They Won’t Ban Homeschooling—They’ll Control It Instead

ESAs and vouchers are the bait. Oversight is the hook.

There’s a conversation homeschoolers—and those considering homeschooling—need to have, but aren’t having, and I hope to jump-start that today with this piece.

There’s a danger we haven’t discussed, lurking within each and every school choice bill: it isn’t some dramatic, overnight homeschool ban—it’s a slow shift, pulled along by the temptation of money. Those of you who think we can “fight” to keep the government out once this money starts flowing are ignoring the political, legal, and cultural realities I’ll lay out here.

[UPDATE: A reader called to my attention that the TN expansion to homeschoolers has not yet happened—I was misinformed, and accidentally misinformed my readers in the original version of this article. I am sincerely sorry for that. Hopefully the homeschoolers of TN will be able to thwart any proposed expansions that come up].

Homeschooling is Not School at Home

First, let’s make one thing crystal clear: Homeschooling isn’t “school at home.” Understanding this point is key. It’s not just swapping the building for your kitchen table. It’s independence. It’s parents deciding what, how, and when their kids learn—without some state official peering over their shoulder. Over the years, homeschoolers have embraced self-reliance, creativity, and keeping the government as far away from our decisions as possible.

We Already Fight State Intrusion—Without the Money

Despite our best efforts to remain independent, virtually every state already requires homeschoolers to at least notify them of our plans, with some requiring us to ask permission, either from the state board of education or our local superintendent. In case you’re wondering, compulsory education laws alone justify this level of intrusion. In many states, homeschooling families are subject to even more oversight, ranging from attendance record-keeping to standardized testing to parental pre-qualification.

In other words, even before school choice bills were ever drafted—and without offering any funding to help us meet their requirements—the state insisted on being part of our “choice” to homeschool. Given this context, why would anyone imagine the state wouldn’t insist on more oversight once we start accepting funding from them in the form of vouchers or ESAs?

How Much Harder Will the Fight Be—With the Money?

And with vouchers and ESAs, the oversight doesn’t stay abstract: in practice, these programs revolve around pre-approved vendors, approved purchase lists, documentation portals, and (in many cases) testing or audits tied to the money. If they pay, they set the terms. That’s the gravitational pull.

Look at Arizona. Families there are getting between $6,500 and $9,000 per child every single year through ESAs. Kindergarteners get $4,000–$5,000, and if your child has a disability? You may qualify for up to $40,000. Florida? A flat $8,000 per child via the Family Empowerment Scholarship. Texas offers about $2,000 for homeschoolers specifically.

Multiply these numbers by the number of children you have, and you can see it’s a lot of money—especially compared to how much the average homeschooling family has been spending per child until now: according to NHERI, roughly $600 per child.

I get it—not everyone can shrug off thousands of dollars in (seemingly) free educational funding. For some families, even $600 a year per child feels like a lot. I’m not blind to that reality, nor am I unsympathetic to complaints from those who resent being taxed to pay for schools they’re not using; I resent that too.

What I am saying is that the very thing that makes the offer tempting is what makes it dangerous. If we take the funds, it becomes even easier for lawmakers to say, “We pay for your choice, so we set the rules.” I’m not here to judge you for being tempted, or even for taking the money—I’m here to warn you there are costs you probably haven’t thought about. Once we normalize that trade—the state pays, the state decides—the center of gravity shifts from parent-built to state-approved.

The Money Also Changes the Mission

Money doesn’t just come with strings; it comes with a gravitational pull. Once those funds start rolling in, the way people “do” homeschooling begins to shift. We’ve already seen it in states with generous ESAs: “home” education drifts away from the home. Parents who once built co-ops, designed their own classes, and found vendors willing to tailor programs to their kids’ quirks and their family’s rhythm now find it easier to outsource everything—this tutor for math, that class for science, therapy in one place, enrichment across town. It’s not creating anymore; it’s curating.

Every one of those classes, vendors, and purchases has to be pre-approved by the state. That means the government is now along for the ride in every part of your homeschool, deciding what qualifies as “acceptable” education. For decades, homeschoolers have fought to keep that door closed, resisting even small incursions into their autonomy. But when the funding attracts more families who are fine with this kind of oversight—or at least don’t see the harm—the political balance shifts. The bloc that once pushed back hard against government intrusion gets diluted. The will and the numbers to fight future overreach disappear. And that’s when the rules start multiplying, not because lawmakers suddenly got bolder, but because they can.

Once that door is open, the conversation stops being if there should be more oversight—it shifts to how much more oversight is “reasonable.” That’s when the hook is set.

Divide and Conquer Has Already Begun

The “strings attached” fight isn’t years away—it’s in full swing in Texas. What better way to divide homeschoolers, and would-be homeschoolers, against each other than to offer them all state funding? The independent amongst them, who’ve managed for generations without the money, quickly see what’s at stake, and newcomers, most of whom are fleeing failing public schools, have less inclination—never mind experience—saying “Get off my lawn” to the state.

Nowhere is this factioning more evident than in Texas. The state’s proposed ESA program would hand homeschool families up to $2,000 a year for things like textbooks, tutoring, special-needs therapy, or dual-credit college courses. That’s not much compared to Arizona’s $7K+—but it’s enough to open the door to more state oversight.

Some Texas families flat-out refuse to touch it. They don’t want the government’s wallet anywhere near their homeschool, because they know the wallet comes with a leash. People like Jacob Tucker and Elisha Holmes have been blunt: they’ll keep full control over their kids’ education, even if it means walking away from “free” money.

Others defend the program because it is opt-in and lawmakers promise “protections,” like anonymizing testing data. But that’s the sticking point: take the ESA, and you may have to give your kid a norm-referenced academic assessment every year. That requirement alone has always been a flashpoint for homeschool families because we don’t want to alter our teaching to work around the state tests.

Even The Texas Home School Coalition supports the overall school choice bill. Though they are lobbying hard to keep bureaucratic demands to a minimum, the funds would be managed by the state Comptroller, so parents wouldn’t get a check—they’d get state-approved purchases.

The fact that homeschoolers are already divided—before the bill has even passed—shows exactly how fast “school choice” can turn homeschoolers against each other, rather than the real problem, which is that the state runs education and monopolizes education funding to start with.

This Isn’t Affecting Just a Handful of States

As of mid-2025, school choice isn’t a fringe experiment—it’s a national movement with deep political momentum. Thirty states and the District of Columbia now have at least one private school choice program, and nineteen of those states have either gone fully universal or are on the brink of it. Nearly two-thirds of the country already has some version of ESAs, vouchers, or tax-credit scholarships in place, and the remaining states are watching closely.

The “universal or near-universal” club now includes Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah, along with a growing list of others. States like Louisiana and Nebraska are actively considering expansion bills that could push them into the same category.

It’s not all smooth sailing—there has been pushback. In Iowa, opponents have introduced measures to repeal the universal ESA. In Tennessee, Democratic lawmakers are pushing for more accountability requirements for private schools that receive public funds. These debates aren’t slowing the momentum, though. In 2024 alone, lawmakers introduced 118 school choice bills in 34 states, with sixteen of those becoming law, including Alabama’s CHOOSE Act and expansions in Missouri and Georgia.

If anything, these debates offer further evidence of how school choice funding drags homeschooling families into partisan political battles—something we have fought hard to avoid for generations. All it will take for homeschooling law to change permanently is for one “side” to build a majority in favor of more regulation, and they’ll have the perfect excuse: “We are paying for it!”

In July 2025, the stakes jumped to a whole new level when Congress passed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill”—the first permanent, federally funded private school choice program. Beginning in 2026, the federal government will offer tax credits for donations to scholarship-granting organizations, and while states can opt out, the infrastructure for nationwide implementation will be in place.

The point? This wave isn’t coming—it’s already here. And if you homeschool, you’re in its path whether you asked for it or not.

How (More) Oversight Will Creep In

With oversight already in place without money, does anyone really think the government is going to hand out taxpayer funds and just walk away? Unlikely, especially when there are high-profile critics of homeschooling who’ve been calling for more oversight, and even a ban on homeschooling by any means necessary.

Meet Elizabeth Bartholet, Harvard Law’s homeschooling skeptic who recommends a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling, requiring parents to demonstrate justification for permission to homeschool:

“Homeschooling in its current unregulated form represents a danger to both children and society.”

According to her, no one should be trusted to homeschool their own child without the state’s express permission.

Then there’s John Oliver, who stops just short of a ban, but only because he thinks more regulation will solve the “problem,” which he defines as follows:

“The ceiling of how good homeschooling can be is admittedly very high… but the floor of how bad it can get is basically nonexistent.”

Their voices are not fringe. Every year Bartholet hosts a meeting at Harvard to discuss how to effectuate her “ban” via regulations, and John Oliver has a massive audience. Add to them the natural inclination of bureaucrats to want more power for their domains rather than less—and hopefully you can see how the school choice funds give them a bigger door through which to roll the Trojan Horse of state regulation.

The State Won’t Need a ‘Ban’

As I’ve already acknowledged, it’s tempting to take the money. No matter how you rationalize it, though, when you do, you’re giving the state an open invitation to enter your homes and your lives. They may not take you up on that invitation on day one, but once most homeschoolers have accepted the money, the funded version of homeschooling will become the default for the simple reason that administering two different kinds of homeschooling—two levels of regulation—is cost- and labor-intensive.

Once the funded path becomes the default, vendor approvals, legislated spending, audits, and even standardized curriculum mandates are easier to justify. The fully independent route people may still take now won’t need banning—it will just disappear. In less than a decade, parents may not even be able to imagine homeschooling without the government’s “help.”

And that’s why this isn’t about whether we “should” take the bait. It’s about understanding that once the hook is set, there’s no pulling free.

State-by-State Reality (Passed vs Proposed)

ESAs Already Law:
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming

ESAs Proposed or Pending:
Kentucky — pending voter approval
Mississippi expansion bill — pending legislative action

Note: More than 30 states offer some form of private school choice (including vouchers/tax-credit scholarships).