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When the BBC reported this week on the British government’s new Schools Bill, the framing was straightforward: following the horrific murder of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, Parliament is moving to tighten oversight of children educated at home. The bill would require local authorities to maintain compulsory registers of all homeschooled children, expand their power to demand information from parents, and intervene more readily when officials believe education is “unsuitable.”
The stated goal is safeguarding. The emotional catalyst is obvious: one of the most famous cases in recent British history of murder, a 10-year-old girl killed by her family after a prolonged childhood marked by abuse. Sara Sharif died after enduring abuse in her family home in Woking in 2023. Her death shocked the nation, both by virtue of the brutality and also how preventable it was. Authorities had prior contact with the family, and flashing red warning signs were missed. Systems that were supposed to protect her failed, and an innocent girl paid the ultimate price.
But what is striking is how quickly the political response has shifted from examining those failures to expanding government control over thousands of unrelated homeschooling families.
The implication behind the Schools Bill is subtle but powerful: children educated at home are inherently harder to protect, and the state needs to step in. Therefore, the state must see more, know more, and intervene more. A tragedy has occurred; something must be done. And homeschooling — already viewed with suspicion by many policymakers — has become the convenient lever.
This pattern is not unique to Britain. In the United States, I wrote last year in the Washington Examiner about similar legislative efforts following isolated tragedies involving homeschooled children. In those cases, lawmakers used horrific but statistically rare incidents to justify broad regulatory crackdowns. The emotional logic was identical: because a homeschooled child was abused, homeschooling must be the risk factor. It’s an incredibly cynical way to shape public policy and legislation, using the deaths of innocent children as a weapon against one’s perceived political enemies.
But the premise of those trying to weaponize the murders of children does not withstand scrutiny. Research consistently shows that homeschooling is not, in itself, a predictor of abuse. Writing for the Washington Examiner last year, I explained, “The federally established Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities studied this topic extensively and released a 2016 report titled ‘Within Our Reach.’ Over two years, the commission reviewed research, heard expert testimony, and identified the key risk factors for child fatalities from abuse and neglect. Homeschooling was not among them.”
Most child abuse occurs in households where children attend traditional public schools. Abuse is a criminal act rooted in individual pathology and systemic child-protection failures — not an educational model.
Sara Sharif’s case, heartbreaking as it is, does not establish that homeschooling creates danger. The state already had access to her and it didn’t do enough with that access. What her case does establish is that existing safeguarding systems failed to intervene decisively when red flags appeared.
Instead of asking why those systems faltered and how to improve them in the future, the Schools Bill proposes to cast a wider net over families who have done nothing wrong.
The Home School Legal Defence Association, which advocates parental rights internationally, has been among the most vocal critics of the bill. Kevin Boden, HSLDA attorney and director of HSLDA International, wrote to Parliament in February, warning that the legislation “interferes with the natural right of parents to raise their children as recognized by international declarations and covenants.”
In January, Boden testified before British lawmakers alongside Aristotle Foundation Research Director David Hunt and longtime homeschool researcher Brian Ray. They argued that the bill reflects not data-driven policy but a growing ideological antipathy toward homeschooling itself. Britain, they warned, is drifting toward a model in which the state presumes authority over parental decision-making rather than recognizing parents as primary guardians.
Boden later described the Schools Bill as part of a broader cultural shift in the United Kingdom. “It’s a very sad development, but not a surprising one,” he said. “The idea the state has to make sure kids are safe — even from their parents — has been part of the discourse in Britain for some time now.”
That sentiment captures the philosophical stakes of the debate. Once the state assumes that parental authority is assailable, the burden shifts. Families must justify their autonomy rather than exercise it freely.
The deeper political context surrounding Sara Sharif’s death complicates the story further. Her case unfolded within a community that authorities have historically approached cautiously. Britain has struggled for years with the tension between confronting abuse in culturally insular immigrant environments in order to avoid accusations of discrimination or racism. The grooming gang scandals — long minimized by officials fearful of stoking social unrest — demonstrate how difficult and politically fraught such investigations can be.
Only after figures such as Elon Musk amplified the issue did the debate regain national prominence. The reluctance to confront uncomfortable cultural realities has been a recurring theme in British public life.
At the Munich Security Conference this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the broader stakes of Western migration debates bluntly: “Mass migration is not, was not, isn’t some fringe concern of little consequence. It was and continues to be a crisis that is transforming and destabilizing societies all across the West.”
The European leaders present at the conference inevitably understand that immigration, assimilation, and cultural integration are highly sensitive topics in Britain and across the European continent, but they are facing an existential crisis if they continue to refuse to confront them.
Addressing child abuse within tightly knit or insular immigrant communities can raise explosive political questions. Expanding oversight of homeschoolers, by contrast, is far less controversial. Homeschooling families lack the political leverage of organized constituencies and are far less likely to riot. They are scattered, often religious Christians, and easy to portray as outside the mainstream.
In that sense, the Schools Bill looks less like a targeted response to a specific failure and more like a redirection of political pressure.
Meanwhile, homeschooling in Britain has grown for reasons that have little to do with neglect. Parents cite concerns about bullying, special educational needs, ideological curriculum shifts, and mental health. For many families, homeschooling represents stability and individualized attention — not withdrawal from society.
Blanket registration schemes and expanded investigatory powers may sound modest but they can quickly morph into intrusive oversight. Vague definitions of “unsuitable education” leave room for subjective judgments. Once bureaucratic discretion expands, families who diverge from mainstream norms — religious minorities, philosophical dissenters, or simply unconventional educators — may find themselves under disproportionate scrutiny.
This is the danger of legislating in the wake of horror. The moral urgency is real and grief is highly charged. But policy built on grief often drifts beyond its original intent; it’s the road lined with good intentions, and we know where it leads.
The fundamental question is this: would the Schools Bill have saved Sara Sharif? If authorities already had contact with her family and failed to act decisively, how does expanding registration requirements for thousands of compliant homeschoolers solve that problem?
Safeguarding children is a core responsibility of the state. But safeguarding does not require presuming that parental freedom is inherently hazardous. Nor does it require conflating isolated criminal acts with lawful educational choices.
Britain now faces a pivotal choice. It can respond to one child’s death by expanding bureaucratic authority to threaten the rights of parents across the board. Or it can conduct a rigorous examination of why existing systems did not protect her — and focus reform there. Of course, it could also have a serious national conversation on the problems of mass immigration, but that may be asking too much.
Homeschooling did not kill Sara Sharif. The failure to intervene did.
THE FEMINIST FREAKOUT OVER CONSERVATIVE FAMILY POLICY
In moments of national tragedy, lawmakers are tempted to act swiftly and visibly. But visible action does not automatically ensure effectiveness. If Parliament chooses symbolism over precision, it risks eroding parental liberty without making children any safer.
And that would compound one tragedy with another.
