New Jersey law is strong on what matters—the education of the child—and light on what doesn’t matter: red tape. But on Thursday, June 5, at 11 a.m., a legislative hearing will be held on an authoritarian bill that would change the state’s positive homeschool dynamic by adding pointless and burdensome red tape.

Senate Bill 1796 would require every homeschool family in New Jersey to file a letter with their public school superintendent expressing their intent to homeschool their children. The birth date and grade level of each child would be required as well, and the bill provides no privacy protection.

ACTION REQUESTED

Today or tomorrow, please call or email your own state senator and ask him or her to oppose S. 1796. Your message can be as simple as, “Please oppose S. 1796, the homeschool registration bill. Red tape helps no one. And it provides no privacy protection.”

Or you can develop your own message using information below. Remember that your senator may not be familiar with the bill yet.

Click here, then use the drop-down box where it says, “filter by municipality,” to select your municipality. Then click on the little envelope by the name of your senator to send an email. Or you may click on your senator’s name and call one of the phone numbers listed.

Please plan to come to the hearing! Wear red to make a big, visible statement. It will be in Committee Room 4, 1st Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ, at 131-137 West State Street, Trenton. A big turnout will send a powerful message! Allow time to park and find the hearing room. If you have an opportunity to testify, make your comments brief, get right to the point, and be respectful. Even if you don’t testify, wearing red and being present will get the attention of legislators!

Please send this message to every homeschool family you know!

BACKGROUND

• The bill provides no protection for private student information.
• No new laws are necessary. New Jersey homeschool law, with its brawny requirement that parents provide instruction that is the equivalent to public school instruction, has produced well-educated students for decades.
• Freedom works. Government control and authoritarianism inevitably creates unintended negative results.
• Homeschool freedom is a bipartisan issue. When bills were recently filed in Illinois, Minnesota, and Virginia to add restrictions to homeschool families, representatives of both parties contributed to their defeat.
• What problem is this bill designed to solve? It solves no real-world problem.
• New Jersey is not an outlier. More than one-third of Americans live in states where no homeschool notice is required, including Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, and more.
• Red tape helps no one. Research shows that higher levels of red tape do not result in better academic results for homeschooled children. This bill adds authoritarian bureaucracy without any clear benefits to families and children.
• The bill uses the term “home-school.” That term is not defined in New Jersey. (It’s actually called “equivalent instruction elsewhere than at school.”) This gaping omission means a judge is free to define it according to his or her preference. Or the legislature may add a definition later and in doing so may add even more restrictions and mandates.
• Creating a new homeschool notice requirement will add to the burden of public school officials who will have to handle all that paperwork. There are about 1.5 million school-age children in New Jersey. Per the Johns Hopkins School of Education, about 3.6% of those are homeschooled, netting about 50,000 notices that would need to be filed and processed every year.
• Homeschooling is a known quantity. It has been studied for decades. The results show that homeschooled students equal or exceed their public school peers academically.
• This bill creates a trap for the unwary. A family providing appropriate education who slips up on paperwork could find themselves plunged into a frightening court experience.

Thank you for standing with us for freedom!