Emily Fort - Homeschool Freedom Coalition

05/06/2026

The era of 'Lobby Day' advocacy is over. We could say it died in CT, but it has been coming for at least a decade.

03/24/2026

Let's stop having 'The Talk' with our kids.

First it was 'Talk to your kids about drugs." Then it was, "Tell your kids about s3x, because the other kids are going to anyway."

Now it's....talk to your kids about the student in their class who thinks they're a different gender....and the student who thinks they're a dog and wears a collar to prove it.🐾

🍃And tell your kids to stay away from the kids pushing drugs to help numb the anxiety.

📸Tell them that when a teacher texts them and asks for pictures....they shouldn't send them.

📱 Tell them the school gave them a device, but to NOT use it to look at the things the other kids are looking up and sharing.

📚Tell them some of the books in the school library are so explicit you’d blush reading them out loud -- but they’re “approved” so they'll just have to put up with it.

👩‍🏫 Tell them that the teacher will tell them that man is just glorified ooze with no ultimate source of truth or meaning....but don't bother arguing with her because she might give you a bad grade.

🇺🇸 Tell them to always stand up for themselves....unless the teacher hates America and will bully them if they speak up for the Founding Fathers.

🫃 Speaking of fathers....they're going to tell you that men can have babies. They're wrong....so just ignore that lesson.

🤝 Don’t forget the conversation where you tell them they’re not a victim because of their skin color, and not an oppressor either....even though the teacher works that into every darn lesson.

🎥 Tell them that it’s never okay to hurt another student, so stay out of the hallway fights…even though everyone’s filming them and posting them online.

⚠️ Tell them that some kids are cutting themselves, talking about it, comparing it -- like it’s normal -- and to come talk to you if they hear that.

💊 Tell them that there are kids bringing vapes, pills, and worse into the bathrooms -- and to stay far away from it.

🎭Tell them that adults at school might try to have deep, personal conversations with them about their identity or their feelings -- and they need to tell you if that happens.

Given this is what now passes as normal in our schools...I have the most radical idea of all: Let's be done with the institution that makes all these conversations necessary.

Let's stop participating in a system where these INSANE, totally unhinged conversations are necessary. Let's take our kids home and homeschool them.

Let’s have THAT conversation. Then we can skip most of the rest of those -- and delay the others by at least half a decade.

02/11/2026

I want to say this gently, because I know the kind of courage it takes to stand at that microphone.

When you watch a mom or dad get up at a school board meeting --- often intimidated by being on 'their turf' and definitely out of their element -- to speak up about something they think is not right that is happening in their kids' school, you might notice that those videos often get millions of videos. People cut them and overlay them with text that says, "Watch this parent DESTROY the school board!" or "Parent has MIC DROP moment on woke school board member!"

We all cheer as we watch the parent drop 'truth bombs' on the Educrats but I want to point out that in almost every single one of those videos, you see the officials sitting there, stone-faced or even smirking openly at the parent.

That tells you a LOT about the reality of the situation.

It tells you who actually holds the power.

Those parents are brave, motivated by love for their kids, and sincere. They’ve done their homework. They hope that if *they* just have the courage to call out the School Board, the board members will be ashamed of themselves and one of them will say, “You’re right. We need to change course.”

But the Educrats are smirking because they know that their insulated educational system isn’t built to respond to two minutes of public comment.

By the time that School Board meeting happens, there are literally **thousands** of pages of policies and procedures in place. Contracts have been signed. Curriculums have been developed, adopted and printed. Administrators have aligned with state standards and legal counsel. Their Teachers Unions and the NEA have insulated them from real correction and ensured a friendly outcome from the legislature.

The machine is already chugging along -- and they don't care one bit about a viral video.

That doesn’t mean those parents are wrong to try to bring things to light. It just means they’re trying to work inside a system that was *designed* to be nearly impenetrable from the outside, much less be *corrected* by individual families.

The hard truth is that the people sitting up there know that when the meeting ends, their system keeps running. Tomorrow morning the buses still roll. The funding still flows. Their show goes on, so long as the enrollment numbers stay steady.

And enrollment is the real pressure point. Frankly, it's the ONLY real pressure point that most families have or will ever have!

As long as they have your kids, they have you in a chokehold.

I’m not saying don’t speak up. I’m just saying to think about where your real leverage is! When a family withdraws their children, they’re dealing a critical blow to the system. That’s where the power is!

Not in demanding reform with no ability to compel change.
Not in hoping a better school board member gets elected.
Not in ten more expose videos from Libs of TikTok -- much as we like those!

Mom to mom: if you’re exhausted from fighting the same battles with the school year after year, maybe your time could be better spent. Maybe the time and energy you've had to spend fighting the school system -- for your child to be treated fairly, to be moved to a class away from their bully or the kid who beats them up, to be given their IEP or the help they were promised -- maybe that energy is better spent learning how wonderful homeschooling can be!

Sometimes the strongest move is simply walking away and building something better at home. That's the real mic drop.

02/06/2026

Many thousands of homeschoolers are emailing their legislators using our software that helps them connect directly with legislators -- telling them to VOTE NO on bad bills that hurt homeschooling.

But in response, many are reporting to us that they're getting some variety of this message in response -- and I'm looking at YOU, Tennessee Republicans!

"Hello,
Thank you for contacting me. Due to the amount of spam and out of district emails I receive, I'd like to ask that if you are a constituent and need assistance or would like to give your opinion on a piece of legislation, please reply to this email with your name, home address, and a good phone number so that I can best assist you. I appreciate your patience and understanding. I will reply back to you as soon as I can.

Thank you,
XZY Legislator.

Don't fall for that nonsense. Reply to them with something like this,

Dear Legislator ABCXYZ,
I live and am registered to vote in this zip code (55555) which is in your district. I'm not interested in sharing my sensitive personal contact information with you, or being added to your list for marketing and communication purposes at election time. Please answer the question: Do you intend to VOTE NO on the bill I've messaged you about, or not?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.
--Sincerely,
Your Constituent,

Data mining your constituents isn't cool, and given the power these people wield, it's likely to intimidate many from following up with them, at all.

They're used the the game being played by their rules....but that ship has sailed, because the Homeschool Freedom Coalition is pulling back the curtain on their game. 🫶

--Emily Fort
JOIN US.

01/28/2026

If I could live long enough to see one thing, it would be this: the government school system finally being put on the defensive in society.

I’ve already been blessed to witness the explosive growth of homeschooling. I’ve watched it move from fringe to familiar, from whispered explanations to quiet acceptance among friends and family. That alone has been a gift. But if God allows me to see one more shift, I would be deeply grateful to see society begin asking hard questions of the government school model itself.

For decades, homeschool families felt like we had to explain ourselves. Justify ourselves. Apologize for choosing to pour our love, time, and energy into our own children.

Now, as our news feeds are full of videos and stories documenting unspeakable horrors coming out of government schools across the country, it feels like something is changing. The tide may finally be turning.

I’m encouraged to see homeschool moms say, plainly and without flinching, “This is good. I’m proud of this choice.” And then calmly point out the obvious problems in a system that never seems to stop coming after us -- or reflect honestly on how badly it’s failing children.

John Taylor Gatto put it plainly:
“The idea that children should be educated in institutions outside the control of their parents is one of the most bizarre, outrageous, and ridiculous ideas ever proposed by a civilized society.”

He was right. Many parents have figured this out over the last few years: whoever controls education controls how our kids think—and often, the kind of adults they become.

What’s becoming harder to ignore is how unhinged some of the people are who hold that power. The higher up the ladder you look, the more deeply disturbing many of these decision-makers seem. Their ideas are often bizarre, ideological, and rooted in very very sick ideas.

(Imagine that we live in a world where Ghislane Maxwell's father oversaw the curriculum that millions of kids learned from. A deeply sick and corrupt man, he directly influenced what millions of kids think about the world.)

No, homeschool moms aren’t the extreme ones. The truly radical experiment was handing children over to the government for fifteen thousand hours and hoping for the best.

That experiment has failed. Our kids are less educated, more unhappy, and less capable than generations before them. Too many can’t read well, write clearly, or think independently. The factory-style system the government zealots built....spends more time reshaping beliefs than equipping children for adulthood.

And yet the same people shaping education policy -- who proudly celebrate abortion, mock Christianity, cheered the murder of Charlie Kirk, tell our kids they can change their gender -- still insist they should be the ones shaping our kids.

Maybe in my lifetime, society will finally say the quiet part out loud: this experiment failed. When God was removed from the center of education, the vacuum was filled by unhinged bureaucrats trying to remake society through our children.

We're going to save our children. And by doing so, Lord willing, we're going to save our country.

01/23/2026

❓Why The New Push For Regulations On Homeschooling?❓

There's more to this than the obvious, so stick with me.

The obvious thing is that homeschooling has grown to be 3 million kids -- 6% of America's k-12 age students -- and it's on a trajectory to be 8% or 10% of students in the not-too-distant future.

💸Those kids represent BILLIONS of dollars in lost funding for government schools.

And that's a good thing. The school system has utterly failed at doing it's job as a whole, and has been in an academic free-fall for decades. Taking away their funding is a good thing.

But that's only part of the story. Because of course there ARE areas where people are costing the government money in lost revenue but the government doesn't come after *them* with new regulations.

Think of churches and non-profits, as well as any number of other entities that get tax breaks or are exempted from taxes. They all represent money the government **could** be taxing -- especially because in their world, everything belongs to them! But despite billions of dollars in lost $$$ every year, they very very rarely try to legislate those entities with more regulations.

Why? They're afraid of the political consequences.

That's it. That's all there is.

🚨The government doesn’t regulate *only* based on lost revenue. They regulate based on who can **safely be targeted.**

The reality is -- and this is the very heart of the matter -- is that the government would leave Homeschooling alone no matter how big it got if homeschooling represented a threat at election time.

📍If ticking off homeschooling meant an immediate loss to politicians in their next election?
📍If it meant no 'door knockers' to walk neighborhoods?
📍If it meant no support from the homeschooling families at the candidate's church?
📍If it meant no more donations from homeschoolers.?
📍If it meant no social posts boosting the 'more conservative' candidates by involved homeschool moms?

In short....if they were afraid of us, they would not dare to cross us.

Why aren't they afraid?

1️⃣ Because they know that as a whole, we rely on older tactics that worked in an earlier day but don't work now and thus we're no political threat to them. If I were going to sum up those tactics in a single sentence, I would say that "Being friendly isn't part of being effective in politics."

2️⃣Because of a poor understanding of how the political game is really played. Having coffee with your House Rep doesn't mean anything at all unless you have a large list of people, a chest full of money to punish them with, the courage to tell them what the consequences will be if he or she votes the wrong way -and the will to follow through.

3️⃣ Because we have not wielded a stick to beat them with, politically. We have not had a dedicated organization to put concentrated political pressure on legislators who vote on the wrong side of homeschooling.

Very specifically, we have not had an organization that will get involved in elections and primaries to punish bad votes from politicians. We have not had an organization that was willing to see RINOs tossed out of office -- because too often, they had often spent years and years 'building a relationship' with them due to problem #4 below.

4️⃣ Because we believed the 'relationship' model worked. We thought it we brought baked goods to the capitol on Homeschool Day, and if we sent hand-written cards to their office for their third-stringer staffer to read, if we took our cute kids in for a picture in his office, and if we made sure he saw how eagerly we helped him get elected/reelected, that he wouldn't want to vote badly on a bill we told him we cared about.

This is a deeply flawed, but very common -- nearly ubiquitous -- problem in the minds of homeschoolers and even conservatives generally.

What to do? Where to go?

The Homeschool Freedom Coalition exists to solve this problem -- and we're working hard every day to help homeschoolers get ahead of this fight.

We don't do printables and run Moms retreats (God bless the folks that do!). We don't hold conferences, or publish much in the way of 'how to homeschool' papers.

Some have asked us why, and our answer is simple: We know that for every life circumstance that somebody might have coming into homeschooling, there is already blog and youtube channel for them. (Five kids and your husband is an OTR trucker? There's a channel for that. Four kids, all special needs, and your husband makes $50K? There's a mom-blog for you. Ten kids, live on four acres in the country, and your husband works from home? There's an influencer for you.)

We exist to do the one thing we're very very good at: legislative politics. We exist to make homeschoolers a feared political class.

We exist to tell homeschoolers about bills, tell you what the bills do, and then help you communicate directly to your legislator *quickly* and powerfully. We exist to *remind* homeschoolers in specific districts what those politicians did at election time. We exist to put political pressure on legislators, 24-7, until they realize the old political tactics are gone and they're not getting off easy ever again.

Our messaging isn't the stuff from the 90s and 2000s.

We don't want to 'be left alone' anymore.

We want them to be too afraid of us to dare try to legislate us.

Those are NOT the same thing.

As homeschooling grows, the target on our backs gets bigger and bigger. Will we round this political bend in time? Will the Homeschool Freedom Coalition be able to change the current trajectory?

Only God knows, but the team here at HFC is working faithfully, daily, to defend and advance our homeschool rights.

We're using new tactics, we're not here to make friends with legislators in *hopes* they will stand up for us, and we're playing for keeps.

We need every homeschooler on board for these fights, and we'd be honored to have you join us in this new era of advancing homeschooling.

Emily Fort
Homeschool Freedom Coalition

Join us: https://action.homeschoolfreedomcoalition.org/joinhfctoday

01/17/2026

Homeschoolers: What part of the legislative process is the least understood by 'average' parents, do you think?

Is it the actual process? Is it the question of why we can't seem to actually move the needle? Or how all the insider games work? Is it, "Why is it so expensive to be effective?"

I'm interested to hear your thoughts, because as a homeschool graduate, the system itself made sense -- but the inside baseball was fascinating and unknown.

Meanwhile, I hear every day from people who want to impact the legislative process but don't know how the system works other than contacting their reps.

What do you think is the thing most people don't have a good handle on?

01/08/2026

I feel this way every time I see my son doing his school work at the kitchen table.

We're going to win.

01/07/2026

It’s that time of year again. The Christmas holidays are over, and kids are going back to school.

It's sad, because for many kids, this means they're going back to their abuser. Back to the bully. Back to the teacher who flirts with them and texts them asking them to meet up. Back to the kids trying to get them hooked on drugs. Back to the kid who stole from them. Back to the kid telling them that if they don't keep sending inappropriate pictures, they'll air drop that one picture to the whole class.

See, every time legislation comes up that would regulate homeschooling, we all have to hear that 'School is some kids' only safe place!"

The assumption is that if you don't want the government to be raising the next generation, you're fine with some kids being abused at home.

Of course, nobody in homeschooling is condoning or defending abuse. But what almost never gets said out loud is the **other** side of that story.

The reality is that HOME is the safest place for the vast super majority of children. HOME is where they’re safe from these very real things that ALL really happened just last year in America's schools:

👉🏻Relentless bullying and physical assault by other students.
👉🏻Physical and s*xual harassment by school employees.
👉🏻Exposure to po*******hy far too young.
👉🏻Drugs of all kinds passed around like it’s no big deal.
👉🏻Active shooter incidents on school campuses
👉🏻Lockdowns due to credible shooting threats
👉🏻Students stabbed with knives or sharp objects
👉🏻Being assaulted in bathrooms
👉🏻Students assaulted in locker rooms
👉🏻Being assaulted in hallways between classes
👉🏻Getting beaten so badly in a school fight they're hospitalized
👉🏻Sexual assault by other students
👉🏻Sexual assault by school employees
👉🏻Physical abuse by school staff who are 'following procedures' (improper restraints, excessive force)
👉🏻Drug use and overdose on school property
👉🏻Gang-related violence in the school
👉🏻Underage/binge drinking being normalized by students
👉🏻Students injured due to lack of supervision (remember the 5th graders who tattooed themselves IN THE CLASSROOM in Texas?)
👉🏻Students bullied and assaulted on the school buses
👉🏻Being injured during bus fights
👉🏻Students hurt during “roughhousing” that was ignored by staff
👉🏻Being threatened with weapons by peers
👉🏻Students physically harassed based on race, s*x, or disability
👉🏻Getting assaulted after repeated bullying escalated
👉🏻Being stabbed to death unprovoked at a sporting event.

This isn't rare. At least some of the things on this list are happening *every SINGLE day in EVERY SINGLE school* in the country.

There are no exceptions.

It's pervasive, it's constant, and they can't stop it.

For millions of kids, school isn’t the refuge. It’s the thing they need refuge from the most.

That's why we are done playing defense on homeschooling. We don’t accept their claim that the danger is greater at home and school is a neutral, safe place.

We should say, plainly and with ZERO guilt: We defend homeschooling because HOME is the safest place for the vast majority of children and government school is a violent, dangerous, traumatic place for hundreds of thousands of kids every single day.

We homeschoolers know kids who finally slept through the night once they left school.
Who weren't acting out every Sunday night, begging not to go back.
Kids whose anxiety disappeared.
Kids who stopped being bullied, s*xualized, or exposed to things they never should have seen.
Kids who stopped cvtting. Stopped acting out.
Kids who finally felt safe enough to *tell somebody* about the one time something happened.
Kids who were only safe.....once their parents protected them by taking them home.

So when people say, “But school saves some kids,” we can remind them that no system gets a free pass to harm millions of kids just because it claims to help a few.

Parents are not the enemy, and families are not the problem.
Taking our kids home is not something we need to apologize for or explain.

THEY need to look in the mirror and accept responsibility for the tragedies that their system perpetrates daily on millions of young children.

So take a minute to post on your own social telling other Mamas that it's the right thing to do to keep their kids safe from the abuse they're enduring at school.

Because our kids are safest at HOME.

--Emily Fort
Homeschool Freedom Coalition

12/31/2025

I'm already seeing bills pre-filed (before session starts) that would regulate homeschooling. It's only going to get worse.

Send a message to learn more

12/18/2025

"HoW dO yOu FeEl AbOuT sChOoLs TeAcHiNg ArAbIc NuMbErS??"

You should ask what I think about government schools, period.