Over the past two decades, the number of homeschoolers in Mississippi – and in America – has more than doubled as this education choice has moved from the fringes of society to a practice that is legal in every state. 

But even with that growth, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, homeschoolers represent just three percent of the student population. However, that was before the coronavirus pandemic shut down more than 100,000 schools for over 55 million children last spring. 

Even if it was government led with government curriculum, every family in Mississippi had a taste of homeschooling. Some sarcastically quipped that would end homeschooling. But then polling started to tell us otherwise. Almost overnight, homeschooling favorability rose. Twenty, thirty, even forty percent said they wouldn’t be sending their kids back to school in the fall.

While the strongest advocates of homeschooling know that we probably won’t see numbers like that, we are all expecting a large departure from both public schools, and potentially from private schools as well. Why? There’s an interesting mix of parents who feel that sending their children into a large school setting isn’t safe, while another large group doesn’t like the restrictions that will be coming, limiting interaction with friends, while requiring face masks in many (or perhaps all) school settings. 

Fortunately, it is easy to get started homeschooling in Mississippi. For a state that has generally shown little interest in education freedom, the freedom to homeschool is broadly supported and protected by law. The one thing a parent must do is file an annual certificate of enrollment with your local school district’s school attendance officer. All you need on the form is your child’s name, address, phone number, and a simple description of the program such as, “age appropriate curriculum.”  

When you do that, your child and you are now exempt from the state’s punitive compulsory education laws. There are no requirements on curriculum or testing or who can teach. Parents, instead, have the freedom to choose the educational system, style, and setting that works best for them and their children. 

The Department of Education “recommends” parents review state curriculum guidelines and maintain a portfolio of their child’s work, thought that is not required. As opposed to following a government curriculum that tells your child what he or she must learn at what age, homeschooling allows you to let your child learn at their own pace. 

That means a child who is excelling can move forward at a quicker pace, cover additional topics, or take in material at a deeper level. If a child is struggling, you can slow down, switch your teaching style, or bring in new materials. If your child has a unique interest, the world is literally at their fingertips with scores of free, online training materials. Yes, YouTube is filled with funny cat videos. But it also provides a library of instruction on virtually any topic you can think of.      

Thanks to today’s technology, a quick Google search can help you get more comfortable with homeschooling. There is an abundance of homeschool Facebook groups with veterans who are willing to share their ideas on getting started, curriculum, extracurricular activities, maintaining your sanity, and much more. Connection to these groups is also a venue to plan an endless variety of outings and field trips. It won’t take long to realize your child will receive as much “socialization” as you would like.  

There are also options such as co-ops, where families gather together and share teaching responsibilities among parents. Similarly, we have seen the emergence of microschools this year in which a small group of parents pool their resources together to hire a teacher. 

If you’re on the fence about homeschooling, worried about what homeschool might look like in your family, or just not sure you can do it, at least take a closer look. Fill out the necessary forms, do your research, and talk with other homeschool families. 

You might find what many homeschool families did long ago: Giving children time and freedom to pursue their individual interests while utilizing a curriculum consistent with the values of your family, rather than following forced government mandates created by faceless bureaucrats, tends to produce very positive results.

This column appeared in the Daily Corinthian on August 2, 2020.

Now would be a great time for the Occupational Licensing Review Commission to take a deep dive into Mississippi’s regulatory burden and cut what is unnecessary, duplicative, outdated, or that stifles economic growth.

Enacted four years ago, the OLRC is made up of the governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. In their original form, they were tasked with reviewing all new regulations from boards and commissions that are run by active market participants. Meaning, a Board that is comprised of individuals who work in that field. For example, the Board of Medical Licensure is made up of medical doctors, the definition of market participants and any new regulations or changes they propose have to go through OLRC. 

The premise is basic: A board should not be able to design regulations to stifle competition and benefit individual members in that field.

The Board of Health, on the other hand, has various members and the department has their hand in numerous industries. Therefore, they are not subject to OLRC, which is unfortunate because they make up about 15 percent of all regulations in the state.   

So, the OLRC is limited in what they can do, but their power has now been expanded. Instead of just reviewing new regulations, they can now go back and review – and potentially remove – current regulations. That came through House Bill 1104, a bill MCPP championed this year as part of our push to decrease burdensome regulations in the state.

Secretary of State Michael Watson, one of the members of the OLRC, recently unveiled his office’s new ‘Tackle the Tape’ initiative, a first step in addressing these problems. 

“I’ve heard too many stories and witnessed numerous Mississippi businesses suffer from the unfortunate consequences of overregulation,” said Watson. “If we truly want to create more opportunities and breed renown entrepreneurs, we have to get government out of the way. As promised when I ran for office, cutting the regulatory burden on Mississippi businesses was, is, and will continue to be a priority for our team. Our voluminous regulation costs us 13,000 jobs per year, which is the equivalent of a new Ingalls Shipbuilding or Nissan locating here on an annual basis. We must do better!”

Watson’s office has reached out to the various licensing boards under OLRC’s jurisdiction in an attempt to partner with the boards in reducing the state’s regulatory burden. We can hope that will have an interest in this process. 

In 2018, as part of a national review of state regulations, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University found Mississippi has nearly 118,000 regulatory restrictions on the books. All told, the state code book includes 9.3 million words, and it would take about 13 weeks to read if all one did was read regulations as a full time job. 

Overall, Mississippi’s regulatory load is about average for a typical state, but when compared to some of its neighbors, a clearer picture emerges. A new Mercatus Center analysis summarizes data from eight southern states stretching from Kentucky down to Florida and over to Louisiana. Of these states, Florida has the most regulatory restrictions at 171,000. However, if one adjusts for the fact that a bigger population tends to generate more regulation, Florida is, by that measure, actually the least regulated. Of the group, Mississippi has the most regulations per capita (and the lowest GDP per capita). 

More populous states tend to have more industries, denser urban areas, and other factors that generally contribute to a higher number of regulations. This explains why California, Ohio, New York, and Texas are all among the five-most regulated states in America, despite having very different political environments. 

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed deep shortcomings in the regulatory system. To ensure an adequate amount of health care coverage, governors around the country have been relaxing—not increasing—regulations. This includes easing restrictions on telemedicine, recognizing medical licenses from other states, and in some states, rolling back requirements that health care facilities obtain permission from regulators before adding new equipment like hospital beds.

But much more is needed. 

As the pandemic continues to ravage the country, and the nation’s regulatory system is simply not up to the task. There is an opportunity to rectify the situation if our leaders will heed the call.

Even as the economy shrinks at a record level, some are calling for a new government shutdown of businesses to combat the increase in coronavirus cases.

Do you think that's a good idea?

“We made the decision to homeschool when our school district decided online learning would only be for students who have a medical need to stay home. And we didn’t want our daughter to wear a mask all day long. 

“We've thought about homeschooling before because we move a lot for the military and it seems easier to just pack up and go. 

“We decided to homeschool with Abeka so we do have the monthly cost of that. But that is definitely a choice! We know there are cheaper options. 

“I hope to be able to say we did our best no matter what. I hope my daughter excels in all of her subjects and hopefully can return to school after the pandemic."

Taylor Crawford
Gulfport, Mississippi 

When it comes to education, the private sector and individual families generally do a much better job of innovating than the government. That will remain true during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a world when many government schools are moving to online learning only or implementing rigid policies concerning face masks, social distancing, and extracurricular activities, we have seen an interest in something else. For many that has been homeschooling, but that might not be for everyone.

Enter microschooling, or more simply, pods. This isn’t exactly new. Just much more relevant today than years past. 

While this may take many shapes and sizes, the premise is that a small group of families pool their resources to hire a teacher for their children. With this, children are able to get a “school setting,” have a teacher hired by the parents, and parents are able to work outside of the house. And by being in a smaller setting, the thinking is you are less likely contract COVID. 

All the while, you have the ability to customize your child’s education in choosing a learning style that you feel best meets their needs and interests. Much like private school, you opt-in after reviewing the various options available and what the specific schooling entails. 

How do people find out about local pods and get help in starting one? There are structured microschooling organizations, but if you’d like something more informal, Facebook groups are a great starting point to find the right fit. The Pandemic Pods group now has 30,000 members asking questions and sharing ideas. 

Pods can also be a great option for current teachers who either don’t want to go back to school under current conditions or are looking for something different. In this setting, teachers would have a significant amount of autonomy to teach children without the current reliance on test scores and restraints of the state and federal government mandates. 

In many ways, pods are similar to co-ops, which have long served homeschool families, but come with some differences. Co-ops largely rely on parents to take turns with instruction and are generally only one or two days per week, with parents filing in the rest of their child’s education. The pod allows an outside source to handle all (or most) of the education during the day similar to a traditional school. 

The best part about what we are experiencing with education today is that we are finally seeing a move toward individualism to meet a child’s needs at a large scale. So much of education is just a closed decision. You send your kids to a school when they are five. Thirteen years later they graduate with a certificate saying they learned…something. It requires as little effort as you’d like to make. Usually the hardest decision is finding a place to live within government created lines that dictate school zones or districts. 

Today, we’re making hard decisions about our child’s education. A lot of this is about safety and socialization, but it’s about what’s best for them, and what will lead to the best outcomes. That is good. Because the one thing we’ve always said is there is no one-size-fits-all approach that is going to work the same for every child. 

For you, that might be a pod. 

“The decision to homeschool our children was made for multiple reasons. 

“Having homeschooled our oldest for a few years before moving to Pearl, we knew what it was like to truly homeschool, and that the crisis schooling that happened in the spring semester of 2020 was not an accurate representation of homeschooling. Knowing another shut down in the fall was possible, my husband and I decided that if I was going to potentially be teaching our children at home, they were going to learn what we wanted them to learn and be on our own timetable. 

“We had a lot of good discussions with our oldest child when he noticed some things in his end of the year Covid project that were more like propaganda and repeating a narrative than what we’ve been teaching our children. As a former public school teacher, I already had issues with some policies and procedures already in place in some schools pre-Covid, like taking away recess and special programs, especially around test prep time, fully silent lunches each day, and putting so much emphasis into testing. Knowing that return to school policies were going to be varied and possibly include compulsive hand sanitizing, social distancing, mask mandates, etc., we knew that would not be the best learning environments for our children. 

“We want them to love, or at least enjoy learning, not dread getting up and going to school each day. We have already started on our curriculum this summer because they wanted to, and they are enjoying it and the ability to have so much free time once they’re finished.

“I have had to put my own career as a doula and student midwife aside in order to homeschool because the hours and being on call are not conducive to me personally caring for my family of six and homeschooling four children.

“But I love teaching and this is a way I can still teach as well as invest time in my children’s lives. For my children, I want them to enjoy learning, be well educated, be critical thinkers, learn responsibility, independence, and how to make wise choices, and learn life skills instead of how to regurgitate information.”

Heather Roberts
Pearl, Mississippi

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“The schools plan to return to school safely isn’t much of a plan and we can’t risk our kids getting sick and getting my immune compromised husband sick.

“We will be homeschooling this fall. We never considered it in the past. 

“We’re a dual working household. I’m self-employed and I’m having to put my business and my career on the back burner for now. We’ve also had to use our savings to go get all of the kid’s laptops to do their work. 

“But we’re doing this because I don’t want my kids to fall behind academically.”

Jessica Lopez
Biloxi, Mississippi

A new order from Gov. Tate Reeves will only allow bars to sell alcohol to seated customers, and only until 11 p.m.

In making the announcement today, Reeves said “our bars should look more like restaurants and less like mobs for COVID-19 spread.” The thinking is that if customers are not congregated at the bar, they will be less likely to spread COVID-19.

Your ability to order alcohol has been at the center of a spattering of new government orders recently. 

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is requiring customers to purchase food if they want to purchase alcohol. He then clarified that a bag of chips or nuts does not meet the food requirement. Specifically, you have to buy sandwiches, soups, or the vague “other food.”

Previously, one bar in New York was serving $1 “Cuomo Chips” with every drink order.  

The state of Pennsylvania has a similar order in place requiring you to purchase food with your drink order. They also had to clarify that snacks are not food, only meals. And after you’ve finished eating, you cannot buy more alcohol. 

In Colorado, last call is at 10 p.m. In Chicago, bars will no longer be able to serve customers indoors. In Indianapolis, all bars have been re-closed. Same story in Louisiana, unless that bar also serves food. 

The story continues.

One hundred years after prohibition spread across America, businesses that serve alcohol are again in the fight for their lives.