•February 8, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

How many children are home-schooled in Illinois, I asked a school official, to answer an inquiry made of me from a reader?

“We don’t know,” she responded.

“You don’t know?” I said, surprised.

The school official explained that our state is one of maybe a dozen that do not require parents who educate their children at home to let the state know as much.

So we don’t know who is being home-schooled or, much worse, maybe not being schooled at all.

I called an education expert. He said a few years ago a new state senator in Illinois introduced a bill that would have required home schooling parents to register, so there could be some way of telling a home-schooler from a truant.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.