By Shannon McGinley
While home educating my ten-year-old son recently, we began memorizing excerpts from Patrick Henry’s famous 1775 speech, “Give me liberty, or give me death.”
One passage struck me with particular clarity:
“Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated…”
Henry was addressing fellow patriots who disagreed with him. Many believed the colonies should continue appealing to the Crown and trusting that their rights would be protected.
Henry saw the situation differently. At some point, he argued, a people must recognize a simple truth: rights are not secured by asking permission from those who claim authority over them.
For many home educating families, that conviction is not abstract philosophy—it is the very reason we choose to educate our children at home in the first place.
That thought has been on my mind as New Hampshire debates HB 1268, legislation that would significantly strengthen the legal protections for families who educate their children at home using RSA 193-A.
The bill would establish some of the strongest protections for home educating in the country. It clarifies that home educating families cannot be subjected to investigations based on frivolous complaints, strengthens safeguards against accusations related to compulsory attendance or educational neglect, and removes unnecessary bureaucratic barriers in the home educating process.
In short, HB 1268 affirms what many parents already know: the responsibility for directing a child’s education belongs first to families, not the state.
The bill recently passed the House by a narrow margin and now heads to the Senate. Yet some of the loudest opposition—though coming from only a handful of voices—has come not from opponents of home educating, but from within the home education community itself.
In the Senate, the bill will go through the standard process: a committee hearing, followed by a committee vote, and then consideration by the full Senate. If it passes without additional amendments, it will then go to the governor.
In fact, during the House debate, Rep. Muriel Hall (D), speaking against the bill, acknowledged this dynamic directly when she said:
“If I know that many in NH’s home education community do not want the additional freedoms in this bill…”
When those who oppose educational freedom can point to home educators themselves as the reason to stop a bill, something has gone very wrong in the conversation.
The concern being raised is that removing the current notification requirement will increase the likelihood of investigations into families for truancy or neglect.
But this argument rests on a misunderstanding.
A piece of paper declaring that you are home educating does not protect you from investigation. It never has. If a report of abuse or neglect is made, the state can investigate any family—public school, private school, or home educator alike. That authority already exists, and nothing about HB 1268 changes it.
Some have argued that the notification requirement serves as a kind of shield. But in practice, it is not what protects families. In many cases, it is a family’s records—their portfolio or work samples—that provide the clearest evidence of legitimate home education. And because notification requires families to submit identifying information to government agencies, it can place them into systems designed to track compulsory attendance—systems that are not always applied with precision or care.
For decades, home educators have fought to prove that parents—not the government—are best equipped to direct their children’s education. It would be a strange moment in that history if we now began arguing that our freedom depends on filing paperwork with the state.
What the notification requirement actually does is something much simpler: it requires parents to ask the government for permission to do what they already have the right to do.
Some have also argued that without a formal notification, families could be treated as truant because they have not “declared” themselves as home educators under RSA 193-A. But this misunderstands how the law operates. Home education is already recognized as a lawful educational pathway. HB 1268 simply clarifies that families should be presumed to be acting within that pathway unless there is evidence otherwise—not forced to prove it in advance through a government filing requirement.
And that is the principle at stake in this debate.
Across New Hampshire, home educating families have demonstrated extraordinary dedication to their children’s education. Parents have faithfully educated their children at home—often sacrificing financially, investing enormous time and energy, and building strong communities along the way.
I know these families well, not only through my work as Executive Director of Cornerstone but also as a mother of five sons, including a ten-year-old whom my husband and I currently home educate.
These parents are not asking the state to educate their children—they are taking responsibility for that sacred duty themselves.
HB 1268 simply recognizes that reality. It removes an unnecessary barrier and affirms what should already be obvious: the right to direct a child’s education belongs first to parents, not the state.
And yet, in recent weeks, a handful of very loud voices have attempted to dominate the conversation, insisting that we should cling to the very permission slip that treats home education as something the government allows rather than a freedom parents possess.
Patrick Henry faced a similar moment. Many good people urged caution. They feared change. They hoped continued appeals to authority would protect them.
Henry respected those men—but he refused to remain silent.
The question before us today is not war and peace. But it is still a question of liberty.
Do we believe that parents possess the right to educate their children?
Or do we believe that right exists only so long as the government grants it?
Programs like Education Freedom Accounts under RSA 194-F—distinct from RSA 193-A Home Education—have opened new doors for families in New Hampshire, and many have benefited from them.
But anyone who has spent even a few years watching the legislature knows that such programs will always face political threats. If those doors close one day, families must have a safe place to land.
A strong, freedom-respecting home education law provides exactly that.
This is not a moment for neutrality. Silence has allowed fear to fill the vacuum and given disproportionate influence to the loudest and most alarmist voices.
The home education movement was built by parents who believed deeply in their responsibility—and their freedom—to educate their children.
We should not shrink from that principle now.
We have debated this bill. We have weighed concerns and examined its language carefully. Those discussions are important. But at some point the question before us becomes simple: do we believe that parents possess the right to direct the education of their children, or do we believe that right exists only so long as the state permits it?
The freedom to direct our children’s education does not come from the state. It comes from God, from the natural rights of parents, and from the responsibility families bear for the next generation.
And it should never depend on a permission slip from the state.