As Wisconsin homeschoolers, all WHPA members should be familiar with Wisconsin’s compulsory attendance law, Wis Stat 118.15, which requires any adult in charge of a child to ensure that child attends school regularly. It’s a straightforward idea: all children must attend school. However, there is sometimes confusion around that straightforward idea. Is there more to it? Once the child is attending school, then what? This can lead to questions about whether or not children should or must be learning, and if so, whether or not there are rules about what they must be learning. The relatively straightforward idea of compulsory attendance then gets mixed up with the idea of compulsory education, or even so-called educational neglect.
It’s important to understand the limits of the compulsory attendance law, and end the confusion about the difference between compulsory attendance and compulsory education. It’s important to know that Wisconsin has a compulsory attendance law, but does not have a compulsory education law, nor an educational neglect law.
Following is an excerpt from the WPA handbook Homeschooling in Wisconsin: At Home With Learning, 4th edition. The authors address the straightforward nature of compulsory attendance laws, and point out the problematic nature of legislating compulsory education.
Compulsory Attendance Law Requires Attendance, Not Education
Wisconsin’s compulsory attendance law requires attendance; it does not require education. This is an extremely important distinction for at least two reasons. First, the only laws that can be enforced are those that require behavior that can be described, observed, and evaluated. It is not very difficult to enforce compulsory school attendance laws. It is pretty clear whether or not children who are enrolled in conventional schools are attending them. Classroom teachers take attendance, and children who are absent without acceptable excuses are reported to the truant officer. Similarly, attendance can be checked for children who are enrolled in private schools, including homeschools. (Homes schooled children who are participating in their family’s educational plan and program are obviously attending that homeschool, whether the instruction at any given time is being presented at home or at a museum, nature center, library, or any one of a large number of other places where children can and do learn.) Therefore, if a society feels it must pass and enforce laws about schools, laws that require compulsory attendance are not difficult to enforce.
By contrast, laws that require compulsory education would be very difficult if not impossible to enforce. First, the state would have to develop a clear set of definitions and criteria for what it means to be educated, what people need to know and be able to do in order to be considered educated. This first step would be very difficult because neither professional educators nor lay people can agree on what it means to be educated. Developing such a criteria would require agreement about what people should think and do, and about what attitudes and beliefs they should have. Opinions about such topics vary widely.
Second, the state would have to find or devise a series of tests that would accurately determine which people have acquired the required facts and skills and which people have not. This, too, would be difficult because tests do not show what people actually know. Tests only tell how well a given person did on a given test on a given day. Some people are good at taking tests, even about subjects they know very little about. Many more people do not do well on tests, even about subjects they know a great deal about. Therefore, finding ways in which people could demonstrate that they have in fact met the requirements that were agreed upon in step one above would also be very difficult. Again, laws requiring compulsory education would not work well. If schools [sic.] laws are necessary, laws requiring compulsory attendance are much better.
The third reason that the distinction between compulsory attendance and compulsory education is so important is that compulsory education would cost us our freedom. If the state were to require compulsory education, we would lose our freedom of education and learning and even our freedom of thought. A society cannot require compulsory education and remain a free society. To even begin to set definitions and requirements for compulsory education would quickly violate our rights and freedoms. Under compulsory education people would be required to learn, and think, and believe certain ideas, the ideas that had been chosen as proof that a person is educated. In addition, people would not be allowed to learn other ideas that conflicted with the required ones. Without freedom of education and freedom of thought, we could not continue to have a free society in any meaningful sense of the word.
As will be discussed below, courts have ruled that schools cannot be held accountable if children attending them fail to become educated. These rulings support the prohibition of compulsory education. Education simply cannot be legislated, and it cannot be legally required. This fact has important ramifications, beginning with strong limitations on the state’s ability to dictate curriculum or content of educational programs.
(Homeschooling in Wisconsin, At Home With Learning, 4th ed. Wisconsin Parents Association. 1996. p 158-159.)
It is empowering to homeschoolers to understand that Wisconsin law only requires homeschoolers to comply with the compulsory attendance requirements of our law, and that there is no compulsory education requirement for any child or any school in Wisconsin. This means homeschoolers can be confident that as long as their children are attending their homeschool program, their family is in compliance with the compulsory attendance law. This is powerful knowledge to have as you exercise your right to educate your children.
(This article originally appeared in WHPA’s Fall 2020 Newsletter Issue #136. ©1984-2023 Wisconsin Homeschooling Parents Association. No part of this article may be reproduced, excerpted, or distributed without written consent from the copyright holder.)