Commentary Early in 2020, Elizabeth Bartholet, a professor at the Harvard Law School, became notorious for advocating a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling. The 3 to 4 percent of U.S. parents who chose to educate their children at home would have to prove to educational authorities that “their case is justified,” and if they could not do so, have their children sent to public schools. An article about Bartholet in Harvard’s alumni magazine, reiterating a position she had taken in a lengthy law-review article published shortly before, provoked a furor among parents and young people, some of them Harvard graduates, who had enjoyed successful homeschooling experiences. Then came the coronavirus lockdown. With public schools shuttering their brick-and-mortar classrooms and teachers’ unions promising to keep them shuttered throughout the 2020–21 school year and beyond, the percentage of homeschooling households suddenly surged—to 5.4 percent in late April 2020 and to 11.1 percent by …