My homeschooling family pays 100% of our education-related tax burden but gets only 50% of the usual benefit of those dollars. It’s unfair that we pay so much and get so little in return.
But, according to Rep. Emily Sirota, the real unfairness is that my family does not instead get only 25% of the typical benefit, notwithstanding our education-directed tax dollars. So she and the rest of the Joint Budget Committee propose to cut education funding for families like mine in half, which probably will destroy the programs we’re using, effectively cutting our benefit to zero. That seems like a pretty skewed idea of fairness to me.
That said, Sirota and the JBC have latched on to real problems with the rules for tax-funded enrichment programs for homeschoolers. I’ll get into those details. But, rather than fix the problem while honoring the funds earned by homeschooling families, the JBC instead wants to implement rules that will largely wipe out tax-funded homeschool programs.
I happily would give up our tax-funded benefits if my family could instead simply keep our education-directed tax dollars. That’s money we earn, and that’s money we should be able to spend on our own child’s education.
If the legislature were serious about fairness, that is the proposal that would now be on the table. But it isn’t, because many legislators do not actually care about fairness, they care about undermining school choice however they can.
My family’s homeschool experience
As the only columnist in Colorado who writes about homeschooling, over the years I’ve described my family’s experiences. Here I’ll offer an update, partly so that others, including members of the JBC, can get an idea of what homeschooling looks like. Of course every homeschooling path looks different—that’s largely the point—but my family’s experiences are illustrative in various ways.
As I’ve mentioned, when our child was entering kindergarten, we toured the local elementary (which I won’t name here), and I thought it was pretty good but not great. Recent CMAS scores confirm my evaluation; 46.7% of the school’s students met or exceeded expectations in language, 36.3% did in math, and 36.1% did in science. Bluntly, most kids are struggling to learn at the school.
My wife and I knew we could do better, and we have. My wife has read to our son nearly every day since he was born (he’s now in fifth grade) and continues to read to him from the “Curiosity Chronicles” history series and from Core Knowledge Classics. I’ve taken lead going through the challenging Dimensions Math coursework. Our son also participates in geology and paleontology clubs and homeschool meet-ups.
Our son recently took the California Achievement Test—under the homeschool law we’re required to get a test or evaluation every other year—and he scored in the top one percent in language and math (science was not covered).
True, if our son had attended the local school, he still would be doing well, because my wife and I still would have worked with him extensively at home. But obviously he is doing just fine without public school. He’s a strong reader, he has solid background knowledge in multiple areas, and he can do algebra problems that would throw many adults.
Early last year our son started attending a local tax-funded enrichment program. Here’s what that looks like. The organization rents space from a church, and students meet one day per week to take classes in technology, theater and the arts, PE, and other subjects. Right now our son is taking classes in technical theater, robotics, coding, and video production. Recently he put in dozens of hours of work for the science fair sponsored by the program. He loves the program and is learning a lot from it.
He’s not taking classes there in core academics, because those are precisely what my wife and I can and do provide at an exceptional level. For us the point of the enrichment program is to supplement what we’re doing at home, not replace it.
I asked our son, having now attended the enrichment program for some months, how many days of “school” he would find optimal. He said one. And our current set-up is working very well for us.
Yes, homeschooling comes at a financial cost. I work a flexible schedule at reduced hours to accommodate homeschooling. And my wife recently took a pay cut at work (thanks largely to Trump’s idiotic tariffs). So, although we’re not in anything like a financial emergency, we’re definitely closely watching our expenses.
So losing our one-day-per-week enrichment program, which my son now loves and where he’s made friends, would be a blow to our son’s educational path as well as to our finances. We’ll weather whatever changes come, but government officials at various levels seem determined to make our lives harder.
JBC discusses enrichment funding
Back in January, I reviewed how the Colorado Board of Education has started worrying about how some enrichment programs use their tax dollars. I agree that some of the examples presented to the board are troubling.
In a March 23 meeting, the JBC expressed concerns not only about how the funds are spent but about the level of funding. And the critics have a point. If an enrichment program offers something closer to a quarter of the hours of a full-time program, shouldn’t funding be closer to a quarter than to a half, where it currently sits?
Enrichment programs have developed in the context of badly written rules. How did this happen? The Home-Based Education law explicitly allows for homeschoolers to attend “a public school for a portion of the school day.” But the statutes do not clearly define part-time requirements.
The Board of Education’s rules are similarly ambiguous. In the codebook, 1 CCR 301-39(5.06) says, “A district shall count a pupil in part-time funded pupil count, if (1) the pupil is enrolled . . . and (2) the pupil has a schedule that provides at least 90 hours but less than 360 hours of Instructional Time. . . . A district may include home school pupils enrolled and attending a district educational program. . . . A home school pupil is not eligible to be counted for more than a part-time funded pupil count (0.5 FTE).”
In effect, various enrichment programs have been able to offer quarter-time instruction (or close to that) for half-time compensation. Some enrichment programs have argued that their marginal costs are higher, which no doubt is true, but the JBC didn’t buy that as a reason to maintain current funding levels.
At least a couple members of the JBC also expressed concern that various enrichment programs are contracted out rather than run by the usual public schools. But why is that a problem? The reason families homeschool is that we don’t want the typical public-school experience. Our enrichment program specializes in meeting the unique needs of homeschoolers, so I regard its independence as a feature rather than a bug.
At least a couple of enrichment programs, including the one my family attends, have said that they cannot survive if their funding is cut in half. Maybe some programs could survive with big changes, but I’m skeptical they could do so in a way that makes them appealing to homeschoolers. So it’s reasonable to think that, with the funding cut, many or most of existing enrichment programs would go away. And that would be a big blow to my family.
To return to the fairness issue: I concede it’s hard to square half-time funding with quarter-time instruction. But it’s also hard to square a 100% tax burden with 0% educational benefits. Again, the legislature should allow families that homeschool or attend private school to keep all of their state and local education-related tax dollars. My family works hard for our money, as do other families, and we deserve to spend our education dollars on our own children’s education.
A possible silver lining
If the funding cut goes through and many of the existing enrichment programs shut down, that will be a tough blow for families of the 18,494 students who currently use an enrichment program (per Board of Education figures).
But, as I’ve discussed with various other homeschool parents, the tax-funded programs push out a lot of parent-directed programs that otherwise would exist. Homeschool families already have access to tons of programs not tied to government, and I hope to see more programs organized.
All that said, it’s pretty tough to be forced to fund others’ education if my own child gets no tax-funded benefits. I’d rather just be cut free. I’m willing and able to guide my child’s education. That would be a lot easier if my wife and I could spend our own education-directed money on our own child’s education. We’ll see if any legislator actually cares about fairness here.
Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.
