Michelotti: HB 1268 Is The Next Step In New Hampshire's Homeschool Freedom Journey

By Kitty Michelotti, NH Journal

“Am I doing enough?”

“Do you think my child has made enough progress?”

“Is my child on track to be successful?”

I have done hundreds of portfolio reviews for New Hampshire homeschoolers, and I hear the same questions year after year from homeschooling parents. My answer is always a confident and resounding “yes.”

Whether the parents are traditional home educators or they use Education Freedom Accounts, the parents who have chosen to direct the education of their children are deeply involved in the process and are constantly working to provide the best opportunities and environments for their children’s learning.

When Gov. Kelly Ayotte signs HB 1268, the Home Education Freedom Act, into law, she will be giving her own resounding “yes” to traditional homeschoolers by affirming the next logical step in home education freedom. The governor will be making clear that the government rules that apply to families who use the Education Freedom Account program will not impact those who have chosen to remain unfunded and fully independent from government money.

As a mother of three home-educated children, I have often wondered why we have had to complete portfolio reviews at the end of the school year, and why those reviews have to be signed off on by either a licensed teacher or a teacher at a nonpublic school. As an expert on my own children, if I thought the opinions or expertise of these people were valuable, I would have chosen them to educate my child in the first place.

How, then, do I square my own hypocrisy of conducting evaluations myself with those feelings? Because it is not the teachers I have ever had an issue with, but the constraints they have been forced to educate under. I teach part-time at a nonpublic school, one of the most beautiful, child-centered, and healing educational options I have ever encountered. It is this blessing that allows me to sign off on other homeschool moms. But the rubber stamp I provide is still superfluous. I am not the one in the trenches every day sounding out words, reviewing math concepts, and pointing out geographical locations. Of course, I do that for my own children, but who am I to purport to be an expert on what anyone else is doing? The onerous paperwork and unfunded mandate of portfolio reviews and end-of-year testing are obvious rules to get rid of to ease the burden on parents who have already undertaken the world’s most important job: teaching the leaders of tomorrow. HB 1268 does exactly this.

When New Hampshire first legalized homeschooling in 1990, there was deep skepticism of parents. Every year, parents needed to ask permission to teach their own children, provide a structured and detailed curriculum plan, and those requests could be denied. Not only did a parent need to follow a strict, preapproved plan all year, they also needed an annual evaluation showing a certain level of progress and had to turn it in to the state. If the state wasn’t happy, the child was forced back into public schools that didn’t have the same high-performance requirements or accountability.

Today, I encounter families who pull their struggling children out of public school to focus on basic skills, a love of learning, and self-confidence. These parents trusted the system to provide an education to their children, and they have realized their children’s needs are not being met. Some parents get their kids up to speed and continue as home educators, while others return to public school on a stronger footing and with a much better understanding of involvement and expectations.

The early home educators lived under this government-imposed standard for 22 years, until the 2012 reform changed annual permission to one-time notice of intent and removed the requirement to give records to the state, allowing parents to keep them private.

This was a significant shift to say that parents — not bureaucrats — were the primary people responsible for overseeing their child’s education. Unfortunately, the 40 percent proficiency metric created in 1990 survived the 2012 reform. It was a standard that some New Hampshire public school districts did not meet. In 2022, this arbitrary standard was removed, and home educators finally had the same control over performance standards as public or private schools.

For 35 years, New Hampshire lawmakers have repeatedly reviewed homeschooling regulations and concluded that parents should be trusted with more freedom. Every major reform has moved in the same direction, reducing government oversight. Every reform has recognized that homeschool families were already doing the work successfully without bureaucratic interference.

HB 1268 simply continues the trajectory of freedom.

I am thrilled this bill is on the governor’s desk. I am thrilled that I will no longer be a government requirement — an added burden — that traditional homeschoolers must seek validation for. The true validation comes from those children at the breakfast table every morning asking, “What do we get to do today, Mom?” while the school bus rolls by. Will I lose business? Probably. Am I OK with this? Absolutely. This fall, my eldest home-educated child leaves for Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he will literally study rocket science. It was the freedom of homeschooling — following his interests, choosing the right educational environments, and his hard work — not the restrictions of notification, evaluations, and testing, that got him there.

Parents don’t need government-mandated reassurance. After a few months of homeschooling, parents realize what every homeschool veteran knows: Nobody cares more about their child’s education than they do. New homeschool parents have multitudes of groups and veteran homeschoolers who offer support when they make the decision to deeply invest their time in ensuring their child’s education is truly meeting their individual needs. I have always been, and will always continue to be, that person for anyone who seeks me out. Not because the government requires it, but because the parents see value in it. Current requirements don’t guide students to success: They create one more barrier and put the focus on compliance instead of on meeting unique needs.

The remaining notice and evaluation requirements are relics from a time when policymakers weren’t sure homeschooling could succeed. Thirty-five years later, the evidence is overwhelming. Homeschool graduates have become entrepreneurs, military officers, tradesmen, nurses, engineers, parents, and community leaders. Institutions of higher education seek out homeschoolers because they are used to being in charge of their own education, so they see value in it and work harder than their counterparts who have had to follow mandates their whole lives. Freedom begets responsibility, engagement, and involvement. Mandates get in the way. The experiment ended long ago. The data is real.

For decades, New Hampshire has moved steadily toward recognizing what homeschool families have always known: Education is primarily the responsibility of parents, not the state. HB 1268 is the next logical chapter for New Hampshire’s independent homeschooling law.

Kitty Michelotti is a homeschooler, mother of three boys, educator of 25 years, and homeschool evaluator who has worked with hundreds of New Hampshire families. She lives with her husband and children in Derry.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.