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Connecticut has passed a law that treats every homeschooling family in the state as a potential child abuser. House Bill 5468, now Public Act No. 26-37, requires parents to pass a state abuse and neglect background check through the Department of Children and Families before they are permitted to homeschool their children. Not after a complaint. Not after evidence of wrongdoing. Before they begin, as a condition of exercising their parental rights.
The bill was pushed through on the back of a genuinely horrific abuse case — a child locked in a room for nearly two decades, cut off from the world, discovered at thirty-one years old weighing just sixty-eight pounds. It is a tragic case, and it demands accountability. However, the school flagged concerns for years. The Department of Children and Families visited the home and did nothing. The system failed this child, and now that same system is being handed new power over every family that chooses to educate their children at home.
The Homeschool Legal Defense Association put it plainly: this law presumes guilt before any evidence exists. Every family seeking to homeschool will now submit to a government background check, not because of anything they have done, but simply because they want to teach their own children. The HSLDA’s president noted that the Supreme Court itself declared in Parham v. J.R. that the idea government power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse children is repugnant to American tradition. The ranking Republican on Connecticut’s Senate Education Committee said what is at stake is not simply homeschooling, but the meaning of liberty itself.
Nebraska has passed a similar measure, blocking parents from homeschooling if they are merely under investigation — even if the claims are unsubstantiated. Similar measures have been tried in other states including Illinois, though many of them have failed. Meanwhile, West Virginia has been a bright spot for education freedom, beating back several restrictive education bills this session.
Let’s not mistake what this is truly about. Public schools are pushing radical transgender ideology, biological denial, and a host of age-inappropriate content, and parents who choose to opt out or complain are being treated as suspects! The foxes are scratching at the henhouse door in several states, and parents across the country need to be paying attention.
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