Molly Parker, an investigative reporter for Capitol News Illinois, joined Patrick to discuss the background of the new legislative battle at the statehouse over homeschooling.
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Wanted to bring in Molly Parker from Capitol News, Illinois, who's an investigative reporter, who's kind of started a lot of this with some of the investigations into homeschooling and some of the things that have gone wrong over time, and kind of get into where we are with this bill from there. Molly, good morning. How are you?

Good morning. I'm good. How are you? We're doing well. Thanks for, thanks for taking a few minutes. Uh, Molly has twin three-year-olds and we have a three-year-old. So we were commiserating before we started about the chaos of toddlerhood in our lives. So, uh, uh, we've, we've got that in common, at least, at least that Molly. So that's right. We're surviving. All right. So, so let's, let's, let's go back to the beginning, right? So, so Tara Costa Howard, who's a democratic state representative, kind of one of the members of the mod squad, um,

a good person, right? I think highly of her. Don't agree with her on quite a few things, but generally consider her to be a thoughtful, decent human being. She read your reporting, which started this whole can of worms. So tell me about what you found initially.

Well, let me take you to the beginning. I remember a couple summers ago sitting somewhere with my colleague Beth Hunstorfer, who is one of the lead writers on this and one of the, in my opinion, best investigative journalists in Illinois. And she was the one, she said...

you know, what's going on with homeschooling? I think there was a personal issue she had encountered in her neighborhood and got us looking at, you know, where, why people can pull their kids out of school really without any consequences. And when there might be big questions as to whether they're actually providing a home education. And so that set us on a, probably about a year long investigation to look into what happens when there are allegations of no schooling, when,

When, you know, we know there are a lot of really adequate homeschools out there, folks doing a great job, some say doing better than a, you know, a public school, fine. That's not what we were looking at. We were looking at families who were maybe even pulling their kids out of school, perhaps were at risk of truancy or underage.

possibly had a truant officer at their door, and they could just say homeschooling without showing any proof of that and basically end any sort of intervention to find out what was going on with the children in the home. And so that really led us to where we were, writing this long story showing that in some cases, children can slip off the radar of school officials and there's not much folks can do

When families say they're homeschooling, even if there are really big questions about that. You also pointed to the Zion Staples story, right? The kid from, from rock Island who shot himself accidentally and his mother hit it and just hid behind homeschooling. That's obviously one of the more extreme issues, but, but, but the reality is when a kid hits school age and they're in a homeschooling situation, they're,

we literally have no idea what's going on with that kid, right? Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, again, well-run homeschools are not isolated. And so I know that the homeschool community gets frustrated when they're sort of lumped in with these kids.

situations of no schooling or cases of isolation that have led to abuse and neglect in severe cases, as you mentioned, are the most extreme and some of them we've written about. But I think it's important to note we're not talking about homeschoolers who are part of co-ops or who are engaged in the community and getting their kids out for learning experiences. I'm in Southern Illinois. I know a lot of homeschool folks and a lot, I just want to stress that, a lot who do it well and are not isolated in any stretch of the term. But

But yeah, again, it's the Zion staples. It's the other case we covered was was less dramatic in that, you know, you know, I was hope that situations like Zion's are very isolated. But you have this other case we covered where we just use this child's initials. He's obviously still alive and doing well, but faced some pretty serious issues in the home was, you know, forced to care for his younger siblings, was told police he received drugs.

no education at all for several years, you know, and probably needed a lot of support and help at school, including just getting, you know, those two meals a day every kid gets when they go to school that he was not getting at home. So, you know, those are, that one was pretty extreme as well, but it gets you closer to what we see as maybe more common or just families that are not necessarily abusing and neglecting children, but we hear from

And formerly homeschooled children who are now adults who say, well, I didn't get math and reading and science. I didn't get the opportunity to learn the things that could have let me into college that could have changed my life. And they felt like those decisions were stripped from them, especially women. We saw this in the 90s in particular where they were

through religious movements, you know, weren't given advanced math. So I think there are real issues about how we balance this question of parental rights with making sure that children also have a legally, you know, can access their legally mandated right to an education. And it's a tricky balance, but I think that's what is behind these efforts to try to find solutions.

something a little closer that gets us a little closer to that. You're right. And Molly Parker joins us from Capitol news, Illinois. And I mean, I'm a laissez faire government kind of guy. Right. And I, I I'm all for government off the backs of people, but, but there are literally zero requirements on homeschooling in Illinois. And, and you know, I mean, it,

It requires 16 hours of training to get a concealed carry license. It requires passing a test to get a driver's license. I mean, there are requirements to do very simplistic things in our society, but no requirements to school a child.

it, it, it, it, it's remarkable to me in a state that loves to, to, to license and, and, and, you know, have all sorts of professional regulations that, that there continue to be zero guidance, zero rules on, on how any of this happens, how there's zero requirements on curriculum. Even it's just maybe, maybe I'm being nanny state here, which is very much outside of my normal being, but, but,

I don't understand how we continue, even in 2025, to have a completely unregulated school system in homeschooling in the state. And it's growing, right? And I think you're hitting on some important points, which is that I think that reasonable people who don't think the government's the answer to everything and

And look at this and say, though, that there are circumstances where, again, it's not even fair to call them homeschoolers, but they are using the loose homeschool regulations, really the entirely lack of any homeschool regulations.

to sort of shield them from any consequences for not educating their child. And it is a law in Illinois, whether every child from age six, I believe to 17 receive an education. The problem is the law does not allow any sort of check and balance when someone says homeschooling, it's almost like a,

you know, get out of jail free card. Oh, I'm homeschooling. Even if the investigation from a truancy officer started because the child missed, you know, a third or two thirds of the school year, maybe they're going to be held behind. And even if you never made it through third grade.

even if you never made it through third grade and you say, well, we'll just homeschool. And then there's, you know, the schools know that these are children that are vulnerable children. They're not they're not worried about the kids. Right. Who are in the homeschools, who are traveling to Italy for the summer, who are in the co-ops and participating in school events. They're not worried about those students. And that's who I think is coming out to the capital hearings. Kids excel in those situations.

Absolutely. There's nothing wrong. I have not heard anyone suggest that there is something wrong with homeschooling when homeschooling is done well. It's this it's really about these this issue of and we can't even get a handle on how many kids it is. Right. Because there's no tracking. There's no mechanisms to even kind of know what happens when kids pull out of school under the guise of homeschooling and then maybe move. Right.

You know, that's what we saw with Zion. I mean, that case was so shocking at face value, right? We had a kid missing for six months and we got to thinking about this. We said, how could he have been missing during a school year? The school age kid who would have not said where's Zion in class today? Right. And teachers are trained to go out and look. And so asking DCFS and looking into it, we found out, oh, he was homeschooled. That's how a child goes missing for six months and no one notices. One beef I do have with this bill, Molly, is that it would also require parents.

schools to, to submit child data to the state when, when they're, and I'm a product of Lutheran schools for grade school. My wife was a Catholic school kid. These schools were already still regulated by the state. So why, why would they be asking for additional data from, from Christian schools?

Let's talk about a couple of things. Most traditional Christian parochial schools are or other non-denominational private schools are already registering in some way with the state. So what this would capture these schools, there are schools that are sort of hybrids, I would say, between private schools, what you would think of as a traditional private school and a home school.

So part of it is trying to make sure that those schools also have some mechanism of accountability that are not already part of reporting or accreditation in some way. And then secondly, there's a bit of a legal quandary here in that the Supreme Court has said that private schools and homeschools are the same thing under the law. So in a really technical way, you cannot pass legislation affecting only one and not the other because of

50 years of Supreme Court precedent. So there is a parity issue. And that, I know, is something that they are trying to work through in those negotiations. But there are some complications that extend beyond the face of the conversation. It's a fascinating fight and one that I did not expect to happen when we kicked off the legislative session this year. So

Molly Parker from Capitol News, Illinois. She wrote for the Southern Illinois and for for many, many years and is the queen of Southern Illinois journalism. Molly, we appreciate your time as always. And hopefully we'll we'll have you back soon. All right. Appreciate you, too. Have a good day.