Recently, a South Carolina Option 3 homeschool association leader (SC TOP) hosted a presentation from the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE) under her other group The SC Homeschooling Connection.
To most people, that probably sounds like a niche event in the homeschool world. But if you care about parental rights, school choice, or limited government, you should care about who CRHE is, what they want, and how perfectly their agenda fits with South Carolina’s new “school choice” structure.
Put simply: our new ESA law created the Trojan horse, and groups like CRHE are exactly the kind of advocates who know how to climb inside it.
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by former homeschoolers who believe the United States does not regulate homeschooling enough.
This is not a casual Facebook group. CRHE has a board of directors (president, clerk, treasurer, and multiple voting members), paid staff, including an Executive Director and a Director of Programs, and additional staff and advisors handling research, policy, and communications.
CRHE’s messaging is framed in terms of “protecting homeschooled children,” but its policy proposals consistently go in one direction: mandatory registration of all homeschoolers, regular evaluations or standardized testing reported to the state, expanded state “regulatory capacity” to monitor home education, especially in “high-risk” situations, and mandatary vaccinations or proof of exemption.
You don’t have to agree or disagree with them on every point to see the bottom line: CRHE’s endgame is significantly more state oversight of homeschool families than South Carolina currently requires.
To understand why CRHE’s appearance here matters, you have to understand what our legislature has already done with “school choice.”
South Carolina now has two completely different legal tracks for educating a child at home. Most of us are familiar with traditional Homeschooling (Title 59, Chapter 65 – Options 1, 2, 3), where you don’t take ESA money, and your accountability flows through the homeschool statute, not a funding program. Now we also have the New “Educated at Home” Track Under ESTF (Chapter 8). In 2023, lawmakers created the Education Scholarship Trust Fund (ESTF) under Title 59, Chapter 8 — our version of an Education Savings Account (ESA). With this option, if you use ESTF money to educate your child at home, your child is not an Option 1, 2, or 3 homeschooler, and you sign an agreement directly with the state, and that agreement is what satisfies compulsory attendance. The law explicitly bans ESTF students from being enrolled in homeschool Options 1-3 at the same time.
In plain English, we now have a state-controlled home education track (ESTF) running parallel to independent homeschooling (Options 1-3). And the ESTF track is already more regulated. Families must submit testing or documentation to the Department of Education, the law spells out required subjects, and every dollar of ESA money is governed by spending rules, audits, and annual re-application. From day one, ESTF created a more tightly controlled, data-driven version of “home education” inside state government.
That is the Trojan horse: it looks like “school choice,” but it builds a new, more regulated category of home-based education that can be tightened over time.
Now let’s put those two realities together. CRHE’s mission is more registration, more evaluation, and more regulatory muscle over home education. ESTF’s design is a separate, more regulated home-education track with testing and state oversight already baked in.
You don’t need a wild imagination to see the path forward. CRHE can walk into South Carolina and say, “Look at your ESTF program. You already require some home-educated kids to be registered, tested, and tracked. Isn’t it only fair — and safer — if all home-educated children are subject to at least basic registration and evaluation?”
Once that logic is accepted, our current homeschool law (Chapter 65) can be painted as unequal (with one group tested and the other not), and unsafe (with one group monitored, and another “invisible” to the system). From there, it’s a short step to bills that add mandatory testing for all homeschoolers, require statewide registration through the Department of Education, and expand SCDE’s “capacity” to oversee families who never took a dime of ESA money
And when an Option 3 association chooses to host CRHE, it unintentionally helps to legitimize CRHE as a voice “inside” the homeschool community, signaling to lawmakers that “even homeschool leaders” are working with them, while confusing newer parents, who may assume CRHE speaks for homeschoolers rather than advocating to regulate them.
That may not be the host’s intent — but it is the political effect. The Trojan horse is already inside the walls. CRHE’s job is to unpack it.
CRHE doesn’t operate only at the state level. One of its top leaders, Dr. Jonah Stewart (Director of Programs), is listed as an expert contributor to UNESCO’s 2025 report, “Homeschooling through a Human Rights Lens.”
That report, examines homeschooling around the world through international human-rights standards, acknowledges that homeschooling can be a legitimate choice, and then calls on governments to “implement oversight mechanisms such as registration and evaluations, while ensuring regulatory capacity and providing parental support.” In other words, it wraps CRHE-style policies — registration, regular evaluations, expanded oversight — in the language of “human rights” and “international best practice.”
Is this report legally binding in the United States? No, but politically, it’s powerful. It gives domestic advocates and lawmakers a shiny citation: “Even UNESCO says we should register and evaluate homeschoolers,” and “International standards say we need more regulatory capacity over home education.” CRHE’s research and framing help feed that global narrative. When we give CRHE microphones and platforms in South Carolina, we are effectively validating a policy agenda already being promoted at the international level.
One more piece of CRHE’s agenda deserves attention: vaccination requirements.
CRHE has publicly argued that homeschooling should not be used as a way to avoid school health requirements. They’ve criticized states where homeschooling functions as a “loophole” for vaccine-hesitant parents and praised states that treat homeschoolers more like school-enrolled children when it comes to immunizations.
In their own policy recommendations, CRHE goes a step further. They explicitly recommend that homeschool families be required to comply with their state’s immunization standards and file proof of immunizations or exemptions along with their notice of intent or umbrella enrollment. In other words, they want homeschoolers brought under the same vaccination framework as institutional schools, with documentation attached to the paperwork you file to homeschool.
Their recent model bill, the “Make Homeschool Safe Act,” folds proof of immunization into a broader package of regulations — including mandatory assessments and other state controls — offered as the price of “safety.”
Whatever your personal view on vaccines, it’s clear where CRHE stands: they are pushing for homeschoolers to be brought under state vaccine compliance systems as part of a larger strategy of regulation and oversight.
CRHE presents itself as a child-advocacy nonprofit. It also has a very real funding base. Public information shows that CRHE’s budget comes from individual donors (small and mid-sized gifts via its website and online platforms), and grants from private foundations and intermediary nonprofits.
Named funders include the World Childhood Foundation USA – roughly for a project on “at-risk homeschooled children,” Ben & Jerry’s Foundation – about over two years, Sidney Stern Memorial Trust – general support, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors – around routed as re-grants, and American Online Giving Foundation – re-granted online donations.
Some of these foundations are themselves active in global child-protection and policy networks — the same circles where UNESCO and other international bodies operate. That doesn’t automatically make CRHE “bad”, but it does mean they are professional advocates, not just a loose network of concerned parents, they are plugged into national and international conversations about “closing regulatory gaps” in homeschooling, and the more credibility they gain in states like South Carolina, the stronger their case becomes with funders and policymakers for pushing more oversight — including registration, testing, and vaccine documentation.
If you’re a homeschooler or a school-choice supporter, you should at least know that this is the landscape.
There’s another thread running through modern education policy: data and digital control.
Worldwide, governments and big tech companies are working on things like, digital student IDs, blockchain-based diplomas and transcripts, and “Learning passports” or education wallets that store a child’s verified credentials for life.
In the best-case scenario, these systems make records portable and hard to fake. In the worst-case scenario, they become the enforcement arm of education policy: “If it’s not in the official learning wallet, it doesn’t count.” “To receive ESA funds, you must record X, Y, and Z credentials by these dates.” “We only recognize diplomas backed by our centralized digital system.”
Programs like ESTF are prime candidates for this kind of infrastructure. Once it exists for ESA kids, it’s very easy for a future legislature to say, “We already track and verify education this way for some children; we should extend at least basic requirements to everyone educated at home.” Pair that with CRHE’s push for registration, evaluation, and vaccine documentation, and the Trojan horse doesn’t just sit there — it walks.
This isn’t a call for panic. It’s a call for clarity.
If you’re a homeschooler, school-choice supporter, or just someone who prefers limited government, here are some straightforward steps:
1. Keep the tracks separate.
Make sure legislators understand that Chapter 65 (homeschooling) and Chapter 8 (ESTF) must not be blurred. ESA rules should not become the template for all home education. Families who never accept state money must not be treated as if they’re in a state program.
2. Know who you’re platforming.
Before hosting any outside group, ask these questions. Do they advocate more regulation of homeschooling or less? Do they want more power in the hands of parents — or more power in the hands of agencies? Are they feeding international narratives that say homeschooling must be registered, evaluated, and brought under school-style health mandates?
3. Educate your associations.
Option 3 groups have been a crucial buffer between families and the state. They should understand clearly how CRHE’s agenda interacts with ESTF, and how CRHE’s participation in UNESCO’s report and support for vaccine documentation requirements fit into a broader push for “responsible” (read: regulated) home education. Good intentions are not enough. We need informed leadership.
4. Engage lawmakers now, not later.
Calmly explain to your representatives that families who educate their children privately, without ESA funds, should not be pulled into Chapter 8-style oversight, and homeschool law (Chapter 65) must remain separate and protected.
5. Watch the data language.
Keep an eye out for bills and proposals mentioning “Learning passports,” “education wallets,” or blockchain-based credentials, and centralized digital systems tied to compulsory education or diploma recognition, expanding “regulatory capacity” over home education That’s where the Trojan horse gets wheels.
6. Question your group leaders.
Members of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, many Republican groups, and some Moms For Liberty chapters pushed for this legislation. At some point, you have to ask them and yourself the hard questions. Are you actually walking hand in hand with controlled opposition? Are you unknowingly controlled opposition in a global agenda? Maybe they didn’t know the outcome, and we should give them grace, but what are they going to do about it now?
7. Educate your friends and other homeschoolers.
Information is key. Not everyone has the time for this extensive research. Tell your friends, share this article, do the research, and have small group meetings.
CRHE’s recent appearance in South Carolina, hosted by an Option 3 association leader, is not just another meeting on the homeschool calendar. It’s a sign that outside agendas are moving onto our turf — and they’re doing it at the exact moment our law has created a convenient vehicle in the form of ESTF.
You can care deeply about child safety and academic quality without turning home education into a state-administered program, complete with registration requirements, test mandates, and vaccine paperwork tied to your right to teach your own children.
That line is worth drawing now — clearly, calmly, and firmly — before someone else draws it for us.
Jennifer Brecheisen is a Christian, Homeschool mother, wife, and artist. She is an active advocate for liberty as a John Birch Society chapter leader, and as the Vice Chair of the Chester County Libertarian Party.
