Guest Commentary on the Debate Over Accepting or Rejecting State-funded Money for Home Education Expenses
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by Helen Swavely
The current concerns surrounding participation in Colorado’s ESA (Educational Savings Accounts) and BOCES (Boards of Cooperative Educational Services) programs feel like a modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood: a seemingly harmless offer wrapped in goodwill and benevolence, yet carrying the potential for hidden dangers. The question is not whether the benefits look appealing, but whether the hand offering them has motives sharper than they appear.
As families weigh the promise of financial support against the long-term implications for educational freedom, many are beginning to wonder whether the kindly “grandmother” is, in fact, something far more dangerous in disguise.
As David Dentel, a staff writer for HSLDA, explains, “at least a dozen states have moved toward education savings accounts (ESAs) in 2023,” programs that allow parents to use tax dollars for private or at-home educational expenses. Advocates hail ESAs as transformative, but critics warn that funneling government money into home education risks harming public schools and degrading student achievement. HSLDA has long opposed government funding for homeschooling, cautioning that ESA and BOCES-style programs inevitably invite regulation, oversight, and state control.
Parents choose homeschooling because they want what is best for their children. They want the freedom to tailor learning to their children’s needs, interests, and pace. After COVID, thousands of Colorado families left public schools with the expectation that they—not the state—would direct their children’s education. With this mass exodus, however, the legislature appears increasingly interested in keeping a hand on the movements of home education. The rapid expansion of ESA proposals may reflect this desire. The offer is framed as benevolent support from the state—but is it truly a gift, or something more complicated?
Homeschooling in America has a 50-year history rooted in the pursuit of liberty. When Milton Friedman first proposed vouchers as a way of aiding pioneering homeschooling families in the 1970s, parents were already asking legislatures for one thing: the freedom to educate their children without government interference. Their goal was simple—keep the state out of the home so families could teach according to their own standards and convictions. Today, that hard-won liberty is being quietly undermined, and homeschoolers risk becoming modern Red Riding Hoods—well-meaning, but unaware of the implications of accepting help from wolves dressed as kindly grandmothers.
Introducing public money into home education opens the door to increased regulation, accountability requirements, and oversight for anyone who accepts it. What begins as optional “support” can quickly become mandatory compliance. And what began as regulation so many years ago for us now enjoyment of liberty. But with ESA bills, we are being encouraged to move from liberty to dependency. The very progress that allowed families to homeschool freely may be reversed by our own willingness to accept state funding. The danger is not in the gift itself, but in the strings that inevitably come attached.
One such example was what occurred in the late 1990s. We witnessed a clear example of how government involvement can transform a parent-driven homeschooling effort into a fully regulated state program. In Aurora, Colorado, Hinkley High School principal Dr. Thomas Synnott initially welcomed a small number of homeschool families into a few high-school classes and soon recognized that these families lacked access to district curriculum. After observing their commitment, he became increasingly supportive of their educational goals.
In 1999, several of these families proposed creating off-site APS classes specifically for homeschoolers. This led to the formation of the Hinkley Optional Program of Education, later known as HOPE, which began modestly in a private home with about twenty students. Rapid growth followed: by the next year the program moved to New Life Church and expanded to roughly one hundred students, offering supplemental classes such as PE, Drama, and Science. By 2002, HOPE relocated to Trinity Baptist Church with about 150 students and briefly opened an Arvada site. Dr. Synnott even retired from his principalship to focus exclusively on the program.
The pivotal shift occurred in 2003, when HOPE accepted funding from the Colorado Department of Education (CDE). Within months, the state required the founding parent board to step aside so the program could be “formalized.” With public funding came public regulation: HOPE was now required to adopt stricter curriculum standards, operate under CDE oversight, and employ licensed teachers. As the program expanded to additional sites, it evolved from a parent-run homeschool cooperative into a state-directed educational program.
This progression illustrates a broader principle: once public funds enter a homeschooling initiative, regulatory authority follows. What began as a grassroots, parent-led effort was rapidly absorbed into the structures and requirements of state governance simply by virtue of accepting government money.
Dave Dentel, the staff writer for HSLDA mentioned above, continued in his article to say “we are convinced that ESA’s and other tax-funded accounts will provide government officials with a reason to further regulate and oversee homeschooling with the rational that goes something like this: Now that homeschooling families are receiving government money, the government needs to ensure they are spending the money responsibly. On those grounds, they could enact regulations and restrictions that could reverse the trend toward homeschooling freedom that has been achieved and has taken decades to achieve. Homeschooling has been helping children flourish for decades – not because of government intervention but in spite of it.
In a 2016 essay by HSLDA President Jim Mason titled “The Civic Virtue of Home Education” Mr. Mason said, “The struggle for homeschooling freedom has been one of rolling back needless government intrusion, not one of seeking government help. There is something truly lovely,” he said, “in seeing how a free people built a radical counterculture, motivated by nothing less than the love of their own children, mandated by nothing more than their own conscience, and supported by nothing more than their own ingenuity and community.”
In conclusion let us be attentive to the discernment needed for this debate. If we fail to notice the sharp teeth beneath the grandmotherly disguise, we may eventually look back and understand that the freedom homeschoolers worked for over many decades was not taken from us but gradually relinquished through our well-intended acceptance of offers that quietly rejoined us to the very system we once chose to leave. It is a reminder that “children are born persons,” (Charlotte Mason) and that their education is best safeguarded when parents—not disconnected systems—retain the freedom to guide their learning with intention and care.
About the Author: Helen Swavely
For more than three decades, Helen Swavely has built a life rooted in faith, family, and the quiet, steady work of forming hearts and minds at home. Married for 32 years, she and her husband share a commitment to raising their family — five children and now four grandchildren — with intention and love. As they complete their 27th year of homeschooling, Helen has guided each child from early learning to high school graduation, with two now married and raising families of their own. Today, Helen continues to support her children’s academic paths, celebrate milestones with her grandchildren, and reflect with gratitude on the decades of grace-filled learning that have shaped her family’s story. Recently, she was a guest on Episode 39 the Colorado Homeschool Podcast, discussing the benefits of the Charlotte Mason method.
Excellent article! Loved the history of Options/Hope as well as the quote from Jim Mason.