METROPOLIS, IL – State Representative Patrick Windhorst says he strongly opposes a recently filed bill that would drastically regulate Illinois’ homeschool families. HB 2827 was filed this week. Windhorst says the bill places burdensome regulations on families who choose to homeschool their children.
“I have received a multitude of calls and messages from homeschool families throughout the state, concerned that HB 2827 places unfair and cumbersome new regulatory burdens on them as they try to work to educate their children,” Windhorst said. “I am a product of public school, I send my kids to public school, but I support any family who chooses to educate their children in a homeschool environment. I am concerned that HB 2827 would unfairly hamper these families’ earnest efforts.”
Windhorst says the state of Illinois has much work to do in its regulation of public schools and should not take severe steps to regulate homeschool families.
“Our state government has placed a large number of onerous, time-taking, unfunded mandates on our public schools, causing our schools to spend time checking boxes instead of being able to focus on teaching our students to read, write, and perform math at grade level,” Windhorst said. “Perhaps the energy being put into unfairly burdening homeschool families would be better spent reforming our unfunded mandate regime that is costly to local property taxpayers and often acts as an impediment to our schools and teachers in their efforts to prepare our students for work in the 21st century.”
Windhorst is encouraging constituents to express their opposition to HB 2827 by signing his online petition to preserve homeschool freedom at this link: https://www.ilhousegop.org/windhorst_homeschool_petition
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