Texas bill would prohibit new state regulation of homeschooling
A new bill in the Lone Star State seeks to formalize parents’ rights to homeschool their kids as they see fit by shielding homeschooling families from increased regulation by state agencies.
Texas House Bill 2674, introduced by Dallas-area Rep. David Cook (R-Mansfield) last week, would prevent the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the State Board of Education (SBOE) from imposing new restrictions on homeschooling programs without explicit approval from the Texas Legislature.
Under the bill TEA, SBOE nor any other state educational institution would be able to create "any rule that has the effect of increasing regulation of an educational program” listed under the state’s current Education Code for homeschooled students.
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Texas has no laws or regulations tied to homeschooling, nor does TEA, the state’s leading education agency “regulate, monitor, approve, register, or accredit programs available to parents who choose to homeschool their children,” according to the U.S. Department of Education, which is facing threats of cuts under the Trump Administration.
Jeremy Newman, vice president of policy at the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC), which advocates for homeschooling families in the state, is one of the bill’s most vocal supporters. He said the legislation will go a long way to ensuring the state doesn’t unilaterally adopt new regulations as it has in the past.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, the TEA and the SBOE decided unilaterally to make homeschooling illegal, even though the Texas legislature had made it legal in 1915,” Newman said in a statement. “Parents were prosecuted, thrown in jail, and had their children removed by CPS because of their decision to homeschool.”
Following a nine-year legal battle, the Texas Supreme Court ruled on the legality of homeschooling in the landmark case Leeper v. Arlington ISD.
Newman said HB 2674 “ensures that we never again have a situation where an executive agency tries to unilaterally regulate homeschool programs.”
The bill was introduced within days of a bill filed by fellow Republican Texas Rep. Andy Hopper, which would eliminate the TEA and transfer its responsibilities to the SBOE, which, unlike TEA, is made up of a 15-member elected body tasked with establishing standards for public schools in Texas.
If the bill passes, the TEA will be dissolved and its responsibilities fully transferred by Dec. 1.
A report released last September found the number of parents who are homeschooling their children continues to increase nationwide even after the end of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
The Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy’s Homeschool Research Lab published an analysis of the homeschooling rate for 21 states for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Nineteen states saw an increase in children being homeschooled, ranging from a 2% increase rise in Georgia to a 29% increase in Delaware. Vermont and New Hampshire were the only two states with reported decreases in the number of students being homeschooled.
Data was unavailable for Texas as the state does not report homeschool participation numbers.
