Issue date: April, 10, 2003

Number of students home schooled in Michigan unclear

By Victor Inzunza
College of Education

Because Michigan does not require home-school families to register, the state does not have an accurate count of how many students are schooled at home, according to a report by the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University.

The report indicates that about 2,000 home-school students report to the Michigan Department of Education. But based on census data and enrollment figures, the report estimates that there may be as many as 100,000 home-school students who do not report to the state.

That means that more than 5 percent of Michigan’s students are schooled at home. The authors of the report – Tara Donahue, a researcher at the policy center, and David Plank, co-director of the center – said that 5 percent would be akin to all of the parents in five of the largest public school districts in the state – Flint, Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Traverse City and Utica – deciding to teach their children at home.

“If you live in Michigan, chances are you know somebody who is home schooling his or her children,” Donahue and Plank wrote in the report. “And, if you do, chances are you know more about the education those children are getting than the state of Michigan does.”

The reason so many children are unaccounted for is because of Michigan law. Through an exemption in Michigan’s compulsory attendance law, some home schools have no relationship with the state department of education. In fact, the authors point out that parents choosing to operate a home school under Exemption (3) (f) “are under no obligation to report to any public agency.”

Donahue and Plank note that there is a debate about state monitoring of home schools. Proponents of monitoring argue that the state has a constitutional obligation to ensure that all young citizens are adequately educated.

Opponents of monitoring assert that parents are the primary authority figure in a child’s life, and that the state should have no role in how children are raised. States vary considerably in how they choose to monitor home-school families, ranging from no involvement to requiring yearly portfolios detailing student achievement. The authors note that a Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) study of home-school laws in all 50 states rated Michigan as the best state for home schoolers because of the freedom given to parents.

As a way to help protect the educational welfare of Michigan’s children, the authors call on the state to amend the current exemption to require that home-school parents register with the Michigan Department of Education or their local intermediate school district. The parents would only need to give the child’s name and confirm that the child will be home schooled instead of in a public school.

“This system would not infringe on the rights of parents to educate their children, but it would signal that the state takes seriously its obligation, and that of parents, to leave no child behind,” Donahue and Plank noted in the report.