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Elected officials in Michigan are calling for increased oversight of home schooling, setting the stage for a potentially bitter legislative battle that could be a bellwether for other efforts to regulate America’s soaring number of home educators.

The push to establish new rules for home-schoolers in a state where they face essentially no regulation comes days after The Washington Post published an examination of the torture and murder of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/homeschooling-child-abuse-torture-roman-lopez/" target="_blank">a home-schooled 11-year-old from Michigan</a>. On Monday, state Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) also <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/ag/news/press-releases/2023/12/04/attorney-general-dana-nessel-charges-4-adoptive-parents-with-36-child-abuse-crimes-conspiracy" target="_blank">announced charges</a> against foster parents who she said hid the abuse of their children by claiming to home-school.

What home schooling hides: A boy tortured and starved by his stepmother

Michigan officials’ renewed discussion of home-schooling regulation, first reported by <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2023/12/06/michigan-ag-lawmakers-call-for-homeschool-oversight-amid-abuse-cases/71810884007/" target="_blank">The Detroit Free Press</a>, comes amid an explosion of popularity for a method of instruction once confined to the ideological fringe. Since 2017, home schooling has been America’s fastest growing form of education, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/homeschooling-growth-data-by-district/" target="_blank">a Post analysis</a>. There may now be as many as 2.7 million home-schooled kids in the United States, compared to 1.5 million before the pandemic.

Yet in most of the country, home educators are not required to demonstrate that their children<b> </b>are<b> </b>meeting statewide academic standards. And in 11 states — including Michigan — they don’t even have to notify anyone that their kids are being home-schooled.

Child welfare advocates say the lack of oversight enables <a href="https://www.freep.com/in-depth/news/education/2022/03/11/education-learning-pandemic-homeschool-school/8515503002/" target="_blank">educational neglect</a> and <a href="https://www.953mnc.com/2015/11/02/calista-springer-case/" target="_blank">physical abuse</a>, since teachers and school officials are often the ones who spot signs of abuse and report it to child protective services. Although no studies show that home-schooled kids are significantly more likely to be mistreated than those who attend conventional schools, some research suggests that the isolation they experience can lead to particularly <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271949812_Child_Torture_as_a_Form_of_Child_Abuse?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template" target="_blank">severe forms of abuse</a>.

State Rep. Matt Koleszar, the Democratic chairman of the Michigan House Education Committee, said in an interview Wednesday that when its session begins next month the legislature is “likely to see a bill” that would “at a bare minimum” require the registration of home-schooled children in Michigan, and perhaps establish additional oversight measures.

Koleszar said the avid talks among state officials this week about home-schooling regulation have been fueled by the charges announced by Nessel and by The Post’s story about Roman Lopez, a boy from the Flint area who was tortured and starved by a stepmother who claimed to be home-schooling him. Lopez was found dead in a storage bin in his family’s basement a few months after his family moved from Michigan to California.

Jackie Farah

Roman’s stepmother, Lindsay Piper, was sentenced to 15 years to life in his killing. His father, Jordan Piper, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

Koleszar said the story about Roman was “horrifying” and “definitely has raised a lot of concerns about the safety of Michigan kids.”

He also said his support for regulation isn’t meant as an indictment of all — or even most — home-schooling parents.

“The vast majority of home-school parents are dedicated, devoted and do a great job,” Koleszar said. “This is about someone who is abusive, who is using that lack of regulation to hide what they’re doing.”

At a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENFTLhvgdQ4" target=_blank>news conference Monday</a>, Nessel said the state’s lack of home-schooling regulation had allowed abuse to go undetected in one of two families accused of adopting children for financial gain and then abusing them.

“While there’s nothing wrong with choosing to home-school a child, there has to be some sort of monitoring,” Nessel said.

Michigan last seriously considered establishing regulations for home-schoolers in 2015, after the bodies of two children were discovered in the deep freezer of <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/03/26/freezer-mom-frozen-bodies-mitchelle-blair/70499754/" target=_blank>a Detroit mother who claimed to be home-schooling</a>. Democratic State Sen. Stephanie Chang, then a state representative whose district included the site of the murders, sponsored a bill that would have required that home-schooled kids be registered and that they meet at least twice a year with a mandated reporter of child abuse, such as a doctor or psychologist.

The bill faced intense opposition from state and national home-schooling advocates, and never got a hearing. Since then, political power in the state capital has shifted from Republicans — a party that has historically been more friendly to home education — to Democrats. But this week Michigan home-schooling leaders said they are prepared to once again resist any efforts to change the state’s unregulated status quo.

On Tuesday, after Koleszar <a href="https://twitter.com/koleszar_matt/status/1732025556818968823?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1732025556818968823%7Ctwgr%5E3a11ed4f1587414df412ce0ba6ccd8e1c14c3b67%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.freep.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Feducation%2F2023%2F12%2F06%2Fmichigan-ag-lawmakers-call-for-homeschool-oversight-amid-abuse-cases%2F71810884007%2F" target=_blank>posted a call</a> to end what he called the “loophole” that allows abusive parents to conceal their actions through claims of home-schooling on X, formerly known as Twitter, Michigan’s oldest and largest home-schooling group denounced the proposal.

“We have fought long and hard in both the courts and the legislature to secure our current Michigan homeschool laws, and today we reiterate our position that we will resist, to the fullest measure, any efforts to restrict the homeschool freedoms that families have enjoyed since 1993,” the Michigan Christian Homeschool Network said in <a href="https://www.michn.org/resources/69097/legislative-update-12-05-23?source=blog" target=_blank>a press release</a>.

In 1993, the <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/michigan/supreme-court/1993/91479-5.html" target=_blank>Michigan Supreme Court</a> struck down a requirement that home educators be certified as teachers, a decision that led to the state’s current lack of regulation. Home-schooling advocates across the country still celebrate the case as one of their movement’s greatest victories.

“We do not believe that mandatory notification will in any way reduce child abuse,” Israel Wayne, the network’s vice president, said in an interview Wednesday. “Families who are committed to abusing their children will either not register, or they will register and continue to abuse their children. So what’s happening is you’re creating a legislative burden for thousands of families who have done nothing wrong, but now there’s a presumption of guilt.”

State Rep. Jaime Greene, a Republican and home-schooling mother, <a href="https://gophouse.org/posts/rep-greene-vehemently-opposes-proposal-to-register-homeschool-students-with-state" target=_blank>said in a statement</a> that she “vehemently opposes” requiring home-school parents to register their children, calling it “an egregious violation of parental rights.”

The Christian home-schooler who made ‘parental rights’ a GOP rallying cry

After a period of unprecedented growth in home schooling, the debate in Michigan could offer early signs of whether lawmakers — and home-schoolers themselves — are more open to regulation than in years past. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/09/26/home-schooling-vs-public-school-poll/" target="_blank">Post-Schar School poll</a> earlier this year found that home-schoolers have become more diverse, less religious and less conservative, trends that some experts say could lead to greater openness to at least modest forms of oversight.

Michigan Rep. <a href="https://housedems.com/kimberly-edwards/" target=_blank>Kimberly Edwards</a>, a Democrat involved in the discussions about a potential bill requiring home-school notification, said she hopes home-schooling families will offer constructive feedback on what regulation should look like, rather than simply opposing it.

“We’re not saying you don’t have the freedom to home-school. If home school works best for your family, so be it,” she said. “Just let the community know that that’s what you’re going to do.”

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Peter Jamison is a reporter on The Post's political enterprise and investigations team.