For part of 2025, I have decided to do blog posts centering around frequently asked homeschool questions. I have been asked these questions or seen them in various online spaces. I have been asked when people find out we homeschool, "Well, who do you report to, or how are you held accountable to make sure they are learning what they are supposed to be learning?"
While I am technically accountable to no one, according to Wisconsin homeschool guidelines, I still feel the need to hold myself personally accountable to my children. Wisconsin wants us to keep track of attendance and hours arbitrarily and to ensure that our students are progressing naturally in subjects. Yet, they do not require us to show these things to anyone. My personal belief is that if I do not teach them something, it is all on me. When they reach adulthood, if they cannot function in the adult world ( assuming they are able, as currently none of my children have any diagnosed or undiagnosed disabilities hindering them from this), then that is my fault. It has been my job to teach them, and it is a job I take very seriously, and I do not want to fail at it. I get the concern other people have when they hear that I am not required to test or report anything to the state or that someone out there is not holding me accountable.
Let us face it: unfortunately, there are families out that that "homeschool" but aren't actually teaching their kids anything. Some families throw workbooks at kids and expect them to learn, and some don't even do that much and don't teach them at all. My harsh response to that is that it isn't my place to judge one family member against the next in how they choose to homeschool. I might feel bad for those kiddos once they are adults and they aren't prepared, but I can't spend my time worrying over the education of others when my job is to teach my own. This is where other state agencies can come in and intervene; I, as an individual, cannot. Sometimes, to me, it seems too much accountability takes away from the beauty of homeschooling and teaching the individual child. When we begin to expect them to perform and recite useless knowledge to pass some state test or meet some state requirement at a predetermined time, we are hindering the child who needs the extra bit of guidance to learn according to their abilities.
Also, the comparison and or the assumption that because we lack accountability by our state, my children will be behind or not prepared irks me. This is the same as comparing babies to other babies as they grow. We all know about so-and-so kids who were walking, talking, and doing algebra at 1-year-old or Miss M'am's kids who can't seem to handle potty training and are still in pull-ups at four. When my older girls were little, there were many babies within our family born at the same time. I learned really quickly that I didn't like peer comparisons. It doesn't matter when they learn something; and it matters that they learn in their own time. It really shouldn't matter when it happens. This leads to the idea of testing and peer alignment.
The state of Wisconsin also does not require us to test our children. I don't have much to say on this topic for the states that do require it. For us, though, it is one of the perks of homeschooling in Wisconsin. I honestly do not know how well my girls would have done in state testing because they are at different grade levels and have different abilities in all their subjects. We do a lot of mastery learning in the beginning years, so we feel they are building a stronger foundation in reading and math. They advance and grow in these areas based on how well they grasp and understand the concept. We don't move on until they fully understand it. Testing them according to state standards would not have been something they would have been able to do well. My own opinion is this: States that require families to test are forcing parents to teach to the test in some cases, and causes undo anxiety when their children do not align with their peers because of these tests. This then takes away from the beauty of homeschooling and being able to teach to each child's needs.
I hope this post has answered any questions you may have had about accountability in homeschooling. If not, feel free to comment under this blog post or contact me via our Facebook Page or Instagram. If you want more in-depth conversations, check out our Facebook Parent Group.
Remember that this post is part of a series of FAQ's regarding homeschooling. This is the proposed schedule of past and future topics:
How do I start?
Am I even qualified to Teach My Child?
Who Holds You Accountable?
But What About Graduating and Issuing a Diploma?
What Should My Child Be Learning?
How Do I Choose Curriculum and What About the Cost?
How Long Does It Actually Take?
But What About Socialization?
What is the Hardest Part?
What Types of Schooling Are There?
What Do I Need to Homeschool?
How Can I Be Around My Kid All Day?
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