The Education Standards Act was a federal statute that required parents who homeschooled their children to have their students tested by an grade-appropriate, government determined exam at the end of each school year. If said student received a grade of F (0-59 percent) on their test, their families would be required by law to send their children to a public or private school. The statue will require homeschooling teachers to conform to the state curriculum. This causes major debate among people that homeschool their children to isolate their children from certain public school curriculum, especially on controversial subjects such as evolution, comprehensive sex education, abortion rights, LGBT rights, climate change, etc. With the statue in place, now homeschool teachers have to conform to the educational standards that might contain topics that they are isolating the students from.
President Diego Braun proposed the bill in 2038. The bill was co-authored by U.S Senators Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Chris Murphy (D-CT). Education Secretary John Kasich was also consulted by the President when writing his proposal.
The bill would prove to be very polarizing, with one man citing the legislation as being one of the primary reasons for his attempted assassination of President Braun in 2040.
Homeschooling would later be outlawed in America in 2065. Many psychologists and sociologists had supported the idea of the homeschooling ban because "sending children to public school with other students is critical for the child's social development that won't be attained as much when children are homeschooled." The outlaw especially caused opposition from parents of children with disabilities. They believe that homeschooling children will be essential as it prevents the child from being bullied because of the disability. The psychologists argue with the parents saying that "homeschooling is not beneficial because of the lack of access to services that having children physically attend school has to offer and would cause delays in recovery."
In the year 2071, the Supreme Court had overturned the ban on homeschooling as statue is unconstitutional especially with the First Amendment. The supreme court ruled after a very close vote that homeschooling children is a constitutional right as it exercises first amendment rights such as "freedom of speech" as well as "freedom of religion". The Supreme Court also ruled that educational standards of the state should reflect our First Amendment rights and will enable educators to have the choice to avoid teaching controversial subjects such as evolution and promote intelligent design instead of being required to teach a certain viewpoint to conform to state standards. This made an amendment of the Educational Standards Act to exercise constitutional rights when teaching along with conforming to the state standards of non controversial subjects.
Background[]
Diego Braun was a long-time critic of homeschooling. In 2033, Braun passed a similar bill in Washington State as Governor restricting the practice.
During the 2039 Libertarian presidential debate hosted by Snapchat, Braun was asked a question involving the issue of parents who homeschooled their children. During his answer, the Governor declared that the practice, "serv[ed] only to isolate children from their peers, while giving them a substandard education". Braun's statement would spark a heated exchange between himself and Colorado Governor Howard Napier, a noted supporter of homeschooling.
In 2038, the Education Standards Act was proposed by Braun, and was immediately met with controversy. Senator Jonathon Lamb (T-IN) called the bill "disgraceful". Many in the President's own party attacked Braun and the legislation, with Libertarian Republic, a radical Libertarian news organization running headline titled, President Braun: The Face of LINOs (LINO meaning Libertarian In Name Only).