February 3rd Update:

Victory for Freedom! Committee Spikes SB 1031

Dear Virginia members and friends,

On Thursday, January 30, a senate subcommittee voted to support SB 1031, the anti-religious exemption bill.  That’s bad. But a few minutes later, the full Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee voted to kill the bill.  That’s awesome! 

Technically, the committee voted to “pass by” the bill “indefinitely,” (sometimes called just “pbi”) which is the strongest way a committee can express its disapproval of a bill. The motion to PBI passed on a strong 13-2 bipartisan vote. Homeschool freedom is a bipartisan issue! The bill will not move to the senate floor for action.

Senator Louise Lucas was one of the votes in support of the PBI motion.  She is the chair of the committee and also the President pro tempore of the senate.  She is an influential leader.

While there are some very unusual ways the bill could still move forward (we will keep an eye on it!), I think it’s time to declare victory!. Thank you SO much to all the people who travelled to Richmond to make homeschool families visible.  Some of you have travelled more than once.  Some of you made multiple phone calls and did not give lawmakers a moment of silence that they might interrupt as the flagging of our determination to protect freedom. Some of you stood in line to testify against the bill but were cut off because the committee was in such a hurry.

If the full story had been told, it would have been overwhelmingly clear that the religious exemption option is one of the most successful educational options in Virginia. Yes, a dozen or so young adults said they had received a poor education that way. My heart went out to them as I waited to testify to the committee!

But every educational option includes some students who do not thrive in it. It is not credible to claim that one educational option should be abolished because some do not thrive in it. Furthermore, it is difficult to evaluate the contextual significant of narratives, as heart-rending as they sound, when only one family member testifies. Elementary and secondary education happens in families, and without hearing both sides of the story, narratives are difficult to assess. 

For example, one graduate of a religious exemption program became a public figure about 10 years ago when his or her name was connected to a push to undermine or repeal the exemption. But the student graduated summa cum laude from community college and subsequently magna cum laude from a very prestigious, nationally ranked college. In a similar vein, the first witness who spoke in support of repealing the exemption had earned admission to the University of Virginia law school, the fifth-ranked law school in the nation.

And to broaden the focus a bit, as I listened to every young adult who testified to support the repeal of the exemption, each spoke with good grammar and delivered well-organized thoughts with articulation that bespeaks at least a satisfactory education. Compare that with Virginia’s 18% adult illiteracy rate, which is a powerful comment on the Commonwealth’s public schools. 4 out of 10 Virginia students scored “below basic” on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, often called “the nation's report card”). “Below basic” is the lowest category used in NAEP lingo and implies functional illiteracy.

So after sweeping away the flimsy “some of the kids got a poor education” argument, what is left? 

Only that it’s an outrage for the parents of those students to not be compelled to submit annual tests or assessments. But that ship has sailed. 

Nationwide, the overwhelming trend is to reduce or abolish mandatory testing of homeschool students.  The case has simply not been made that mandatory testing of home school students helps.  And to round out the picture, there is a strong national trend for public schools to reduce or abolish testing of their own students, especially high-stakes testing (i.e., the kind that Sen. Stella Pekarshy’s original bill would have imposed on religious exemption students).

I don’t question Pekarsky’s sincerity. But to seek to rip away a precious right that has protected home school families—their rights as parents and their rights as people of faith--for 49 years, shows very questionable judgment in my view.

January 28th Update: 

Dear Virginia members and friends,

Your calls have convinced senators that they need to adopt a new, more covert strategy to accomplish Senator Stella Pekarsky’s goal of abolishing the religious exemption.

This morning, the full Senate Health and Education Committee (on a party line vote) voted to adopt a substitute version of SB 1031.  Rather than repealing the religious exemption outright, the new version of the bill would create a “work study group” to study how the religious exemption could be amended to “better ensure that all children in the Commonwealth receive an adequate education.”  

But since most members of the group would be political appointees, there is no doubt what the group would recommend. It would issue a political statement that fully aligns with Sen. Stella Pekarsky’s goal of abolishing the religious exemption.  When Pekarsky spoke in support of the committee substitute this morning, she used exactly the same arguments as she had previously given for outright repeal of the exemption. Same goal.  Different strategy. We are not so easily deceived.

Action Requested

Because the committee substitute seems very different on its surface, we must start from ground zero and let our senators and delegates know that we oppose it. Please contact your Virginia state senator and member of the house of delegates and courteously ask them to vote “no” on the committee substitute version of SB 1031. 

Also, we would like to thank the following senators for speaking out in opposition to the bill at today's hearing: 

• Sen. Christopher T. Head
• Sen. Tara A. Durant
• Sen. Mark J. Peake
• Sen. Christie New Craig

Senators Pillion and Suetterlein also voted in opposition to the bill. 

Click here to find your senator and delegate’s contact information.

What’s Next?

This morning the Senate Health and Education Committee referred the substitute version to the Senate Finance Committee for additional work.

Thank you for standing with us for freedom!

Why HSLDA Opposes SB 1031

• The religious exemption has stood the test of time.  It has endured for 49 years without change.
• It makes no sense to abolish one form of education just because some students did not thrive in it. Every form of education has its share of success and failure. We would not apply that harsh test to any other form of education—public school (which has resulted in an 18% illiteracy rate in Virginia!), private schools, tutoring, or home instruction.
• The best research available says that students educated under the religious exemption score far above their peers on standardized tests.
• The fact that so few religious exemption requests are rejected tells us that parents seeking this option can and do satisfy their school board with whatever documents and testimony the board determines to be sufficient.

While Sen. Stella Pekarsky has implied that school boards feel compelled to grant an exemption every time a family requests it, we do know of a number of examples of school boards that have turned down such requests.                  

• Abolishing the religious exemption would force tens of thousands of families into a legal structure (i.e., home instruction) that is a perennial source of conflict and controversy.  Virginia is one of the very few states that require both an annual notice and annual submission of a test or evaluation. Because there is so much red tape, and school systems widely diverge in how they interpret (and misinterpret) the requirements, it leads to innumerable conflicts.

In states with far less red tape (and less potential for conflict)—for example, Illinois, New Jersey, Kansas, Texas, California, Oklahoma, Alaska, Michigan, Indiana—there is little need for an exemption such as ours.       

• To protect freedom, we must keep the coercive power of government as far as possible away from the family unit, especially when the freedom of conscience is at stake. If the religious exemption is abolished and only home instruction remains for homeschoolers, the stakes in such conflicts increase dramatically because of the encroachment of government power on the free exercise of religion.
• Freedom of conscience has always been a bipartisan issue in Virginia. The bill that created the religious exemption was sponsored by a Democrat, Doug Wilder, who would later become Virginia’s first Black governor. Wilder’s bill was signed into law by Republican Governor Mills Godwin who had previously been endorsed by the NAACP.
• Our religious exemption statute is taken almost verbatim from the military conscientious objection statute. As a nation, we exempt anyone from the military if they have conscientious objections.  We believe that exemption to be vital to protecting religious freedom, so why not this exemption?  The twin protections of freedom go together and should stay alive together.
• The bill also abolishes the freedom of privacy that Virginia law now protects for homeschoolers.