AUSTIN — There won’t be any home-schooled competitors at the state track and field this week in Austin, but proposed legislation would open the event, and others, to home schoolers in future years.

Bills in the House and Senate would allow home-schooled students to participate in athletic and other competitions sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League, provided that the pupils pass a nationally normed, standardized assessment test such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.

But a testing requirement has been the deal breaker in previous efforts to gain approval for home-school participation in UIL events, as it is again this year at the center of the contest, with a divided home-school community comprising the most-vigorous factions.

The Texas Home School Coalition backs bills that include a testing requirement, while the newly formed Texans for Homeschool Freedom opposes the proposals, arguing that a test could open the door to state oversight and control of the present hands-off system.

“People in the home-school community do not want any regulation or oversight whatsoever,” said Andy Prior, a spokesman for Texans for Homeschool Freedom. “It’s splitting the home-school community. The testing requirement has been the catalyst in the split.”

The so-called Tim Tebow bills are named for the former home-schooled Florida football player who was allowed to join a public-school team under Florida law and went on to win a Heisman Trophy at the University of Florida.

Thirty four states now allow home-schooled students to participate in public-school activities, according to advocates with the Texas Home School Coalition.

“We’re very much hoping to be the 35th,” said Stephen Howsley, Texas Home School Coalition’s public policy analyst.

Howsley said an estimated 150,000 families home school their children, and they’re Texas tax payers.

Belton resident John Ash estimated that Texas home-school parents pay $150 million in school taxes.

“It’s a matter of equal access,” said Ash, who’s the athletic director of a nonprofit, volunteer-coached home-school athletics association, the CenTex Chargers. “It’s taxation without representation.

“The main issue should be, how do we get the best possible education for our kids. Why not? We’re paying for it anyway.” 

Richard Gibson of Nederland, about 90 miles east of Houston, feels that it’s a matter of convenience as well as equity.

Gibson and his wife have home schooled their six children, but when his son wanted to play violin with an orchestra as a teenager, one of the parents had to drive the boy to Houston to participate in a youth ensemble that allows home schoolers to participate.

Texans in rural areas may not have that kind of option.

If the UIL, which takes no position on pending legislation, allowed home schoolers to participate in the activities it oversees — an array that includes not only athletics, but debate, mathematics and marching band, among others — such situations would not be a problem, Gibson said. 

But if playing comes with paying a price — and taking a test — the Texans for Homeschool Freedom would prefer to run their own game. 

Prior said, “Texas is big enough for two home-school groups,” and that the older organization no longer represents his members, who are determined to fight the Tebow bill.  

“We would for the first time allow testing and regulation of home schools,” Prior said. “Then we are down a slippery slope.”

Meanwhile, the big game — the 85th legislative session — is winding down. 

A Senate version of the Tebow passed in that chamber, but it’s now up to a House committee to move the ball by a May 20 deadline, or else.

Howsley gave it a sporting chance. 

“I would say it’s tied at the top of the ninth,” Howsley said. 

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com.