We need to take back our educational freedom by repealing existing educational laws. We need to sponsor legislation that piece by piece rolls back the laws giving the state statutory authority to tell our children what they need to learn, how long they need to spend learning it, and who is responsible for seeing that they learn. We need to use the compelling argument of educational freedom to erode the mandatory attendance, testing, curriculum, and teacher credentialing laws that pervade all fifty states. And we need to do this not just for homeschoolers but for all families. Let's look at how we can apply our strategy to repealing the mandatory attendance law.
Every state has one, although the actual ages differ.
These laws used to cover a narrow age range that was gradually extended. In fact, the process is still continuing - legislators in California attempted to lower the age of mandatory attendance from age six to age five in the last two legislative sessions. Laws have also been proposed that lay the groundwork for mandatory pre-school. The principled defense is to fight these laws because the state has no business telling families at what age their children need to start a formal education - an education defined by the state. The short-sighted defense would be to amend the law to exempt homeschoolers.