“We’d rather be free than have it be fair.”
Laura Gideon, a Christian homeschooling advocate, repeated the line from the rotunda of the Iowa State Capitol, where parents sat in rows of chairs alongside school-aged kids and babies sleeping in strollers.
Homeschool Iowa’s annual Capitol Day, held in early April, invites families to Des Moines to hear speakers, tour the Capitol, and talk with legislators.
Gideon, director of public relations for Classical Conversations, a Christian homeschool program, argued that parents should be “left alone to shoulder the God-given responsibility to train up their children in the way they should go.”
In Iowa, the lobbying efforts are to discourage the state legislature from adopting new regulations on homeschooling; families can currently educate their kids outside of public schools without any initial reporting requirements or mandatory number of instructional days.
In Gideon’s words, the pursuit of equity in public education would lead to “Marxist,” redistributive policies—echoing recent pushback against DEI initiatives. She claimed efforts to close education gaps with state standards or regulations will inevitably lead to the restriction of freedoms or unfair impositions on parental rights. She urged attendees to “promote and protect education independence.”
In neighboring Illinois, current proposed legislation that would require homeschoolers and private schools to register with the state and meet curricula requirements or face misdemeanor charges elicited outcry from the Illinois Christian Home Educators and the Home School Legal Defense Association.
As sweeping changes to the US Department of Education raise questions about the future of American public schools, conservative voices are speaking out about parents’ rights to make educational decisions without government interference—while others call on Christian parents to stay in the public school system and seek to reform it.
In his 2023 bestseller Battle for the American Mind, Fox News’s Pete Hegseth (now the the US defense secretary) argued that the public school system had become a tool of indoctrination and that Christians ought to advocate for a return to classical education and lead an insurgency against the liberal agenda.
Building on the momentum of the school choice movement, President Donald Trump campaigned on promises to “end wokeness” in American public schools and has sought to withhold federal funding from schools that facilitate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs or promote gender ideology.
Meanwhile, postpandemic anxiety about education continues to be a boon for homeschooling and school choice. Advocates have seen an increase in interest in alternatives to public education as data suggest that closures and online instruction have left students with learning gaps and loss.
Aaron Neely, the executive director of Homeschool Iowa, said that while the majority of parents homeschool for religious reasons, the number of nonreligious homeschooling families is increasing. Nationally, 3.4 percent of students were homeschooled during the 2022–2023 school year, up from 2.8 percent in 2018–2019.
Today’s school choice coalition includes advocates of homeschooling, expanding charter and private schools, offering school voucher programs, and loosening federal regulation of education. In states like Iowa, distrust in public education and the convergence of interests among right-wing activists and conservative Christians have strengthened the movement.
“The New Right is very Catholic,” said education researcher Jennifer Berkshire, coauthor of The Education Wars. “And there are libertarian entrepreneurs, who have always overlapped with evangelicals when it comes to education. Right now, it feels like it’s all fused.”
Events like Capitol Day illustrate Berkshire’s point. Iowa attorney general Brenna Bird, a Catholic, told attendees, “You are the salt and light of the world.” Turning Point USA, the conservative activist organization founded by Charlie Kirk, was a top-billed sponsor.
Trump has issued an executive order directing his secretary of education to reduce the federal education department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” The order, signed March 20, promises to reimagine the US education system, “returning education to parents and communities” and securing parents’ ability to choose where their kids go to school with as little government interference as possible.
The Trump administration is also taking its fight to the public system by seeking to reduce the size and power of the education department and give state governments more leeway to implement faith-based curriculum or weed out content with a perceived liberal or “woke” slant.
Some Christian leaders are cheering the reduction as a move toward decentralization and away from a system they perceive as being overrun with ideology that runs counter to their faith. Others are hoping it allows Christians to reshape public education from the top down by infusing it with their values.
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s state superintendent, has requested full control of federal funds allotted to the state’s schools, saying that the move is in line with the president’s vision of education and that it will allow the state to “take the reins” of its schools.
Walters, a member of the Church of Christ, has spearheaded efforts to get the Bible into the classroom. The state legislature refused his request for funding to purchase Bibles for public school classrooms, and Walters is now seeking donations to supply schools with “God Bless the USA” Bibles with the support of country singer Lee Greenwood.
Last year, the state announced that all public schools would be required to incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments into their curriculum.
In states like Oklahoma, where over 90 percent of students attend public schools and students in rural communities have limited options, Christian advocates see value in reshaping public education rather than abandoning it.
In some ways, Berkshire says, this is a familiar battleground. In the 1980s and ’90s, evangelicals in the camp of leaders like author and conservative activist Tim LaHaye decried the growing influence of “secular humanism” in public schools and advocated for increased institutional support for school prayer, with the backing of President Ronald Reagan.
But much of that fight has been forgotten, according to Berkshire, because conservatives eventually retreated—the movement splintered over different goals, and those with fringe views alienated others in the coalition. Now, Berkshire said, conservative school choice activists have momentum on their side, as well as galvanizing culture-war issues like critical race theory and gender.
“There’s a split between people who want to seize the institution back and others who think that the schools are too lost,” she said.
For many Christian parents, doubts about the quality of instruction in math or phonics are secondary or at least on par with concerns that public schools have become too ideological.
“It feels like shooting yourself in the foot to, as the expression goes, ‘hand your kids over to Caesar’ for hours of the day,” said Christine Hill, a mother of two teens who drove halfway across the state for Capitol Day.
Christian students also express concerns about the effects of having to constantly confront teaching that conflicts with their closely held beliefs.
“I don’t want to be told over and over that we evolved from slime,” said Levi Hill, Christine Hill’s 15-year-old son. “Homeschooling is better for your mindset. It’s a more well-rounded education.”
Activists describe public schooling as a threat to children’s moral formation. At Capitol Day, Attorney General Bird said it is imperative to preserve the right to homeschool “because we want kids with strong character and the right moral compass.” She reminded the audience of the importance of engaging in activism on “parental rights issues like vaccines.”
Both Gideon and Bird referenced Proverbs 22:6, suggesting that preserving parental rights is about securing the right for parents to raise their children “the way they should go.”
Some Christian homeschool advocates are quick to say that the decision to educate their children isn’t about fear or dismantling public education. Some see it as a way to guard against stress and overscheduling. Others say that it’s the best way to care for their neurodivergent children.
Gideon’s insistence that homeschooling families would “rather be free than have it be fair” appeals to parents with options. “You can’t have both fairness and freedom,” Gideon also said. “One must be sacrificed to secure the other.”
The freedom to choose may be best understood as a privilege rather than a right, author and homeschool parent Gretchen Ronnevik wrote for CT.
Ronnevik also suggests that parents should keep a healthy perspective when it comes to the power of their choices in light of God’s sovereignty: “Our ability to raise our children in the faith isn’t dependent on our location, our income, and other material advantages. Great saints have been raised in places where Christianity is illegal. Many deeply faithful Christians never spent a day in school. God is not bound by our educational choices.”
