"No Schoolers": How Illinois' Hands-Off Approach to Homeschooling Leaves Children at Risk

[MineralMan]

2. There are many children who actually learn the rudiments

of an education through homeschooling. Probably the majority. However, there are others who get zero schooling at all. Parents don't send them to school, but claim they are homeschooling. There is very little follow-up in most places to see whether they are getting educated. How many? I don't know. I used to see them, many years ago. Their parents sent them to the local library, where I was a volunteer. Not to learn, but to be somewhere while parents were working or doing something else.

The library staff made some attempt to encourage those children to learn something. Many of them could not actually read, though. So, they sat there, looked at picture books and then got picked up by their parent sometime in the afternoon. There were always a dozen or so on any given day - spending all day in the library with little to no interaction with the staff.

This was all reported to the CPS folks, but they did nothing. The children were safe, and that was where the CPS interest stopped. So, it just went on.

Is it still the same? I don't know. I suspect so, though.