The Far-Reaching Consequences of Educational Neglect

Educational neglect, a concept found in family law, refers to a parent's or guardian's failure to provide for a child's basic educational needs. It's crucial to understand the definition, potential causes, and profound consequences of educational neglect, especially in light of the adjustments families and educators have made in this era of social distancing, remote learning, hybrid schedules, virtual classrooms and COVID-19.

Defining Educational Neglect

It’s never been easy to pin down a definition for educational neglect. Yet here in the era of social distancing, remote learning, hybrid schedules, virtual classrooms and COVID-19, parents, educators and child welfare professionals have more questions than ever before. Educational neglect can sometimes be classified as a form of child neglect and/or child abuse under the law. The primary difference between neglect and abuse is that neglect tends to happen accidentally, while abuse usually involves causing intentional harm to a child.

So, is educational neglect one or two days of skipping online classes? What about showing up to a virtual classroom but skipping days when in-person learning is planned? It is important to remember that the pandemic has caused families and educators to adjust to a life we have not ever known and that lack of engagement with education may not always mean that a child is experiencing child abuse or neglect. However, a lack of engagement with education can be indicative of other issues that may be taking place in the home.

In order to prove that a parent or guardian is liable for educational neglect, an individual will need to demonstrate that the parent or guardian has failed to educate their child in a manner that is consistent with the requirements of their state. Finally, as mentioned, each state has its own laws and procedures concerning age, educational requirements, and what factors constitute educational neglect.

Forms of Educational Neglect

As discussed above, every state has its own statutes and policies regarding what constitutes educational neglect. One basic form of educational neglect can occur when a parent deliberately interferes with their child’s education.

Repeated or chronic absences: If a child chronically misses school or is repeatedly absent from school, then this may constitute educational neglect.
Failure to enroll in school: Parents and guardians must register their child in school or homeschool them once the child reaches the state mandated age. In general, a child typically cannot miss more than one month of schooling simply because their parent or guardian failed to enroll them in a timely manner.
Failure to give a child proper educational care and/or attention: A parent or guardian who fails to obtain or refuses to allow a child to receive recommended educational services may be at risk for committing neglect.

Legal Considerations

According to the law, it is illegal to not send a child to school. Again, while these requirements may differ based on the state, every state has a law that requires children to attend school. The way that a child is educated is not normally specified by state laws. Thus, a parent or guardian may choose to send their child to public school, private school, parochial school, charter school, or even homeschool them. Additionally, some states have laws that permit parents to take their child out of school by a certain age if it is for religious reasons.

The way in which an individual can prove child educational neglect will be contingent on both state laws and procedural requirements. In addition, the person proving child educational neglect must provide sufficient evidence to support their claim. In general, educational neglect may only apply to children of a certain age. While the age requirement can vary by state, the majority of states impose an age requirement of between seven and fourteen years old. There may also be separate requirements for parents who choose to homeschool their children.

The Complexities of Homeschooling and Educational Neglect

Homeschooling is an educational method; like any other educational method, it can succeed and it can fail. Given its individual nature, homeschooling is prone to far more variability than other educational methods. Parents who choose homeschooling take on a substantial responsibility, often without the aid of state guidance or support. Some children who are homeschooled experience educational neglect, with longterm consequences: upon reaching adulthood, these individuals may struggle to attend college or enter the workforce in a meaningful way.

While public school students who struggle academically have access to guidance counselors and other supports, homeschooled students lack access to these resources. Most states lack even the most basic safeguards to ensure children who are homeschooled receive an education that is at least comparable to that offered by our nation’s public school system. There is no educational safety net, or even a pretense of one. This failure to ensure that children who are homeschooled actually receive an education renders the idea that children have a right to an education meaningless.

“I was unenrolled from public school at 8 years old. “I am a former public school teacher that has witnessed the difficulties experienced by former homeschooled children who tried to transition into the public schools as teens. While public schools must offer at least a basic minimum level of education and meet certain standards, homeschooling takes place at the individual family level. As a result, one homeschool may offer a robust education while a homeschool across the street offers no education at all.

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Lack of Oversight and Accountability

Few states collect and report homeschooled students’ test scores. This poses a challenge for researchers, who often resort to using volunteer samples, which are typically not representative. Until 2015, the state of Arkansas required homeschooled students to take an annual standardized test and released a report each year with summaries of these students’ scores; on average, homeschooled students scored slightly better than the public school average in reading and roughly the same in math. However, the state did not collect demographic information, leaving no way to compare homeschooled students’ test scores with those of their demographically matched peers. In a study published in 2020, we attempted to correct these problems.

Studies of homeschool graduates’ college performance typically find that theses students fare well in college. However, these studies do not typically address the number of homeschool graduates who attend college. Homeschooled children are far less likely than other children to take the SAT or ACT, which typically function as college entrance exams. Findings from a report in Kentucky, the only report of its kind, reveal that homeschool graduates may be only half as likely to attend college as other students; our preliminary review of unpublished college attendance data from Virginia offers similar findings.

Homeschooling as a Cover for Abuse or Truancy

Some parents may use homeschooling to hide abuse or make truancy problems go away. In 2014, a study found that 47% of victims of severe child abuse were removed from school to be homeschooled; researchers rpeorted that “no true educational efforts were provided to the homeschooled children.” A 2018 study by the Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate found that 36% of children removed from school to be homeschooled lived in families with a history of child abuse or neglect reports. A 2018 Kentucky study found that two-thirds of children removed from school to be homeschooled were previously chronically truant from school; four in five attendance officers “often” or “sometimes” observed parents transferring a child to homeschooling to avoid consequences for ongoing truancy.

The Variability of Homeschooling Regulations

In most states, homeschooling law is so lax that it effectively eliminates compulsory education altogether. In Montana, a parent wishing to homeschool need only turn in a statement that they intend to homeschool to the local superintendent; there is no follow-up, no academic assessment, no requirement that this parent show any evidence that they are actually homeschooling. In Texas, a parent need not even notify the school district; no form or registration of any kind is required. For more information on what homeschool law looks like in each state-and for comparisons across states-see Inside Homeschool Policy.

The Need for Accountability

The inadequacy of even the most robust homeschool requirements currently in place cannot be overstated. In Pennsylvania, parents swap tips for finding the portfolio evaluator who asks the fewest questions while some school districts choose not to enforce the law. Our survey of superintendents in New York state found that the majority allow home educators to administer their children’s evaluations themselves, providing room for bias or deliberate fudging of results, despite a state requirement that these assessments be administered by a certified teacher. In North Carolina, a homeschooling parent can be reported to the state’s Division of Non-Public Education for educational neglect, but the parent need only show that their child has taken a standardized test; the child’s score is irrelevant.

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Repeatedly, individuals who have experienced educational neglect while being homeschooled point to the lack of oversight for homeschooling as a causal factor. “If I had been required to have an evaluation done by a teacher unrelated to my family, I think I would have had a better chance at a decent and well rounded education,” writes one formerly homeschooled individual. “I am absolutely convicted (sic) that some form of accountability by the state would have prevented the inadequacies of my education,” adds another. “If we had been required to submit a plan, my parents would have made us follow it,” one homeschool graduates insists.

Enacting basic standards for homeschooling is not only about catching cases of severe educational neglect and ensuring that children are sent back to school; accountability can also provide well-meaning parents with the motivation they need to ensure that subjects are taught. Some home educators agree: “I think complete dysregulation is dangerous and harmful,” writes one. “I can all too easily see how someone can start homeschooling with the best intentions only to get overwhelmed and let it slide.

Socioeconomic Factors

Homeschooling is not a monolith. Families that choose homeschooling may be wealthy or low-income; white or minority; two-parent families or single parent households. A parent’s socio-economic factors do not determine their success or failure at homeschooling. In some cases, families with limited resources may homeschool and thrive; in other cases, a child may grow up in a wealthy, well-connected family, and still experience educational neglect. Homeschool educational neglect does not appear to be limited to any particular demographic.

Reasons for Educational Neglect in Homeschooling

Homeschooling is a large responsibility; in some cases parents become overwhelmed and let things slide. Sometimes parents have every intention of providing their children with thorough academic instruction, but because of factors like chronic illness, the demands of raising a large family, or economic instability, are unable to follow through. In some cases, older kids may have to put their education on the back burner when they are called on to help with housework, childcare, or educating their younger siblings.

In some cases, parents who are unprepared to oversee their children’s education turn to homeschooling in a mistaken belief that it is academically superior to other methods of education; they may continue to homeschooling long after it is clear something is not working, because they believe that what little their children may learn at home is still better than what their children would receive in public schools. In some cases, parents may hold mistaken ideas about public schools, or public education more generally. While some homeschooling parents do enroll children who struggle academically at home in public school, others continue homeschooling because homeschooling has become such a central part of their identity that they can’t fathom doing anything else.

Devaluing Education

“I was self-taught throughout high school, and went an entire year without doing any math because I couldn’t teach myself geometry,” homeschool graduate Amanda explains. Some Christian homeschooling leaders argue that providing religious instruction is more important than providing academic instruction. While there is nothing wrong with parents passing their religious beliefs on to their children, feedback from the first generation of homeschoolers indicates that in some families this adage may lead parents to devalue the importance of education, or to tell themselves that it doesn’t matter if their child can read or do basic math provided they are growing spiritually. Similarly, college attendance may be actively discouraged, often because college is seem as too secular. Some conservative Christian homeschool leaders endorse “biblical patriarchy” and encourage parents to raise their daughters to be homemakers rather than to have careers.

“My parents graduated me when I was 15 so I could help take care of the kids my mom kept having without having to worry about school,” writes Kieryn Darkwater. “And, it’s practice anyway, right? They stopped trying to teach me higher math when I didn’t get it right off the bat, because I was female and wasn’t going to use algebra ever anyway, since I’d be a homemaker.” Jessy writes that her parents deprived her of a diploma and transcript. “They did not give me a transcript, because I didn’t NEED to go to college. In some homeschool circles, it is common for parents to speak negatively about formal education, with the claim that children will learn as much from life as they would from textbooks. While hands-on or project-based learning can play an important part in any educational framework, these ideas can lead to an assumption that children will learn on their own, or that “book learning” is unimportant and that children should be allowed to do as they please.

Academic Performance and Skill Gaps

The existence of a gap between homeschooled students math and reading performance is perhaps the most well-evidenced finding relating to homeschooling to date. For a time, whether homeschooled children were outperforming their traditionally schooled peers in reading or actually underperforming them in math was an open question. Taken together with several other data points, our study of publicly available testing data in Alaska suggests that homeschooled students actually perform worse than other students in math. On some level, this makes sense: it is easier to teach children to read and set them loose on books than it is to teach them math, particularly given the number of American adults (including parents) who have negative perceptions or phobias of math.

Lack of Diplomas and Transcripts

In most cases, homeschooling parents are responsible for creating or maintaining their children’s academic records, which includes creating diplomas and transcripts for their children. Some homeschool parents neglect to provide their children with diplomas or transcripts upon reaching adulthood, making it difficult for their children to apply for college or pursue other opportunities. “My parents did not give me a diploma or a transcript,” writes twenty-six-year-old Justin. “I had neither a HS diploma or a transcript, though this was due to ignorance on my parent’s part and not malice,” adds John. “When entering college I had to take the GED and create my own transcript from scratch.” Hannah’s story is similar: “I printed out my own high school diploma from our home computer and had my dad sign it. If I hadn’t, I still wouldn’t have one.” “Not having a transcript meant I couldn’t go to the college I wanted to when I decided to go,” writes Jessy.

Homeschooling to Conceal Abuse

In some cases, parents homeschool in an effort to conceal abuse, often with severe consequences. Teachers and medical professionals, along with other mandatory reporters of abuse and neglect, serve an important role in our nation’s child protective system; homeschooling allows parents to bypass this system by educating their children at home. While most parents who homeschool do not do so to hide child abuse, the number of families that use homeschooling to conceal maltreatment and keep their children from contact with mandatory reporters is not incidental. (For a sampling of these cases, see our Homeschooling’s Invisible Children database.) When hiding child abuse a motivation for homeschooling, children frequently experience educational neglect.

Other Forms of Exploitation

Failing to protect homeschooled children’s educational rights has unintended consequences that extend beyond homeschool graduates struggling to attend college due to receiving a deficient math education. In some cases, parents without any interest in or ability to homeschool-parents whose children have experienced chronic truancy due to family instability or other issues-claim to homeschool in order to avoid prosecution for chronic truancy. Lax state homeschooling laws often offer little to differentiate between responsible homeschooling and fraudulent homeschooling, creating problems for attendance officers tasked with enforcing a state’s compulsory education law. Sometimes, students removed from school to avoid truancy prosecution are teens; in other cases, they are elementary school students.

In some cases, educational neglect may occur when a homeschooled child is expected to work rather than study. In some cases, like in Kieryn’s story above, homeschooled children may be treated as servants and expected to do childcare and housecleaning rather than completing homeschool lessons. In other cases, homeschooled children’s education may cease at age 12 or 14 as they are expected to work full time, often in family businesses or doing various manual labor. “By 11, he was working full time with his dad who did construction,” writes Miranda of her homeschool graduate husband. “By 14, he was in the woods logging, carrying the full weight of a grown man’s job, helping bring home income for his parents.” These children are frequently not paid for their labor, and are thus both deprived of an education and exploited. “My husband said his mom quit doing any schoolwork with him at age 10,” homeschool graduate Miranda says of her husband, also a homeschool graduate. “At that point he still couldn’t read at a 2nd grade level (he is dyslexic, something no one knew until he was an adult). At around 15, he became interested in reading, especially his Bible, and he said that at that point he knew if he wanted to learn anything, no one would help him, he would have to do it himself. So he taught himself to read with a King James Bible. He is now an avid reader but still cannot write or spell well. While not all stories of homeschool educational neglect are this extreme, more mundane deficiencies can limit the opportunities open to homeschool graduates.

The Long-Term Consequences

Claims for educational neglect can have severe and long-lasting consequences for not only the child, but also the child’s parents or guardians. Therefore, if you are facing a claim involving educational neglect, then it is strongly recommended that you hire a local child custody attorney immediately. Your lawyer can provide advice on how you can potentially remedy the situation and if there is anything you can do to retain your parental rights. In addition, it is essential that you hire a child custody attorney if you are facing criminal penalties.

Impact on the Child

Child neglect occurs when children’s basic needs are not adequately met, resulting in actual or potential harm. Child neglect is the most common form of maltreatment. Although pervasive and sometimes life threatening, it is often difficult to identify. Educational neglect: A school age child does not receive appropriate educational services, including special educational services if needed.

The impact of neglect on a child can be very serious, both the short- and the long-term. Neglect can harm a child’s development (e.g. lower self-esteem and less positive peer relationships), as well as social/behavioral problems (e.g., conduct disorder or participation in delinquent behaviors).

As one would expect, my freshman year was an academic nightmare, I was unable to do basic math, had only a loose grasp of science and social studies, had never even attempted a foreign language, did not know the difference between nouns, verbs, or really anything having to do with writing or the English Language Arts. And then there were the incredibly traumatizing ways that being homeschooled negatively impacted my ability to socialize, form friendships, engage in group learning, hindered basic communication skills-making me an easy target for ostracization if not full-blown bullying from most of my classmates. While the academic and social impacts of homeschooling are not a secret, I have realized that many do not consider the physical ramifications as well. It is scientifically proven that early exposure to germs has lasting benefits-being around other kids helps children strengthen their own immune systems and can protect from developing allergies and asthma. However, because I had essentially spent 14 years isolated from my peers, I had never gotten the chance to build up my immunity.

Societal Costs

Given the prevalence and extensive consequences of child abuse and neglect on children and families, there are also enormous societal costs involved. A 2018 report estimated the lifetime economic burden of substantiated child abuse and neglect cases and child fatalities is approximately $592 billion nationwide. spends large sums of money funding the child welfare system and allocates very few resources or time to the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect.

Factors Contributing to Educational Neglect

There is no single cause of neglect. Instead, there are usually multiple and interacting contributors at child, parent, and community levels. Examples of contributing family risk factors include a child with a disability, and a parent with low intellectual ability or limited knowledge about child development. Community risk factors for child neglect include parental unemployment and lack of community support, as well as burdens associated with poverty.

Addressing Concerns and Seeking Help

Teachers genuinely care about their students and have made it a practice to trust their gut and report their concerns when they sense something is not right with a student. Since remote learning has replaced in-person schooling in many areas of Colorado, identifying and addressing educational neglect in a student continues to be particularly challenging, according to Samantha. “A student’s extended absence from school may not be the result of neglect, but rather of a student’s family coping with a COVID-19 health crisis or other unintended consequences from the pandemic, such as making big changes in everyday routines due to financial hardships. During the early stages of the pandemic, schools had no choice but to develop and attempt to enforce policies on the fly, naturally creating confusion as educators and parents worked to adjust to the new norm.

Remember to listen to your instincts. Reporting your concerns to the Colorado Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline is about getting a family connected to the help that they need. In nearly 70% of child welfare cases, counties can provide services and kids can remain safely at home with their parents. If you’re concerned about possible child abuse and neglect, call 844-CO-4-Kids. Dial 9-1-1 if there is an immediate threat.

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