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[TennesseeConservativeNews] Homeschooling Bill Killed In House Subcommittee Over Concerns That Parents Might Abuse Their Children

A pro-homeschooling bill that was endorsed by both state and national homeschooling advocates died in the House Education Administration Subcommittee on Tuesday over concerns that parents might abuse their children without any state oversight.
The answer is to write a stronger bill that addresses those concerns. Politics is about horsetrading.
Had it passed, the FREE Act would have made Tennessee the 14th state to enact such legislation as Wyoming passed a similar bill this year, becoming the most recent of 13 states to do so.

House Bill 0552 (HB0552), sponsored by Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill-District 92), would not have repealed any current regulations regarding homeschooling in Tennessee.

Instead, the “Family Right to Educational Emancipation Act” or FREE Act” would have created a new independent category for homeschooling that would have been exempt from compulsory school attendance while also keeping homeschool families who might have chosen the new option free of any data collection, reporting, or assessment requirements.

According to Warner, this new option would have kept homeschool families from participating in any state program like a future expansion of school vouchers that would include homeschool families or the current TSSAA rules that allow homeschool students to participate in sports at their local public schools.

Following testimony on the bill, Committee Chair William Slater (R-Gallatin-District 35) read a few lines from a letter that he received from the Sumner County Juvenile Court Judge in Slater’s district.

“It could potentially create a loophole for some rather unscrupulous parents to abuse Tennessee’s educational system,” Slater read. “And our greatest fear is unscrupulous parents when threatened with the notions of mandatory referrals for abuse would remove a child from school and place them under the umbrella of this bill so as to avoid detection.”

Slater said that while he understood “the importance of the freedom to homeschool” he nevertheless was inclined to side with the judge’s opinion which sounded strikingly similar to a Stewart County Juvenile Court Judge’s letter shared by Free YOUR Children whose founder wrote the FREE Act.
Posted by: Mercutio 2025-03-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=745778