Dear Homeschool Leader,

In March at the HSLDA Summit in Washington DC, I spoke to many of you about legislation we hoped to see introduced that would consolidate in one bill a number of federal issues affecting homeschoolers. This bill, the Homeschool Non Discrimination Act of 2003 (HoNDA), will be introduced next week. The issues addressed in HoNDA have arisen largely because many federal laws, written before and during the rise of homeschooling, are in need of clarification as to their impact on students who are homeschooled under state law.

While we contend, and the bill so states, that homeschooling is bound up in the constitutional rights of parents and that the federal government has no control over homeschooling, many government programs already inadvertently negatively impact homeschools and are in need of clarification. In working with our friends on Capitol Hill to craft the language of this bill, Chris Klicka (Senior Counsel at HSLDA) and I made great efforts to always tie references to homeschooling to state law to avoid any possible new federal regulations concerning homeschooling, and we worked hard to make sure that the language works in states where homeschools are treated as private schools. We think that the bill turned out well. I am attaching to this email a PDF of the bill. Congressman Musgrave (R CO), herself a former homeschool mom, will be introducing the bill in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, July 15, and already has over 20 other congressmen who are original cosponsors with her. We are in the final stages with a Senator who will likely become the originator in that esteemed body.

Since it is possible that you will receive questions about HoNDA, I thought it might be helpful to you for me to summarize the bill. We would also appreciate your help in obtaining cosponsors for the bill in the U.S. House and, later, the Senate. In many ways, this bill is truly a litmus test on whether a Member of Congress supports homeschooling. Finally, I should note that there is always the chance that the bill can be passed whole, but that we will also be looking for appropriate legislative vehicles to move these provisions separately. In either situation, the number of cosponsors of the bill will help determine our clout with moving the issues forward.