People celebrate innovators like Orville and Wilbur Wright, who take risks and smash boundaries. But if North Carolina homeschool parents defy the established order in education, they can go to jail.
Noncompliance with a long list of rules can result in 20 days behind bars and a $200 fine. Yet who actually counts as a criminal is hard to say. State laws are vague and packed with bolt-on provisions that lag behind national trends.
As things stand, North Carolina homeschool groups cannot include children from more than two families. But at the same time, parents can “determine additional sources of academic instruction.” This means children can participate in homeschool groups of any size, anywhere, but only as a supplement to regular home instruction.
One hundred families could gather two afternoons per week. But if three families meet daily, every parent involved could be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. The North Carolina Department of Administration provides seven homeschool requirements, 12 reminders, and five recommendations for anyone confused.
Guidelines like these might have sufficed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools fit neatly into three categories: Public, private, and do-it-yourself. State-mandated lockdowns blew up this model. Frustrated by virtual classrooms that fell short of expectations, parents scrambled to find alternatives.
The result was an innovation frenzy.
Some families pooled their resources and hired outside instructors. Other groups rotated teaching duties among themselves or designated host parents. Hybrid models also emerged. Money sometimes changed hands. Sometimes not.
When the pandemic ended, many parents realized they liked their arrangements and kept them going. Today about 1.5 million US students — roughly 3% of school-age children — participate in nontraditional collaborative learning groups.
Some people call these “homeschool co-ops,” “learning pods,” or “microschools.” Definitions overlap and vary. Parents do not mind. They focus more on learning than labels. Making sense of the new normal is the job of public school superintendents, who must decide when violations occur.
This is not easy with outdated legislation, bogged down by assumptions from a bygone era. Superintendents are left holding a proverbial buggy whip, while self-driving cars zip past. Defenders of the status quo can attempt to block progress, but this would be like keeping airplanes grounded after the first flight near Kitty Hawk.
Industry insiders try anyway. The North Carolina Association of Educators, the state’s largest teachers union, emphasizes the importance of “well-funded” public schools. The union sees anything that diverts resources from its $18.7 billion monopoly as a threat.
For their part, homeschool families just want a level playing field. North Carolina already has made concessions for childcare. Prompted in part by the increase in demand during the pandemic, the state eased restrictions on day-care groups organized for “convenience rather than for employment,” regardless of how many families participate.
This reform kills microschool objections based on health and safety. If parents can drop off their children for daycare without harm, the same parents can drop off the same children at the same locations for school.
North Carolina just needs to get with the times. Starting a microschool is already hard with zoning and other restrictions. Piling on with extra restrictions is unnecessary.
Our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, has seen firsthand how local officials can weaponize their codes to stifle school innovation. In Cobb County, Georgia, for example, the fire marshal attempted to shut down St. John the Baptist Hybrid School, a small co-op offering supplemental instruction for homeschoolers.
Parents could use the same classrooms for Sunday school, but not Monday school. Fortunately, Georgia passed a 2021 law protecting microschools from over-the-top code enforcement. Once our firm reminded the county of this reform, officials backed down.
Florida and Utah also have microschool laws that treat parents as allies instead of enemies. North Carolina should be next.
The Constitution lays out the principle. Two landmark Supreme Court cases, Pierce v. Society of Sisters from 1925 and Meyer v. Nebraska from 1923, recognize parents’ right to direct the upbringing and education of their children. The Institute for Justice stands ready to defend this right with free legal services.
Parents can innovate. They just need regulators to get out of the way and let them work.