ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - When parents decide to home school their kids, many expect there to be standards to be met by the students, and qualifications needed for parents passing along the education.
It turns out, home school settings in Illinois have virtually no rules governing how parents educate their children.
There is no registration process, and testing is not required.
Beth Hundsdorfer and Molly Parke, Investigative Reporters for Capitol News Illinois, looked at the remarkably lax home school system in Illinois, which in some cases has led to abuse.
"In Illinois, any parent can pull their kids out of public school or not enroll their kids for public school and home school them," said Hundsdorfer on Total Information A.M. Thursday. "This can be a parent who was found to be abusive, has a criminal background, or doesn't have a GED. All these parent can homeschool their kids."
Compared to other states, Illinois is among about 11 states that don't require parents to give any notice to school districts or the state on if they would home school kids.
"There's no requirements that parents have qualifications like a high school diploma or GED," said Parke. "They don't have to have immunizations for their children, it's one of about 11 states according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, a pro-home school group that advocates to keep this regulation free and sort of brags on Illinois' status."
Parke says among those 11 states, only five of them have any mechanism to investigate educational neglect through Child Welfare Services.
"In Missouri, for example, they are also a low regulation state, but they do have mechanisms that sets it apart from Illinois where through Child Welfare Services, they can investigate a claim of no-schooling or fake homeschooling," said Parke. "In Illinois, that mechanism was removed in 1990. They did place that authority with the Regional Offices with Education, but they say that without any real specifications about what home school families should do. It's sort of a mandate lacking any enforcement power."