The debate over a homeschool registry in Michigan is heating up, but the Democrats who run Lansing do not have a cohesive plan on how to proceed. Some say a registry is all that’s sought; others want full-blown regulation.

There is no documented problem with the homeschool community in Michigan to justify plans for a registry. Lawmakers have presented a disjointed vision on how to solve the supposed problem of the unregistered homeschooler.

Michigan is one of eleven states that currently do not require homeschool students to register with the state.

CapCon previously reached out to lawmakers Rep. Matt Koleszar, D-Plymouth and Sen. Dayna Polehanki D-Livonia, who are pushing for a registry, to request what facts and data they used to determine the need for a new law. Neither wrote back. 

A week ago, Polehanki told reporters that the homeschool bill was coming soon, but wouldn’t say who would sponsor it. As of March 7 It has yet to materialize. 

The facts show that homeschool students fare better academically than their public-school counterparts. Based on the crime rates at public schools, homeschool students are likely much safer at home, as previously reported by CapCon.

Bridge Magazine recently published a story providing a Connecticut homeschool study. It reported:

A 2018 study by Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate found that 36% of children removed from school to be homeschooled lived with families with a history of reported child abuse or neglect. Connecticut is also a no-registration, low-regulation homeschool state.

However, the study is so limited in scope that it is a stretch to draw conclusions from it, according to Michael Van Beek, director of research at Mackinac Center.

Van Beek notes that researchers looked at 380 student withdrawals from six school districts in Connecticut from 2013-2016. He says five districts were unidentified, and the criteria for why they were chosen is vague.

Of the 380 students that left the districts, 139 belonged to families that had at least one report for suspected abuse or neglect. He says that 75% of families that withdrew had some kind of accepted report against them so this is not a random selection of homeschooling families.

Many of the reports of neglect were of students with prolonged absences. Van Beek says if these were families who decided to start homeschooling without formally notifying the district, they would likely be reported. He notes that most homeschool families will not usually just withdraw their children from a public school midyear.

If they do, it is usually for extenuating circumstances.

The Democrats have presented a disjointed vision of their push for new homeschool laws. Polehanki is chair of the Senate Education Committee. She said creating a homeschool registry is as far as it will go on her watch, according to Bridge Magazine.

But what happens when it is no longer her watch?

“Implementing monitoring mechanisms is crucial to ensure that all children, including those homeschooled, receive necessary protections,” stated Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general.

Polehanki says a registry will suffice to ensure kids are actually in school. But the attorney general says all children, including homeschoolers, should be “monitored” and “receive necessary protections.”

The state does not monitor children from birth to Kindergarten. Some children do not interact with the government or other institutions such as daycare until they start school at four or five years of age. Will the state move to monitor or “register” these children as well, under the guise of protecting them from their parents?

Tom McMillin, a member of the Michigan Department of Education, voiced his concerns during a meeting captured on video. He says in the video that Nessel wants the list so she can have unwarranted entry into families’ homes.

The push for the registry came after Nessel announced an investigation into two homes where parents who homeschool their children are accused of abuse. The children had previously been in foster care and were monitored by the state.

When the state failed to protect children, its response was not to fix the foster care system. It was to register and monitor homeschool families. 

Lansing should focus on known and documented problems. Homeschoolers are not one of them.

Jamie A. Hope is assistant managing editor of Michigan Capitol Confidential. Email her at dickson@mackinac.org.

In admitting it would rather tear down a 104-year-old building than sell it to a possible competitor, the West Bloomfield School District’s honesty was refreshing.

The neighborly spirit? Not so much.

Carol Finkelstein, treasurer of the West Bloomfield School Board, said the quiet part out loud last week testifying in favor of House Bill 5025, which would repeal a Snyder-era law that denies school districts the right to put restrictive covenants in their deeds. These legal instruments prevent future owners from using a former school building to house another school.

“Roosevelt is a beautiful 104-year-old historic building that is facing demolition because we simply cannot afford to have it become a competing school,” Finkelstein said of Roosevelt Elementary School in Keego Harbor, the building at issue.

Despite winning many a school-choice battle with rival districts, West Bloomfield fears charter school competition so much it would demolish literal beauty and history to prevent it.

My journey with West Bloomfield School District began when I became a student in 1999.

My family had just moved from Inkster to Detroit’s west side. We were too late in arriving to take placement exams for Cass, King or Renaissance High Schools. And the neighborhood option, Detroit Mumford, was a non-starter.

As I pondered a return to John Glenn High School in Westland, my dad came home with another idea, many miles north: West Bloomfield High School. Dad was studying for his master’s degree and took classes at Wayne State with a man named George Fornero, who was the principal of West Bloomfield High.

My sister and I didn’t know anything about the school, other than it sounded rich. Perhaps too rich for our blood. At first glance it looked like an airport, and inside it felt like the school on Clueless.

But soon it became home.

Commuting from Detroit every day, sometimes requiring multiple round trips, was not easy. What awaited us at the end of those drives made it worthwhile: the education of a lifetime.

West Bloomfield’s superintendent at the time, the late Seymour Gretchko, was a three-decade veteran of Detroit Public Schools. He knew what we were fleeing, and he knew what West Bloomfield had to offer. He built it into the A+ school district it was at the turn of the century.

Gretchko’s biography reads: “He is dearly remembered for moving West Bloomfield School District from a mediocre school district to one of the best in the country. Dr. Gretchko was soft hearted, compassionate, demanding of excellence and a leader of unparalleled competence.”

His motto: “If I must err, let me err on the side of the child.”

Years later, I would learn from a former teacher the instruction Gretchko gave regarding school-choice students: Treat them like any other kid. Because they are.

In my three years at West Bloomfield and my sister’s four years, we never encountered anything but teachers, coaches and leaders who wanted to help.

When unrivaled competence is your calling card, what do you have to fear from competition? And if competition is good for Detroit schools and Pontiac schools, why is it bad for West Bloomfield schools?

These days, with one-third of students coming from other districts, West Bloomfield is more reliant on school choice than ever.

The district should stop talking about tearing down buildings. And get back to erring on the side of the child.

James David Dickson is a Detroit News columnist and managing editor of Michigan Capitol Confidential. Email him at dickson@mackinac.org.This column ran first in The Detroit News on March 6.