By guest author Tim Lambert

After laboring for over two decades under the most restrictive homeschool laws in the country, my homeschool friends in Pennsylvania celebrated a victory. [In 2014,] they were finally successful in getting the legislature to make some modest changes (by Texas standards) to the requirements for homeschoolers in that state.

Before the change in law, homeschool parents had to provide student portfolios to public school superintendents every year for approval and provide student test scores to the public school as well. Now they no longer have to submit test scores and a portfolio, but are still required to have a “professional” approve each student’s work.

This additional freedom for parents to make educational decisions for their own children disturbs some people. One newspaper editorialized, “The problem with too much deregulation is that some students may not learn fundamental educational and life skills, such as foundational math and working with others, that their public or private school counterparts do. Although there are many responsible home educators in the country, there are bound to be students who fall through the cracks from inadequate instruction.”
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