Activists who demand strict oversight for homeschooling rarely apply the same standards to public schools, entrepreneur and defense contractor Palmer Luckey argued this week.
Luckey pushed back against growing calls for tighter regulation of homeschooling, responding to critics who say parents should face more evaluations and state monitoring.
‘Ask them what the consequences should be for homeschooling parents who fail to educate children.’
Home invasion
His comments came after writer Jill Filipovic argued that homeschooling families should accept more scrutiny if they believe homeschooling delivers better educational outcomes.
“If homeschooling is actually super high quality, then homeschooling families should not object to being evaluated, tested, and checked-in-on to make sure their kids are actually learning,” Filipovic wrote in a post viewed more than one million times.
Luckey responded that homeschool students often succeed precisely because they are not forced into what he described as the “slow-progress-across-all-subjects method public schools impose on every student, no matter how they learn.”
He added that standardized oversight would likely undermine the flexibility that makes homeschooling effective in the first place
“The evaluation/testing you are talking about would almost certainly prohibit that sort of tailored education,” Luckey wrote, “especially since they would be designed and administered by a system that wants to eliminate homeschooling in almost all cases.”
Several studies appear to support at least part of Luckey’s argument.
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Study haul
A 2022 study analyzing results from the Classic Learning Test — a college entrance exam launched in 2015 — found homeschool students outperformed peers from other school systems by margins ranging from three to 12.1 points, including in verbal and writing categories.
A 2025 study by Cardus found that 45% of short-term homeschoolers earned at least a bachelor’s degree, roughly comparable to the 46% rate among non-homeschooled students. The same study also found homeschoolers were more likely to be married, have children, volunteer in their communities, and report higher levels of optimism.
Meanwhile, a 2026 overview of peer-reviewed research found that 62% of studies conducted over a 30-year period concluded homeschool students outperformed their traditionally schooled peers.
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Rubber rooms
Luckey also rejected the argument that public schools better prepare children for real-world socialization.
“We are putting the vast majority of our children into madhouses that no longer have anything to do with how society works or what they will experience in said society,” he wrote.
Despite the growing body of research and the rapid rise in homeschooling, major media outlets continue to advocate for tighter oversight. The Washington Post reported in 2024 that between 1.9 million and 2.7 million American children were being homeschooled — roughly a 50% increase over six years.
In England, homeschooling numbers rose from fewer than 81,000 students in 2022 to roughly 92,000 in 2023. The Guardian attributed much of the increase to COVID-era lockdowns while simultaneously calling for greater regulation and oversight, arguing public schools provide stronger safeguards for children.
Luckey, however, said critics often apply a double standard — demanding accountability from parents while excusing systemic failures in public education.
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