Eye On Illinois: Will amendment garner homeschool regulation bill sufficient support?

I love to say I told you so.

In July, Capitol News Illinois interviewed state Rep. Terra Costa Howard, D-Glen Ellyn, following its investigation with ProPublica (tinyurl.com/CNIhomeschool) revealing “little accountability for parents who pull their kids from school and then fail to ensure they receive an education. In the worst cases, the investigation found, parents isolated and mistreated their children.”

My July 25 column covered the two primary challenges to homeschool regulations: one, strong opposition from multiple, politically unaligned fronts. Second, if homeschool registration is means for tracking potential abuse victims, the likeliest outcome is extra paperwork for people already inclined to comply and further resistance from those whose neglect and abuse already overload protective services.

Recent weeks showed that the first hurdle was sufficiently daunting. As CNI reported Monday, loud and persistent opposition to Costa Howard’s House Bill 2827 fueled two significant amendments, a missed deadline and speculation of insufficient Democratic support to advance the measure to the Senate.

An optimist might argue this is simply government at work. A lawmaker noticed a problem and offered a solution. Opponents called it overreach and pushed back. Proponents softened the proposal in hopes of reaching a compromise, an effort to reach a goal while mitigating unintended consequences.

There are other viewpoints here, such as “this bill was doomed from the beginning,” per state Rep. Amy Elik, R-Alton. It’s also worth noting that the opponent pushback included at least one anonymous letter that could be construed as a death threat. Costa Howard also said her office has fielded several hostile calls and emails, perhaps exceeding the bounds of conventional political discourse.

It’s possible the amendment a House committee passed April 9 clears the first hurdle but runs headlong into the second. Whereas the bill’s original version empowered state and local school officials to request homeschool parents provide an “educational portfolio” to prove teaching is happening, the amendment stipulates that this could only happen during a truancy investigation.

The working theory seems to be protecting earnest homeschoolers from red tape intended to entangle those who simply pull their kids from class and ignore them, or worse, but that raises two concerns. One is that there are at least some parents who don’t educate their kids but are nonetheless upstanding caregivers. That’s not a crime, nor should it be.

More significantly is the issue raised earlier: truancy officers and especially Department of Children & Family Services caseworkers are already overburdened, and no matter the good intentions of protecting children, the outcome is that much more straw on the camel’s back.

Targeting abuse without hampering the blameless is tricky legislative work. If HB 2827 can’t navigate that narrow channel, it either won’t pass or will be another “solution” that only exacerbates problems.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.