How these pages are researched and checked

The method

Each of the 51 jurisdictions was researched once from statute, regulation and state education agency material, then re-checked by a second independent pass that had not seen the first research. Where the two disagreed, the statute decided. Every correction that second pass made is recorded in the dataset, and anything it could not settle appears on the state's own page under “What we could not confirm” rather than being quietly dropped.

There are 504 sources across the 51 records, each tagged as statute text, a state agency page, or a secondary source such as a homeschool legal organization. Statute and agency sources are listed first on every page because they are the ones that govern. An official state form is linked where a real one exists online, which is 23 of 51 states.

Confidence, and where it is lower

35 records are marked high confidence and 16 medium. Medium means at least one material fact could not be confirmed against a primary source — usually because a state posts no current statute text, or its agency guidance contradicts the code. Those pages say so at the top.

Medium confidence: Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming.

Why some things are listed as unresolved

A few genuine conflicts are live. Ohio's code site and its legislature's site disagree over whether a diploma amendment was enacted. New Mexico's agency form shows an instruction-hours figure with no clear basis in statute. Kentucky's compulsory age reads 6–18 in secondary sources while the 2026 state packet still quotes 6–16. Naming these is more useful than picking one and sounding certain.

When this is checked again

Most legislatures pass education bills in spring and the laws take effect on 1 July, so every state is re-verified each July and the date on each page is the date that record was last confirmed. The build itself fails if any record passes fifteen months without re-verification, so a stale page cannot ship quietly.

What this is not

This is a curriculum site, not a law firm, and these pages are a plain-language summary of public law with the sources attached so you can read them yourself. They are not legal advice, and they do not replace your state education agency or a lawyer where something is genuinely contested. Where a page is uncertain it says so; where it is confident it still links the statute.