SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois lawmakers on Wednesday advanced a controversial bill that would place a number of regulations on homeschooling as a few thousand opponents occupied the State Capitol building and decried the legislation as a prime example of government overreach.

Republicans, religious groups and families who’ve preferred to teach their kids at home instead of sending them to public schools have rallied against the bill, and testimony and debate inside a packed hearing room was emotional at times as each side of the debate stated their case.

“Currently Illinois has zero, I’m going to say it again, zero regulations,” the main sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Terra Costa Howard said, speaking slowly and in a stern voice. “Zero regulations. Thirty-eight states have regulations. Illinois is an outlier. This is not something we want to be an outlier on.”

State Rep. Amy Elik, the Republican spokesperson for the committee and a staunch opponent of the bill, said many homeschool parents are concerned about having to share personal information with the state government, as would be required under the bill.

“Maybe they had a child young, and they really don’t want to share that information,” said Elik, of Godfrey. “Maybe there’s various reasons they don’t want to provide that information. But one of those important reasons could be ‘We don’t know how you’re going to use this information, so why do I have to give it up?'”

The legislation was filed in early February following an investigation by ProPublica and Capitol News Illinois last year that showed the state doesn’t do its part to make sure homeschooled students are shielded from potential harm and receive a proper education. The investigation found parents don’t have to register their children with the state or school districts, and authorities cannot force the parents to keep track of attendance, show how they teach or how much their children are learning.

The legislation would require the Illinois State Board of Education to create a homeschool declaration form, which would be submitted by whoever is in charge of the homeschooled student to the school district or principal of the public school that the child would otherwise attend. The child would be considered truant if the homeschool administrator does not submit the form, which in addition to information about the student would require an assurance that the person administering the homeschooling has earned a high school diploma or its equivalent.

Homeschool administrators could be charged criminally with a Class C misdemeanor if they are found in violation, under the measure.

“There’s a lot of information in this bill and anyone who’s actually read it also understands that this is a bill about making sure we keep kids safe, that families continue to have the ability to homeschool if that’s what they so choose to do,” said Costa Howard, a Democrat from Glen Ellyn. “We are talking about a form.”

The bill, which is expected to be amended, passed through the committee by an 8-4 vote with one Democrat, state Rep. Fred Crespo, of Hoffman Estates, voting “present.”

Will Estrada, senior counsel at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, said the bill is “premised on two mistaken assumptions and will do two harmful things,” including that homeschooled kids “are at greater risk of abuse and neglect,” which he said some research refutes. He also suggested some of the proponents’ claims that homeschooling is “unregulated” in Illinois are misleading.

He said the bill would lead to “criminalization of the failure to file a piece of paperwork.”

“This will make our most vulnerable communities at risk to prison, a criminal conviction, when we’re going in a direction of trying to reduce the people in the criminal justice system,” Estrada said.

Aziza Butler, a homeschool parent from Chicago’s South Side who used to work in the city’s public school system, argued the bill is based on “the underlying assumption” that education cannot work “without legislators and district bureaucrats and school administrators.”

“This is not just a homeschool issue. This is an issue with our broader education system,” Butler said. “Too often we do not trust parents to take the lead in their children’s education, especially when those parents are Black and brown, and especially when those parents are poor. This bill targets homeschool parents and treats us as criminals, guilty until proven innocent.”

The bill would require private schools to share the same information as homeschoolers with the state. Bob Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, raised concerns in an interview earlier this month that sharing that information could be risky, considering that Chicago Public Schools recently announced information on more than 700,000 current and former CPS students was exposed in a February data breach.

In his testimony before the committee on Wednesday, Gilligan reiterated his data breach concerns, especially in light of the federal government’s crackdown on immigration.

“There are legitimate concerns about a small number of people gaining access to sensitive data,” Gilligan said. “With the number of undocumented children in our schools right now, it would be a tragedy for personally identifiable information to wind up with certain government agencies.”

“Truancy and safety of children are challenges for all, those in the homeschool, nonpublic school and public school settings alike,” he said. “However, this bill is an intrusion into people’s personal identity, making nonpublic schools and homeschoolers complicit in sharing that information with the government.”

State Rep. Margaret Croke, a Chicago Democrat who sits on the committee, downplayed privacy concerns, and also expressed disappointment over opposition from Catholic schools — noting that she sends her child to one.

The bill’s requirement for information “is something that is so bare minimum in order to be able to say that we know a kid exists,” Croke said. “So I just would keep that in mind as we talk about, like, what someone is having to give up and what we’re potentially being able to receive as a society because of this bill.”

Parents, their children and others who attended the rally wore stickers and brought in signs, one of which read, “Lincoln was home educated.”

Charity Cunningham, of Woodridge, said she pulled her sons out of public schools because she wasn’t happy with the quality of education they were receiving, and that after a couple of years of homeschooling they’re “blowing their peers out of the water.”

“My sons were the subject of educational neglect. They were falling behind. They were not being challenged appropriately,” she said. “We pulled them out, and it’s been the best decision we’ve ever made.”

She said she’s against the homeschooling bill because “it’s a complete infringement of our freedoms and our rights as parents and as educators in this state.”

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