Iowa Must Release Grip on Microschools and Let Parents Innovate
Parents can coach soccer, lead Girl Scout troops, and direct youth theatre in Iowa. But if they talk about reading, writing, or arithmetic in a homeschool environment with more than four unrelated children, they can go to jail.
Accepting payment is also illegal. Penalties for unauthorized teaching can include imprisonment not exceeding 10 days or a $100 fine. This is for a first offense. If parents continue dispensing knowledge without government permission, prosecutors can charge them with a “serious misdemeanor.”
Imagine the conversations in jail when cellmates guilty of assault, domestic abuse, or third-degree theft ask: “What are you in for?”
The law, added to the Iowa Code in 2013, had a particularly chilling effect on education innovation during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when parents sought alternatives to online public school instruction that fell short of expectations. Many families started organizing collaborative homeschool groups, sometimes referred to as “homeschool co-ops,” “learning pods,” or “microschools.”
These groups allow maximum flexibility. Some parents pool their resources and hire outside instructors. Other groups rotate teaching duties among themselves or designate a host parent. Families can also adopt a hybrid model, collaborating with neighbors only once or twice a week as a supplement to in-home instruction.
When the pandemic ended, many parents realized they liked the arrangements and kept them going. Today about 1.5 million U.S. students—roughly 3 percent of school-age children—participate in collaborative groups. This estimate is likely low, considering the informal nature of microschools.
Iowa parents worried about prosecution can hardly speak freely. Teachers unions like it this way. They see the grassroots movement as a threat to their $8.6 billion public school monopoly and do everything they can to stifle competition.
The Iowa State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, uses its influence to stoke fear about neighbors coming together on their own. Melissa Peterson, a union lobbyist, says unrelated homeschool students can be “exploited or taken advantage of.”
Margaret Buckton, a lobbyist with Rural School Advocates of Iowa, a state affiliate of the National Rural Education Association, says parents cannot be trusted to organize microschools of unrelated children because they lack state certification.
“When you have one adult in charge of multiple children unrelated, you no longer have that natural relationship between parent and child,” she says.
The message is that outside their own homes, children are only safe under union control. Never mind the recent arrests of public school employees in Anamosa, Carroll County, Cherokee, Columbus Junction, DeWitt, Council Bluffs, Humboldt, and Iowa City, Iowa. Parents must trust the experts.
This elitism frustrates Iowa homeschool mom Mandy Shivers. “I just want to assure you as a parent that no one cares about my children’s safety, education, and well-being more than I do,” she told state lawmakers in a subcommittee meeting on Jan. 27, 2025.
Shivers came to support House File 88, a bill that would remove the four-student limit and prohibition on parent salaries. A companion measure, Senate File 204, would do the same thing.
Teachers unions are rallying to protect their turf, but the time has come to shift power back to parents where it belongs. Starting a microschool is already difficult with zoning and other municipal restrictions. Iowa does not need to pile on.
One reason is the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and assembly. Another reason is the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, which guarantees the right to earn an honest living. The Supreme Court also recognizes parents’ right to direct the upbringing of their children.
Two landmark cases, Pierce v. Society of Sisters from 1925 and Meyer v. Nebraska from 1923, established this principle a century ago. Our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, stands ready to defend it with free legal services.
Getting out of parents’ way and letting them innovate makes sense regardless, particularly at a time of declining student achievement. Florida, Georgia, and Utah already lead the way with microschooling laws that treat parents as allies instead of enemies.
Iowa could be next. Teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic in your own house should not be a crime just because you invite a few neighbors to join you.
