The pain described in Stefan Merrill Block’s recent New York Times essay, “Home-Schooled Kids Are Not All Right,” is real. No child should endure isolation, neglect, manipulation, or abuse. When adults fail children—whether through action or inaction—it leaves wounds that can last a lifetime. On that point, there should be no disagreement.
But compassion for personal suffering does not relieve us of the responsibility to reason carefully when proposing public policy—especially policies that would affect millions of families and children. Mr. Block’s essay moves from memoir to mandate without adequately addressing key facts, comparative data, or unintended consequences. In doing so, it risks substituting anecdote for evidence and grief for sound governance.
Personal experience, however powerful, is not a sufficient foundation for nationwide policy. We do not regulate all public schools based on the worst experiences of bullied or abused students, nor do we abolish foster care because some foster homes fail catastrophically. Instead, we investigate wrongdoing, prosecute abusers, and reform government systems where enforcement breaks down. The same standard should apply here.
Large-scale empirical research does not support the claim that homeschooling places children at greater risk of abuse. Available evidence suggests the opposite. Studies summarized by the National Home Education Research Institute indicate that homeschooled children are statistically less likely to experience abuse or neglect than children in the general population. Abuse, tragically, occurs across all educational settings.
What is striking in the New York Times essay is not only what is said, but what is omitted. Public schools serve roughly fifty million children. Each year, tens of thousands of substantiated cases of abuse, assault, and serious neglect occur within or in connection with public school systems—despite layers of regulation, mandatory reporting laws, and government oversight. According to research cited in Organizational Betrayal, a Harvard University Press volume by Dr. Charol Shakeshaft, of today’s 48.4 million public school students, 5.7 million will be sexually maltreated by school employees before they graduate [https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9781682539286/organizational-betrayal/ ]. Additionally, academic neglect, chronic absenteeism, and widespread illiteracy are now acknowledged crises. Yet these realities rarely prompt sweeping calls to restructure parental authority or impose intrusive monitoring on all families whose children attend public schools. If such logic were applied consistently, it would justify intrusive monitoring of all families during school breaks.
Mr. Block is right to insist that children must be protected from real harm. Where his argument falters is in its implied suspicion of parents as a class, rather than its focus on the systems that routinely fail children in plain sight. Parents are not merely one influence among many. They are the God-given, primary, and legally recognized authority responsible for the care, education, and moral formation of their children. This is not only a deeply rooted biblical principle, but a foundational assumption of American law and civil society.
Communities, faith-groups, extended family members, and civic institutions can and often do provide meaningful support to families—but support is not the same as supervision, and assistance is not a transfer of authority. When policy treats parents as presumptive risks rather than primary protectors, it undermines both family integrity and child safety.
Abuse is already illegal in every state. Assault, sexual exploitation, medical neglect, and unlawful confinement are crimes regardless of where a child is educated. These cases reflect failures of enforcement and breakdowns in child welfare intervention. They also reflect criminal parental behavior—not gaps in education regulation.. Expanding homeschool oversight does not address these failures and risks diverting already limited resources away from children in genuine danger.
If lawmakers are serious about protecting children, the focus must be consistent and proportional. That means strengthening child protective services, improving inter-agency coordination, refining investigative triage, and enforcing existing laws effectively. It also means acknowledging the millions of children in public schools who suffer abuse or neglect – by school employees, other students, and their parents – without receiving the urgency and attention now being directed toward homeschooling families.We can grieve with those who were harmed. We can listen to painful stories. And we can still insist that public policy be guided by truth, evidence, and respect for the proper role of parents. Protecting children and preserving parental authority are not opposing goals. In fact, they rise or fall together.
Nathan Pierce is the executive director of Family Protection Ministries, a California-based education policy organization that has defended parental rights and homeschool freedom for nearly four decades. He works with legislators and civic leaders on issues of educational liberty, child welfare, and the proper role of government in family life.