Date: July 10, 2024
Host: Jim Schneider
Guest: Will Estrada
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Will Estrada is Senior Counsel with Home School Legal Defense Association. Will began working for HSLDA as a legal assistant in 2004. In 2006 he graduated from the Oak Brook College of Law and Government Policy and then directed HSLDA’s Federal Relations Department. He then gained experience at the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services from 2018-2021 and resigned to become the first full-time President of Parental Rights.org and the Parental Rights Foundation. In June 2023 he returned to HSLDA serving as a senior counsel and contact attorney serving homeschool clients in multiple states. He’s a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar First Circuit Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, California and District of Columbia. Will himself is a homeschool graduate.
Homeschooling is seeing great success throughout the U.S. as parents serve as the primary educators for their children. There’s been a mass exodus from public education, not only since the Covid pandemic, but as more and more indoctrination has been implanted via diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. In addition, more school districts are keeping parents from knowing what’s going on when passing policies about how their children are identifying in the schools, what restrooms they use, the curriculum being taught or certain programs their children might be attending.
While this environment in public schools plays out, some parents choose to opt out, therefore homeschooling is under attack. This attack simply isn’t working. As Will noted early in the broadcast, pre-Covid (just before 2020), the U.S. Department of Education indicated there were about 2.1 to 3 million homeschooling students in the U.S. Now it’s said to be between 6 and 8 million with some studies showing the number of homeschool students at the same level as the number of students in private schools.
Overall, Will described homeschooling this way: “…homeschooling is mainstream now…it’s not just a weird thing. It has come into its own as a respected and established and successful way for loving parents to educate their children.”
Should parents have to pass a background check to determine their suitability for homeschooling? Should they be required to submit documents proving that their children are, in fact, learning? Yes, there are rare exceptions to the success stories but Will agrees that while you punish those who do wrong, you don’t make every parent that wants to homeschool their children get permission from the government. He even cites a Supreme Court case from 1979 to solidify his point.
There’s more to hear, including the thoughts and concerns of Crosstalk listeners.
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