(Photo HartBeat Homeschoolers & Sheila Matthews of Ablechild – Breaking the Narrative, the Real Faces of Homeschoolers)
Connecticut Summer Committee Targets Homeschoolers that Outperform Public Schools in Mental Health & Academics as DCF Dodges Accountability
Republished with permission from AbleChild.
After a decisive win for Connecticut’s homeschooling families—who successfully pushed back against new regulations this legislative session—state lawmakers are now gearing up for a summer committee to explore fresh oversight, despite mounting evidence that homeschoolers excel where public schools often struggle.
Connecticut spends more than $13,000 in taxpayer dollars per public school student each year, funding everything from facilities to curriculum, while families who choose to homeschool receive nothing from the state and shoulder all educational costs themselves. Yet, homeschoolers consistently outperform their public school peers on standardized tests, report higher levels of life satisfaction, and are statistically less likely to suffer abuse or neglect.
Multiple studies show that homeschooled students not only achieve higher academic results but also enjoy significantly better mental health outcomes. Long-term homeschoolers report the highest levels of optimism and gratitude, and the lowest levels of anxiety and helplessness when compared to their public school counterparts. National data further reveals that homeschooled children are about 40% less likely to die from child abuse or neglect than the average student—a stark contrast to the narrative fueling calls for tighter regulation.
Despite these facts, the state’s Office of the Child Advocate has cited rare but tragic abuse cases—where parents allegedly withdrew children under the guise of homeschooling to avoid scrutiny—as justification for new rules.
However, the Child Advocate has not produced a single case where parents actually used homeschooling as a cover to evade oversight. In fact, AbleChild cofounder, Sheila Matthews, points out that all available evidence indicates these tragedies resulted from failures within the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to follow up on children already under their care—not from any loophole in homeschooling laws.
“This is nothing new,” Matthews says, pointing to the infamous case of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, who missed his entire eighth-grade year with no explanation or intervention from the school or DCF. In fact, disgraced psychiatrist Dr. Paul Fox—who later lost his license and was convicted of raping a patient—deemed Lanza too mentally unfit for school, yet the state failed to regulate this psychiatrist from prescribing powerful psychiatric drug cocktails to other children, one of whom is now reportedly brain damaged. To date the majority of academic and mental health records of Adam Lanza are stilling being withheld by the state of Connecticut.
Thousands of parents and children have rallied at the Capitol in recent weeks, arguing that the overwhelming majority of homeschoolers provide loving, high-quality education and that more rules would penalize successful families for failures elsewhere in the system. As the debate intensifies, the question remains: Why target a community that, with no state funding, is already outperforming the status quo?
Connecticut’s summer talks promise to keep the spotlight on a growing divide—between families seeking educational freedom and a state determined to regulate what it does not fund. The outcome could shape the future of homeschooling in Connecticut for years to come.
AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization and has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.
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