There’s about a month left before election day, but both the House and the Senate will only be in session for a couple more days. Then they’ll both take the month of October off to go home and campaign.

Does that mean that DC lobbyists—like those working to preserve homeschool freedom—also get to take a month off?

No.

While Congress may get all of the media and activist attention during its session, it isn’t the only government body in Washington with the power to regulate education and the potential to affect homeschooling.

Legislators write the laws, but it’s the federal agencies that implement them. And in certain ways, these agencies are more powerful than Congress: the rules and regulations they pass to implement the laws don’t get the same media attention as Congressional legislation. So if an agency creates a harmful rule, it’s more likely to escape the public’s notice than a harmful congressional bill is. And once put in place, these rules are far more difficult to repeal than bills are.

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which enumerates which powers belong to the federal government, does not mention education. This implies that all power related to education is reserved for the people and the states. So the federal agencies in DC cannot force one type of education on the whole country, nor can they directly regulate or ban homeschooling.

But they can implement policies that affect, and sometimes discriminate against, homeschoolers.

For example: the US Department of Labor determines what hours students can work. The current rule is that 14- and 15-year-olds cannot work during “school hours,” which are determined by the hours the local public school is in session. For many homeschoolers who don’t follow the same schedule as the public school, this unjustly prevents them from gaining work experience or participating in internships during their flexible daytime hours. 

Then there’s the Social Security Administration (SSA), a seemingly never-ending source of frustration for homeschooling families. HSLDA is constantly intervening in cases caused by the confusion between federal SSA rules and how each state’s local administrators interpret them, which prevents families from receiving the benefits they are eligible for.

But sometimes the agencies are helpful. For example, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, run by the Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid department, used to discriminate against anyone with a homeschool diploma. HSLDA got involved, and now the office explicitly states that students who have complied with their state’s homeschool laws are eligible.

Despite the power of the federal bureaucracies, at the end of the day, each agency’s direction is set by the administration in charge and the legislators who write the laws. In fact, through HSLDA Action’s work to elect homeschool-friendly legislators and our direct intervention in agency policies, the federal bureaucracies have become much more open to adjusting their rules in favor of the homeschooling community than they once were. It’s progress that isn’t glamorous or headline grabbing, but it’s progress nonetheless.

That’s why, despite how frustrating the agencies can be, we never stop working with agencies while Congress is out of town or advocating on your behalf in front of policy administrators. There is always work to be done in the fight for education freedom.