance. That’s not where that 40% figure originates. Teachers are allowed to miss day per their contract. You or others don’t get to terminate their employment just because they utilize those days as allowed per contract. No amount of ignorant complaining will change that.
What’s ignored is fact that many homeschooling parents are doing so because their local public schools fail to truly educate their enrolled students in fundamentals of math, reading, and writing. Illinois Democrats are worried homeschooled children won’t receive full-blast Woke doctrine instilled via progressive-liberal curriculum of Illinois public schools. There’s no legitimate role for requiring homeschooling parents to dutifully report to state administrators more intent upon eliminating homeschooling altogether by over-regulating it then achieving higher academic achievement for all Illinois students. Homeschooled kids get into Ivy League schools. Homeschooled kids actually can receive a more intensive, more academically-focused education, in… Read more »
SEL – social emotional learning – is HUUUUUUGE these days in public schools. My son attended one of the better elementary schools in the state (and trust me when I tell you this, don’t listen to Dan Proft deny the existence of good suburban schools). My son’s friends, who were just kids on the block, mostly all scored in the 90%+ on MAP tests. I’m just talking neighborhood kids where every kid is a smarty pants or athlete or both. But what I found shocking was that there were always some parents – usually single/divorced moms – who had children… Read more »
It sounds like you are stating that the students that attend the school (and their family background) is more important than the physical school building or the teachers. Children that come from single mothers or families that don’t value education are much more difficult to teach. Yet people want to determine the success of a teacher or school based on the academic performance of the child. As I’ve stated before, we don’t evaluate doctors based on the weight or smoking habits of one of their patients yet people that have no idea about the teaching profession think it makes sense… Read more »
It sounds like you are stating that students who come from families where both parents are involved in their life, value education, discipline, good behavior, solid family structure etc., because they have not bought into the nonsense of incentivizing single mother households with government money is very important. We have a societal problem with the overwhelming amount of single mothers and until we course correct (and I doubt we that we can put the genie back into the bottle), this will be one of the major problems in our public education system. It is NOT the only one, there are… Read more »
Well stated! If I was homeschooling my child I would submit the necessary paperwork and exams and then teach my own thing anyway. Are they going to come into my home and monitor what I’m teaching? I don’t think so!
Actually, that’s exactly what will be allowed if this atrocity of a bill is passed. Ability to launch investigations without any cause or notice is included. It also calls for portfolio submissions showing children’s schoolwork examples. Allows ISBE to demand ANY personal info about children. Oh, there’s also DCFS coordinating with schools to launch investigations. HB2827 is sheer madness.
“Many affluent parents resort to private tutoring services and extra curricular academic camps”
Which means they are, essentially, performing a part time or supplemental version of homeschooling anyway. Many other parents ended up doing “homeschooling” during the pandemic and decided it was easier than dealing with the school system.
When you teach in these schools you get little or no support. A handful of students are allowed to run roughshod and bully other students and staff. They are allowed to disrupt class, assault others verbally and physically, disrespect adults, sometimes even throw chairs. There Is no way 97% of staff can be proficient or excellent, but you also don’t mention that despite an average salary of 100K a year, fantastic benefits, summer off, A PENSION, CPS has multiple openings today, despite the scores of people who hold teaching licenses. It’s a hard job.Teachers are caught in the middle. Many… Read more »
CPS is the Lake Woebegon of education where all the teachers are above average!
I so often think that the individuals you mention that cause the mayhem in the schools are the real ones that need homeschooled, namely expelled at home with their parents. Let the parents deal with them allowing the schools to do their jobs, that is, teaching students and not a repository for juvenile delinquents.
Their parents already don’t deal with them, which is why they are the way they are. We rarely do out of school suspensions anymore because the kid just ends up running the streets anyway. It’s not like mom is going to give him a stern talking to, and then make him go paint the fence as punishment, and lesson learned. If parents were made to pay the $15K-$30K per year to educate their child, maybe then they would pay attention. People don’t value that which they get for free. Otherwise, to quote the great philosopher Judge Smails, “Well, the world… Read more »
All good points.Who gives over 90% of their votes and donations to Democrats? Who votes for the leaders of the CTU and the NEA? Who makes sure their preferred candidates run school boards?
Our schools are a mess. Teachers do have a tough job. It’s their ideas and their votes that created the problem. They don’t like the results, and who can blame them? But instead of just offering sympathy, it’s time for some tough love. They need to face up to their role in making the mess, and start doing things differently to fix it.