Jane N.: “We were completely cut off from the outside world”
“Even when taken to the doctor, I was not allowed to see them without a parent present. I think this was because my mother was afraid what we might say. I believe I was pulled out of public school for a similar reason when a few teachers began noticing her controlling behaviors.” I was homeschooled…
Rai Storm: “There was no gratefulness. There was no escape. It just went on and on.”
“When I was in regular school, I had several adults telling me that I was smart, that I was kind, that I was capable of producing good things and of being a good person. When I was homeschooled, the main voice I had in my life was telling me that I was nothing, that I…
Brittany Randolph: “As time went on, our schedule became looser and looser”
“My sister and I were fine with this at first. No school! We could spend time on the things we actually wanted to do. One thing, though, is that none of these things involved friends, at least not ones we had ever met in person.” I was in public school up until the early 8th…
Jennifer I.: “All that was required was a note every year”
“Most of my homeschooled peers were much like me, in that they were handed a textbook and then expected to essentially teach themselves from grade eight on.” I was homeschooled from K-12 alongside my siblings by my mother, initially due to concerns about the quality of the local school district, and then due to religious…
Rebecca A.: “I feel I have been denied the opportunity to live up to my potential”
“My days revolved around taking care of my siblings and our home. Our mother would leave her bedroom periodically to yell at us for being too noisy and messy. I spent most of my teenage years being overwhelmed and depressed.” I attended Christian (Protestant) schools through most of my education, having been homeschooled in 4th…
Sarah M.: “These assessments turned out to be easily avoided”
“Although Pennsylvania had homeschooling oversight on the books, they failed to reliably enforce it. Even within my local school district I knew families with vastly different experiences with the district office” I‘m the oldest of six children, raised in a conservative Christian family that homeschooled until I was sixteen. My home state of Pennsylvania was…
Alex H.: “I often wonder at what cost”
“The goal was lofty, but our secular home education was primarily based on a fear of negative outside influence. What my parents did not understand is that safety by isolation has many consequences long into adulthood.” While I have had both positive and negative experiences with homeschooling, I strongly believe in homeschool reform. I was…
Jessica A.: “Homeschool is an abusive parent’s dream”
“I support homeschool oversight because most child abuse is committed by parents against their own children. I believe people oppose homeschool oversight because most people only worry about their own kids. They won’t admit it, but as long as their own kids aren’t at risk, even “good” homeschoolers just don’t care.”
Lynne A.: “I wasn’t protected at all”
“If not for the Religious Exemption clause, my parents would have had to, at the very least, turn in my standardized test scores to the county officials. I think it would have strongly encouraged my parents to educate me better.”
Samantha Field: “It was far too easy to outright lie”
“I believe that requiring my parents to have more than a high school education would have made a significant difference, as well as requiring a state-certified or licensed professional to evaluate an annual portfolio. It was far too easy to outright lie in the portfolios we submitted to our umbrella school.”