The French Constitutional Council, the equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court, delivered a devastating disappointment to the French homeschooling community by failing to strike down part of a sweeping anti-extremism law that also targets home education.
Although almost 100 members of the French National Assembly petitioned the council on behalf of the homeschooling community — hoping to quash aspects of a highly restrictive law originally proposed by President Emmanuel Macron in October 2020 — the court swept aside the petition, allowing the new restrictions to take effect. The French crackdown on homeschooling deserves condemnation and serves as a warning to other homeschooling movements worldwide to guard their freedom well.
Though homeschooling has been legal since 1882, French national lawmakers have increased restrictions on France’s homeschooling minority in recent years. The French government’s new law makes homeschooling less available to those who need it most. At a time when schools are closed, parents need more options rather than more restrictions.
Although not completely outlawed, homeschooling will require French parents to jump through more hoops and seek permission from local authorities. No parent should have to defend, explain, or seek permission to exercise a fundamental right. Parents, not the state, are the first decision-makers regarding how children are educated. Homeschooling should be viewed as one of the most precious parental freedoms deserving of judicial protection from a tenuous political majority in the French (or any other elected) National Assembly.
The homeschooling battle in France shows how some Western European democracies employ more statist approaches to regulating society and dismiss fundamental freedoms or distrust their fellow citizens. For example, in the United Kingdom, where homeschooling has a tradition of being the most freely accessible in Europe, “conservative” political figures such as MP Robert Halfon — who leads the Education Select Committee in the House of Commons — is seeking to impose a national registration requirement on homeschoolers. No thanks, Rob!
The divergence of policy on homeschooling between the U.S. and Western Europe reveals important differences that help explain why there has been a steady, and now meteoric, growth in homeschooling (which I predicted could happen).
The U.S. model of dual federalism, which includes state sovereignty, means we the people have more control over our laws than citizens in the French Republic. The French National Assembly has the power to restrict the freedom of the entire country, whereas our state legislatures have created different approaches to homeschooling laws. Most states require a simple declaration and little else for homeschooling. Since 2003, more than 20 state legislatures have made homeschooling more accessible by removing unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles. This year, South Dakota joined this trend, transforming the state into one of the most homeschool-friendly from one of the least.
This freedom is largely responsible for the strong foundation of support that has allowed untold millions of new families to enjoy the flexibility and freedom of homeschooling. For 40 years, homeschooling has grown steadily, creating a healthy infrastructure of thousands of local support groups, widely available online classes, learning pods, and curriculum options. This set the stage for explosive growth in homeschooling in the U.S., which may become a quadrupling in the number of families.
This growth has shocked, surprised, and dismayed some. But while there remain a small number of statist critics of homeschooling who would love to see a French style of control everywhere, the freedom of homeschooling is a testimony to the wisdom of our Founders, who preserved state sovereignty as a limitation on the danger of centralized power. The founders crafted a constitution that delegated specific powers to the federal government. And while some, including me, may feel like our federal government has exceeded the boundaries of its constitutional power, the lamentable loss of French homeschoolers’ freedom shows how much freedom we still have in at least this one very important area.
The French homeschoolers’ loss should be a warning to all that freedom is not free. It comes at a price. Even with millions of new homeschoolers, we should not take it for granted that our freedom to homeschool is secure. Freedom is never secure — it must be constantly watched over and defended. Awareness and action are what homeschoolers in the U.S. (and elsewhere) must commit to, or else we risk the same loss of freedom as our fellow homeschoolers in France.
We must all heed the warning of one of our great presidents, Ronald Reagan, who said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”
Michael P. Donnelly is a senior counsel at the Home School Legal Defense Association.
